Pennsylvania Guide and Deals

At the Martier Music Academy, kids can nurture discipline, commitment, and confidence while benefiting from the expert instruction of a professional staff of deft-fingered musicians, such as Joe Grushecky, Pete Hewlett, and the Grammy-nominated percussionist Ron Beitle. Private lessons allow kids between seven and 14 years old to attend weekly half-hour ($100 per month) or one-hour ($180 per month) instructional sessions, and are available for piano, guitar, drums, voice, and performance. Kindermusik classes help boost the development of children ages seven or younger while offering several different programs, including Young Child, designed for kids between five and seven years old ($90 per month for four months).

Sunlight streams into Urbanfront Pilates through the large, second-story windows, reflects off mirrors that cover entire walls, and illuminates hardworking exercisers tightening core muscles. The purple and green studio is home to eight different group classes, led by expert instructors who believe that a strong core is the foundation for full-body health. They walk customers through how to tighten tummies with various pieces of equipment, such as the Tower class's spring-resistance apparatuses or the Xtend class's ballet barre. In mat classes, students use only body resistance and mental images of the Vitruvian Man's hot cousin to aid in chiseling physiques. Dedicated to fostering community within the studio, Urbanfront Pilates hosts teacher training by Power Pilates–trained professionals who help pupils transform their passion into a livelihood.

Seven days a week, First Position Dance Arts offers a Swan Lake's worth of dance classes for agility-seeking adults. Under the tutelage of the studio's graceful guides, students will take on the fearsome foes of rhythm, balance, and poise through a well-coordinated attack of box steps, chassés, and pops/locks. Class options include ballet, modern/jazz, and hip-hop, all of which can improve cardiovascular systems, aid in weight loss, and provide a good icebreaker should you happen to meet the ghost of Martha Graham.

Creative Photography by Maya's staff of professional shutterbugs will happily accommodate families, children, families of children, pets, and triumphantly posed statues during the in-studio photo session. The fully equipped studio provides several backgrounds from which to choose. The classic white can be used for a quick passport photo before the entire fam poses for a heartwarming family scene around the Christmas tree in the Christmas Morning backdrop. Likewise, graduates, high-school seniors, newlyweds, and soonlyweds can beam sunnily before a Garden View, Perfect Sky, or slightly less popular Ragnarök backdrop. There are even huge plastic crayons and other foreground props for your giant pet scorpion to wave around as the cameras flash. After your session, you'll receive a DVD containing full-resolution versions of all photos and a photo-release form enabling you to print, publish, and share them.

Golf is a sport of physical precision and aerial dynamics, won and lost upon the pendulum of your swing. Use today's Groupon to brush up on your golf physics and practice blasting balls with your refined stroke. For $30, you get a 30-minute video swing analysis (normally $50) and large bucket of balls ($10) from Par Breakers Golf Academy, a $60 total value. This comprehensive indoor golf facility is a short 30-minute golf-cart trip from Philly in Oaks.

Wildwood Highlands serves an all-ages buffet of adrenaline-filled rides and fun-soaked activities that visitors can access with fistfuls of tickets. For five-minute intervals, go-karts whip through a winding, 1,000-foot course that challenges mini-motorists' reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and familial bonds with each cutoff to the inner rail. Visitors can captain bumper boats through the 5,000-square-foot Wildwood waters, thumping vessels as they pass fountains and circumvent the island. Woody's Den enchants small children with calliope music and magical animals who steer tots toward the spinning slime-bucket ride and old-fashioned train. Two 18-hole miniature-golf courses school putters in the principles of geometry and psyching out competitors with inopportune coughs and cackles.

Wildwood's arcade entices button smashers with more than 70 games that they can play to win tickets, which can be redeemed for prizes such as stuffed animals, action figures, and pocket-sized copies of the Federalist Papers. While bouncing from attraction to attraction, thrill seekers can recharge their energy with pizzas, wraps, pretzels, and cotton candy at the snack bar.