Brook Park, OH Indoor Activities

Happy shouts float across Swings-N-Things Family Fun Park, whipping out of the mouths of drivers racing around go-kart tracks and captains ricocheting off one another in bumper boats. The satisfying clunk of colorful spheres falling into holes on the mini-golf course perks up ears in the sprawling complex of indoor and outdoor attractions. Go-kart drivers whiten their knuckles behind the wheel of 9-horsepower Honda engines, tearing through a quarter mile of twists and turns on the Grand Prix track as if it were a high-school principal’s lawn. Alternatively, patrons frolic across the park’s two outdoor mini-golf courses before practicing their aim in a laser shootout game, and children ages 10 and younger scramble their socked feet over slides and rides inside the Kids Korner indoor play area. Swings-N-Things Family Fun Park is easily accessible from the area's major highways.

From a bird's-eye view, the emerald expanse of All American Sports Center is unmistakably devoted to the sports of golf and baseball. No less than 20 heated tees and 40 seasonal grass tees line the driving range, allowing players to keep shooting for the horizon even after the sun sets and the towering lampposts light up the field. For short games, the center also features a 10,000-square-foot putting green as well as a chipping green complete with hazards such as sand bunkers and kiddie pools full of jury summons. The 18-hole miniature golf course encourages visitors to unwind as they putt past decorative waterfalls and rivers. At the dugout, guests can switch gears to baseball or softball, taking up bats to turn away the wrath of variable-speed pitching machines.

Buckeye Lanes’ glossy lanes provide a place to foster camaraderie and healthy competition. Easily heftable bowling balls and bumpers accommodate children during normal business hours and birthday parties catered with hot dogs or pizza slices, which can be held in a person’s not-bowling hand. During Rockin' Bowl two nights a week, the alley morphs into a pulsing nightclub from midnight to 2 a.m. with orbs hurtling amid dimmed lighting and cranked up beats. In the snack bar and lounge, pool sticks thwack cue balls on eight billiards tables and patrons devour sandwiches or demolish karaoke tunes.

In the words of co-owner Joel Spevock, "We really try to promote an inviting family atmosphere here." To that end, he and co-owner Jim Spevock host birthday parties and raise bumpers along all 28 of the alley’s lanes. But that’s not to say that they don’t appeal to more mature audiences as well. Spevock’s Nautical Lanes also offers bowling-league opportunities, a fully stocked bar, and Rock N Bowl, an event which combines unlimited bowling with a sound-and-light show. From 9:30 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, Rock N Bowl seizes control of the alley like a dictator picked last for the school bowling team as a child, flooding lanes with colorful lights and pulsing music.

When a performance studio stages The Sound of Music as its first production only months after opening, you know it means business. For the staff of Olmsted Performing Arts, their dedication to developing students' acting skills and hunger for creative expression continues to generate inspiring performances, whether their protégés pay homage to a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or dazzle audiences with song-and-dance numbers from Footloose, a rousing tale about the adventures of a barefoot podiatrist.

While theater plays a large part in the curriculum, it isn't the only focus within Olmsted Performing Arts. The center’s dance academy fine-tunes steps in a variety of styles, its music-education program teaches voice and piano lessons, and its new gymnastics program encourages children to express themselves through movement rather than conceiving abstract poems in their alphabet soup.

Yorktown Lanes boasts 40 lanes, each of which is equipped with automatic scoring systems. Just beyond the lanes' edge, a lineup of colorful vinyl chairs adds a touch of vintage class. And inside the newly renovated bar onsite, bartenders liberally pour spirits, draft brews, and other fine beverages. The alley also hosts birthday bowling parties in one of two private rooms, including a banquet hall that can host wedding receptions or graduate seminars on the difference between duckpins and regular bowling pins.