Rochester, NY Indoor Activities

At Adventure Landing, children frolic through six completely interactive indoor and outdoor attractions. The WOW! Factory surrounds visitors with more than 9,000 foam balls, which they load into cannons to blast at moving targets or into foam geysers to knock down hard-to-reach birthday balloons. They time each other in races down a three-story slide or while traversing webbed nets and bridges. Aerial antics continue at a ropes course suspended 18 feet about the ground, but guests can channel their energy into creative activities instead as they build stuffed animals at the Teddy Bear Factory. Outside, they compete through three themed mini golf courses, where shots and curse words shouted by lawn gnomes traverse 18 holes of tunnels, waterfalls, and small mountains. Adventure Land's staff regularly coordinates kid-friendly events such as a playground-wide Easter egg hunt, charity raffles, and fundraising events, or organize fully catered and decorated birthday parties.

At Prana Yoga, students gather beneath the wings of swans, which float across the studio's wall toward the inspirational quote "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." Here, such wisdom surfaces from within as minds clear and muscles strengthen. During the signature Vinyasa flow class, the temperature rises to loosen tight muscles and oust squatting toxins. Students match deep, relaxing breaths with a series of ancient poses as teachers, such as studio cofounder Carrie Herscovici, circulate the room, lighting candles and gently adjusting bodily alignment. Drawing from her training with power-yoga superstar Baron Baptiste and Indian sage Senthil Kumar, Carrie inspires her students to surmount both physical challenges and mental unrest, strengthening the body while bringing peace to the mind. In addition to leading classes, she donates 10% of the studio's profits to charity and operates a clothing boutique that helps shoppers integrate yoga into their everyday lives and bow-tie collections.

When viewed through the wall of mirrors at Bikram Yoga Rochester, the studio's wood-paneled ceiling and walls seem to go on forever. In 105-degree heat, a team of experienced instructors leads students through intensive yoga poses that systematically engage the entire body. Students can watch themselves twist and bend during 90-minute classes selected from the studio’s schedule. The temperature of the steamy studio space is engineered to soothe muscles, loosen joints, and encourage detoxification, and provides a challenging setting for students to launch bodies into modifiable postures that accommodate all skill levels from novice to expert and even pregnant women. In addition to yoga, Bikram Yoga Rochester also employs a certified holistic health and nutrition coach, massage therapist, chiropractor, and acupuncturist.

The Sandbox Indoor Playground sends children aged 7 and younger running, rolling, and bouncing across 6,000 square feet of open play space. Colorful, imaginative doodads and structures line each wall of the center, inspiring pintsize explorers to socialize or get creative by concocting fictitious worlds or reenacting their favorite trips to the dentist. As kids venture from one themed area to the next, parents and guardians can keep tabs from anywhere in the facility or check out the new consignment shop, where lightly used clothes, baby gear, and toys help restock closets at home.

Atman Yoga Studio's Enrique A. Fulchi—a native of Lima, Peru, and a devoted yoga instructor—guides students through 90-minute classes that aim to strengthen the body, increase flexibility, and open the mind. The Vinyasa flow class caters to all experience levels and replaces yoga's traditional spinal-alignment exercises—duct-taping tetherball poles to the back—with a steady series of back bends, inversions, and balancing poses supported by steady breathing exercises. The Ashtanga flow class accommodates more practiced yogis, and private sessions with Enrique help to deepen practice with focused tutelage. In all classes, Enrique may modify postures with props to better match students' goals and heighten the realism of their Shakespearean soliloquies.