Things to Do in Grand Prairie

Just a 10-minute trip from downtown Dallas, Bahama Beach Waterpark draw visitors to its cooling oasis filled with soaking attractions. Lazing riders lounge in inner tubes as they bob on the serene current of the Calypso Cooler Lazy River, and children race through the nearby Coconut Cove, a rainforest-style playground with rope ladders, slides, and a 1,000-gallon dumping bucket. Two intertwined slides, the Riptide Slide and Bahama Bullet, descend from a 45-foot-high platform, and the nearby Bermuda Triangle's trio of open and closed slides deposits riders into a high-speed splashdown.

Bahama Bob's Island Eatery crafts a full menu of sandwiches, burgers, and snacks for diners, and the Island Traders store dispenses necessities such as sunscreen, locker rentals, and emergency rubber duckies. The park also offers party-sized seating, including group pavilions and private cabanas.

Since its opening in 1988, Ellen's Amusement Center has provided visitors with a full range of family fun, including mini golf, go-karts, and paintball. The 18-hole putt-putt course is littered with such whimsical obstructions as a diminutive oil rig, a mini rollercoaster, and the obligatory windmill. Racers negotiate hairpin curves on the tire-lined go-kart track. A crossfire of chromatic projectiles enlivens four paintball fields, where players dive behind bunkers on the speedball courses or camouflage themselves as commando squirrels on the woods field. The facility also boasts batting cages equipped for hardball and softball as well as a redemption arcade filled with two stories' worth of video games.

Snapped Together's hand-built photo booths, armed with professional-grade cameras, lighting, and printers, spit out crisp, vivid photo strips within seconds while oozing retro charm. Its open-air booths made with mahogany and brushed aluminum channel the photo booths of yesteryear but without all the nasty chemicals and posing for days to get one picture. Staffers transport these open-air models—as well as traditional booths—to a cornucopia of events and stand by to help add photogenic pizzazz to weddings, birthday parties, and charitable fundraisers. After shindigs, hosts can bring home a flash drive brimming with images, a memento almost as priceless as a contact lens used by Ansel Adams.

Seated underneath a 60-foot-diameter dome, audiences peer skyward at stunning images of the universe, educational films, and current movies at The Planetarium at UT Arlington. A Digistar 4 DLP Projection system splays its photonic glory across the cosmic screen as booming surround sound rumbles into ears. Regularly scheduled public shows educate and thrill guests with explorations of distant stars, laser light shows, and vacation slides from astronauts.

At Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park, visitors step back in time more than 100 years, immersed in the buildings and lifestyles of those who populated the land from 1840 to 1910. These historic structures have been slowly relocated over the last century to represent north-central Texas's storied past in one location: Dallas Heritage Village, the town’s first city park. Spanning 20 acres, the village is populated by 38 historic structures including a railroad complex, farmstead, church, and pioneer and Victorian homes, where actors donning period clothing await to educate guests on their customs while making them wonder if they accidentally traveled back in time. The site hosts regular student history hunts and seasonal learning programs, such as Plow, Plant, and Shear and Civil War on the Homefront.