Winter Park, FL Indoor Activities
Recommended Indoor Activities by Groupon Customers
Krista Shirley has spent years travelling the world with an open mind and open heart, learning to infuse her own Ashtanga yoga practice with the global perspective she gleaned in Thailand, Scotland, and India. Now that she’s home, Shirley continues to expand her practice each year by embarking on annual retreats to Mysore, India, where she was authorized to teach by the prestigious Krishna Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute.
Her dedication to preserving the authenticity of Ashtanga is apparent in the thoughtfully constructed classes and workshops at The Yoga Shala. Shirley eschews the gym-like trappings of trendy yoga studios, preferring to establish a school that incorporates yoga's physical and mental benefits into her students' everyday lives. Krista's commitment to education does not stop with her students, however, as her instructors accompany her every year to India to help deepen their mastery of traditional Ashtanga practices.
Within the 2,100-square-foot studio, instructors teach Ashtanga yoga in the traditional Mysore way. This method allows teachers to work individually with their students while guiding groups through each posture. The studio also holds progressive beginners’ classes and Ashtanga flow classes that apply the Vinyasa principles of breath expansion and drishti, which is a focused gaze that develops concentrated intention.
From the outside, Professor Wonder’s WonderWorks laboratory appears to have flipped completely on its head. When visitors enter the upside-down edifice, they must first pass through the psychedelic, spinning lights of the Inversion Tunnel, which turns the building right-side up for families to embark on a full day of entertaining, educational activities. More than 100 interactive exhibits spark excitement around natural phenomenon, including replica space capsules that visitors can climb into, a gallery of mind-bending illusions, and the lab where Cabbage Patch Kids are grown in petri dishes.
Some of WonderWorks Orlando’s hands-on displays allow guests to experience the aftershocks of the San Francisco earthquake of 1989, throw a strike against Derek Jeter, and lie down on a bed of 3,500 sharp nails without so much as a scratch. Additional activities include the Indoor Ropes Challenge Course, which exercises bodies and minds as challengers navigate three stories of swinging beams and suspension bridges, and the XD Theater 4D, which transports viewers to swift canyon roller coasters, haunted mines, and Mars with full-motion seats and 3-D visuals.
Aloma Bowling Centers promotes friendly competition and pin-scattering fun with three locations that encompass at least 32 lanes apiece. The largest of the three strike-and-spare hotbeds, Boardwalk Bowl Entertainment Center, sports 80 lanes inside a massive facility that hosts more than 100 arcade games, a mini golf course, and a comedy club that features up-and-coming comedians or exiled dolphins practicing ultrasonic witticisms. At all three locations, guests can salute closed frames and lament gutter balls over a dish from the onsite grill or a beverage from the full-service bar.
Gliding down a zipline, clambering through a four-story rope course, and scaling a 35-foot rock wall sounds like the components of a Survivor challenge, but these three activities are actually the components of AMPventure, Old Town’s newest entertainment complex. AMPventure expands the fun park to a total of 18 rides, which includes many theme-park staples. Patrons can zoom circuits around the go-kart track, enjoy peaceful views from the ferris wheel, or practice their ray-of-sunshine impressions during laser tag. While looking for rides reserved for youngsters only, such as the Frog Hopper, families wend their way through the park, stopping at stands vending treats from pizza and ice cream to Chinese fare. Four days a week, cruises entertain visitors who can watch dancers groove to live music while checking out classic cars almost as old school as the original car: a horse on roller skates.
Although Orlando Shakespeare Theater gets its name from the Bard himself, the ensemble of thespians produces a wide variety of shows. Shakespearean tragedies, comedies, and space operas anchor their season, but newly developed works also make their way onto the bill, as do plays for young audiences. Kids learn how to create their own pieces of theater during summer camps and classes, hosted both offsite and in school.
