Things to Do in Plymouth

Hoyts Simsbury Cinemas enthralls cinephiles and periodic moviegoers alike with the latest Hollywood fare screened in Dolby Digital surround sound. A concessions stand nourishes viewers with delectable noshes, and the theater's stadium seating comfortably harbors audience members waiting their turn to give an acceptance speech for Best Movie Viewer. In addition to its usual cinematic offerings, Hoyts Simsbury Cinemas screens biweekly sensory-friendly showings––for families with youngsters affected by autism and sensory disorders––during which theater lights remain on, the volume is turned down, and patrons may opt to dance, sing, and hop throughout the film. Private showings for mothers and babies invite parents to enjoy movies without worrying that their child's clamor is bothering other audience members. Birthday-party packages treat celebrants to a movie-themed birthday area with a snack pack and helium balloon for each child, and private presentations or VHS support groups welcome up to 50 attendees.

A gigantic gumball machine. It’s not the first place one expects to see children ricocheting about. But when it’s inflated and part of Jump n Jammin Play Gym’s 13,000-plus-square-foot fun house, it makes a lot more sense. Inside their climate-controlled facility, parents chase after their sock-clad kids as they race from air-filled obstacle courses to inflated trains and circus tents during open-jump hours. After all that exercise, kids lope into the game room to hone hand-eye coordination playing Wii games such as Mario Kart on 47-inch LCD-screen TVs. They can also twist handles at foosball tables, smack a puck during air hockey, and bang drums during games of Rock Band, a video game that fosters rhythm and an appreciation for feathered hair. The kaleidoscopically colored facility can also be a birthday kid’s personal wonderland with party packages, and during the summer, Jump n Jammin’s team adds slip ‘n’ slides and splash pools to parties and organizes summer camps.

The sounds of jovial chit-chat, sharply struck drives, and golf balls rattling into holes fill the air at Canton Indoor Golf Center, where guests can hone their swings or putting strokes in a festive environment with its own sports bar. Stationed around the center’s perimeter, eight high-definition Year Roundz golf simulators transport clubbers to digital models of courses such as Pebble Beach and Bay Hill. Throughout rounds, swing-tracking technology ensures that each flush tee shot finds the fairway and each errant swing prompts digital avatars to berate their 9-iron. An indoor green fosters freestyle putting practice, and the colorful, pirate-themed corridors of Glow Cove’s black-light mini golf offer a more competitive challenge to slope-reading skills. The multifaceted practice facility provides a climate-controlled venue for lessons conducted by PGA-certified instructors, who use the simulators’ swing analysis features to sharpen their observational prowess and gather intelligence for mankind’s reckoning with intelligent machines.

Sudsy libations from Year Roundz Sports Bar & Grill keep guests in high spirits as they engage in golf fun or simply lounge in the glow of sports-tuned TVs. Guests hungry after a simulated round of golf or a club-shaft-bending competition can curb their appetites with a burger, cheesesteak, or margarita pizza from the kitchen.

At each bowling center, balls hurtle down smooth, polished lanes as LCD screens keep track of scores and shimmering party lights illuminate the faces of determined bowlers. After lacing up some slide-enabling shoes and clearing the gutters of deciduous pins, bowlers set their sights on toppling 10-pin clusters. Carpets bedecked with psychedelic swirls lead to shelves stocked with neon-colored balls, which proffer their pin-busting talents to bowlers of various sizes. Fingers can warm up by mashing buttons in an arcade full of entrancing video games or bench-pressing french fries at the onsite grill and pub.

Jenks Productions has been handling the nuts and bolts of consumer trade shows for 33 years. Partnering with local and national businesses, Jenks specializes in home, bridal, and pet shows, which fill sprawling spaces with vendors eager to share their wares and visitors looking for inspiration. The services that Jenks Productions provides are extensive, as the team can do everything from onsite event management and budget planning to marketing efforts such as developing newsletters, logos, and jingles that rhyme the words “impending nuptials.”

Founded in 1903, New Britain Museum of American Art was designated the first museum in the country to be dedicated exclusively to American artwork. Upon its founding, wealthy industrialist John Butler Talcott endowed the museum with a hefty sum of gold bonds and bottled phoenix tears with which to purchase modern oil paintings. The collection blossomed to include other artistic media over time, and it now consists of more than 10,000 works spanning more than three centuries of American creative endeavor. The museum's permanent collections showcase works by noted American artists ranging from Norman Rockwell to John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt to Georgia O'Keeffe. Along with rotating exhibitions and borrowed collections, the museum showcases work by emerging artists.