Things to Do in Grapevine

In the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, the Omni Theater’s domed, 120-foot-wide IMAX screen towers over moviegoers, projecting myriad tales of human, beast, and machine alike across eight stories. The screen has born documentaries on topics such as the Serengeti desert, the Grand Canyon, and the aquatic ecosystems that distinguish the ocean from well-maintained dunk tanks. Originally limited by its scale to films that lasted an hour or less, the theater can now show feature-length films thanks to digital remastering technology, and its new IMAX IDO projection lens has increased films’ brightness and sharpness. These developments mark yet another addition to its pioneering history, which includes being among the first IMAX screens in the region when it opened in 1983.

Under the watchful guidance of founder and yogi Brynn Byrne, the dedicated instructors at Elemental Yoga: North Texas Yoga Therapy help students boost core strength and detoxify bodily systems with their schedule of yoga classes. Classes vary based on skill level and intensity, with meditative flow easing practitioners into centering poses and advanced posture sessions helping seasoned students progress on their yogic journeys. No matter the class, instructors embrace the tenets of holistic healing, crafting sessions that can improve respiration, sharpen mental faculties, and restore energy lost during attempts to power the television with a stationary bike.

After starting out as a single facility in 1998, D-BAT Sports has since grown to include a dozen academies spread across Texas and the rest of United States. Each location embodies the company's core belief: every ballplayer is an individual with a unique, specific set of talents that must be honed. As such, D-BAT's professional trainers mold baseball and softball players into experienced specialists with custom lessons in pivotal skills, such as hitting, pitching, and autographing hot dogs. The climate-controlled facilities also feature rentable indoor batting cages as well as pro shops stocked with major-brand equipment.

Within Leapin' Lizards' 20,000-square-foot funscape, kids release pent-up energy as they trample across three rooms of inflatable slides, houses, and boxing rings, as well as an arcade and a rock-climbing wall. Rambunctious, sock-clad tykes crawl through tunnels in a four-story playscape, zip down an 18-foot dual slide, or conquer an obstacle course. In a girls-only room, the staff treat guests like princesses, beautifying hair, nails, and faces amidst dancing, singing, and modeling for photo ops. Elsewhere, younger kids play in a toddler room, and birthday kids call celebrations together in themed party rooms (North Richland Hills location only), bedecked with an enchanted landscape or castle imagery to make the guest of honor feel like a monarch, demanding that each partygoer surrender a portion of their crop yield to the royal family.

Just off a straight stretch of the Trinity River, the sounds of laughter and victorious whooping grow louder. A curious look toward the hubbub yields a vision rarely seen in the city—helmet-clad athletes of all ages splash along the water's surface, launching their bodies in what looks like the offspring of waterskiing and snowboarding onto ramps, jumps, and railings that protrude from the water's surface like geometric islands. It's all part of a regular afternoon at Cowtown Wakepark, the watery brainchild of 20-year wakeboarding enthusiast Tommy Fambrough. During the course of three years, Tommy slowly formed the labyrinth of water-bound obstacles that visitors enjoy today, earning acclaim from the Trinity River Vision Authority's revitalization project for his riverside paradise's part in keeping the area an accessible and productive part of the community.

Each wakeboarding run begins when visitors strapped into their Liquid Force boards grab a cable and are pulled from the shore-side wooden platform across the water, cutting through the river's calm surface and pausing only to heckle passing fish. Spectators stick to the shore under covered tents and at picnic tables, or recline on the water's surface inside tented rafts. Onsite instructors can show first-timers the ropes, and also lead summer day camps to instill children aged 7–16 with wakeboarding, kneedboarding, and wakeskating basics.