Tarrytown, NY Indoor Activities

Stretched in front of a black-lit backdrop of the New York City skyline, the neon-speckled bowling lanes at Spins Bowl entertain guests with bowling bouts inside the expansive Grand Prix New York facility. Brightly colored bowling balls barrel down the center’s 19 lanes and explode against pin formations, which echo into the lounge's plush seating area. Bowlers compare scores on their lanes’ large LCD projection screens while cheering strikes over beverages and American-style dishes from Fuel, the onsite restaurant and bar. In addition to its 12 public lanes, the bowling alley hosts private events, children’s birthday parties, and hamster-ball crash tests on seven VIP lanes.

The Garden State Rollergirls, New Jersey's premiere all-female roller derby league, boasts a roster of over 40 skaters during their seventh season. Equipped with four-wheeled skates, the athletes crush competition during bouts of two 30-minute halves. While designated jammers—typically the fastest skaters—attempt to lap opposing rollers, blockers use a lethal combination of shoulder and hip checks.

The New Jersey Children's Museum immerses its visitors in more than 30 interactive exhibits that encourage hands-on exploration and learning, a philosophy that helped the facility secure a place within (201) Magazine's Best of Bergen 2011 series. Adventure intertwines with education within the dinosaur cave, where kids can make cave drawings or dig up fossils of prehistoric sports mascots. Heads turn as flashing lights and the warning cries of an approaching locomotive fill the air at the giant train set, and news stories break at the television studio. In addition to its many curiosity-inducing zones, the award-winning facility also hosts birthday parties with themes such as fire trucks, princesses, and dinosaurs.

Nationwide Bowling orchestrates a cacophonous symphony of clanking pins and cheering bowlers at 11 modern bowling centers located throughout New Jersey. Center size varies from the Hudson-Bayonne location where 60 lanes with automatic scoring, a grill, sports bar, and arcade games accommodate armadas of bowlers to Garden Palace, which houses 16 lanes, a bar, and a snack shop. At all locations, staffers host birthday parties and corporate events and organize leagues for competitive bowlers or people who just like to chuck heavy objects as hard as they can.

Located inside the Poughkeepsie Galleria, Vendetta Paintball and Laser Combat challenges players to technologically advanced games of laser tag and paintball on a 22,000-square-foot indoor field. Designed to mimic live-action games of Call of Duty or Halo, Battlefield Live laser tag manufactures adrenaline with real-time hit feedback, realistic special effects, and equipment that can simulate 69 different weapons, ranging from AK-47s to banana-cream pies. The facility’s professional-grade indoor PSP paintball field lets gamers improve their hand-eye coordination while simultaneously turning rivals into walking tie-dyed targets.

Under the umbrella of The Bowling Proprietors' Association of North Jersey, an eclectic group of alleys work together to fill the region with the thunder of scattering pins. At most of Bowling Proprietors' bowling centers, bowlers keep track of pummeled pins with automatic scoring, and bumpers, which arrive at the call of a button, keep balls on course without filling the gutters with retired VCRs. Snack bars at some locations bolster ravenous bowlers, and game rooms in select centers keep hand-eye coordination in peak condition. Free WiFi is available in some centers so that winners can exercise bragging rights.