Theme & Amusement Parks in Tempe Junction

Children naturally believe that life is all about having fun. This requires the instructors at My Gym to perform two seemingly incompatible tasks: helping kids lay a strong physical, emotional, and cognitive foundation and letting them laugh and play to their hearts' content. The staff welcomes the challenge. Grouping kids by age into nearly a dozen different classes, the instructors teach students aged 6 weeks through 13 years the importance and fun of socializing, exercising, and eating broccoli without using their taste buds.

These classes, some of which require parental participation, are constantly adjusted to incorporate the latest medical and psychological advances, ensuring optimal self-esteem building through safe, age-appropriate activities. Friendly instructors also hosts customized birthday parties in My Gym’s state-of-the-art facility, during which they foster the same emotional and cognitive growth with games, activities, and rides.

At Casey's SportsWorld, the owners stripped down the ice from an outdoor hockey rink, replaced it with multipurpose, artificial turf, and retained the oval's lights and bleachers to create an outdoor arena that hosts games of soccer, flag football, kickball, and monthly dodge-ball tournaments. Casey's baseball and softball batting cages differ from most in that players can swing for a 200-foot home-run fence while batting from one of three slow-pitch softball cages or seven baseball cages, which sling pitches as fast as 80 miles per hour and feature an arm-style mechanism that emulates human pitchers or talented robots with soup-ladle arms.

Designed to honor a legendary species named the Marsh-wiggle, Casey's SportsWorld's mini-golf course boasts its own brand of folklore. As guests attempt to sink testy putts or manipulate their opponents' scorecard, they can speculate about the origin of the Volkswagen Beetle that is half-embedded into the ground, which denizens of Casey's SportsWorld believe squished the last remaining Marsh-wiggle.

At Jambo! Park's two locations, children uncork bottled up energy as they spring across an indoor playground sprawling with jungle-themed rides, family-friendly games, and towering play structures. The fun factory's Phoenix locale manufactures raucous laughter and endless enjoyment with myriad attractions, including the Safari Train, a circle of spinning swings, and high-flying rides atop gravity-defying elephants. Families can settle disputes over who's the favorite child in a pirate-themed laser-tag arena or club their way through the greens of a mini-golf course. The Mesa location supports the same brand of excitement with a lineup of attractions illuminated by a brightly lit carousel. Miniature pilots control their altitude as they circle around the Jets Abouts ride, and responsible drivers exchange car-insurance information after collisions on the bumper-car track. A three-level play structure festooned with tubes and slides welcomes climbers and sliders, and more than 90 nonviolent video games jangle merrily in the arcade. Adults can wile away the time in the Lion's Den, which is furnished with plasma televisions, pool tables, and foosball tables.

GameWorks fosters friendly competition between kids and adults by surrounding pizza, draft beer, and half-pound burgers with a mosaic of interactive pursuits. Each location holds more than 200 arcade-style games, which include racing and shooting challenges from Sega as well as lower-tech classics such as pinball and skee-ball. Other games shower high scorers with tickets that can be exchanged for prizes or collected to make a fun mummy disguise.

Powered by 270cc Honda engines, the SODI go-karts at Speed Street Indoor Race Track generate 9 horsepower while rocketing around the 1/3-mile track at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. Fit for drivers of all skill levels, aged 7 and older, the karts and their pilots whiz through the track as tire walls, helmets, and the ghost of Henry Ford protect them at all times. Races mimic the action of big-league sprints, and onlookers can watch the action on the track or on TV screens around the complex. Speed Street Indoor Race Track welcomes birthday parties and corporate events, outfitting its media rooms with A/V equipment and full-service catering. It also organizes league racing, giving drivers the opportunity to compete for a spot in Speed Street's elite hall of fame.