Amusement Parks in Chicago

Fantasy Kingdom is a Childrens Birthday Party and parent-supervised indoor play facility for children ages 6 and under. There are no scheduled classes to sign up for. Just drop in anytime during our normal business hours and enjoy our amazing environment for children and adults alike!

The Lilliputian-sized buildings t

For 50 years, Mont Clare Lanes & Banquets has been dismantling boredom with competitive 10-pin games and dismissing hunger with an onsite restaurant. The bowling center houses 32 lanes equipped with a slew of modern conveniences, such as automatic scoring machines, two video screens, and an electric fence at each fowl line. Themed event nights are peppered throughout the week, such as Cosmic Bowling night, in which lanes bathe in the glow of darkened light waves as glow-in-the-dark balls spin to the beats of a live DJ. A full-service restaurant and bar pleases palates with eats ranging from wings to house-made pizzas alongside sudsy brews, and an adjoining banquet room plays host to corporate events, birthday parties, and jubilant Groundhog Day celebrations.

Housing whiz-bang activities sprung to life from the mind of owner and game designer J. Richard Oltmann, Enchanted Castle & Haunted Trails coax thrills from the young and young at heart. As bumper cars clunk together and an arcade rings with the peal of 250 games, Enchanted Castle’s 60,000 square-foot space fills with scenes fit for dream-like days of timeless tomfoolery. A laser tag arena hosts light-based combat, a miniature golf course tests putting mettle, and an indoor go-kart track lets driver reenact the time that the Indianapolis 500 was hosted inside a local gymnasium. Platefuls of wings, pizzas, and sandwiches dot tabletops in the dining area, where visitors can feast in front of karaoke, big screen TVs, and an animatronics stage show featuring in-house band the Jammin’ Jesters. Amusing on a larger, spookier scale, Haunted Trails ushers guests into a 14-acre entertainment complex with two 18-hole miniature golf courses, three outdoor go-kart tracks, batting cages, laser tag, and ghoulishly themed rides for youngsters, including the Monster Hop or Boneshaker. Five acres of picnic grove invite up to 2,000 guests to celebrate events, munch on the restaurant's desserts, or the participate in the world’s third-largest game of duck-duck-goose.

Today's side deal gets you trackside seats, an official program, all-you-can-eat dinner, and heart-racing harness-racing with real live horses at Maywood Park Racetrack for $15 (a $30 value). The racing starts at 7:20 p.m. on December 4, but the delicious eats and premature boasts get started at 6:30 p.m. Your Groupon includes trackside seats in the enclosed and heated Winner's Circle Dining Room, free valet parking, and a live race program.

Several years ago, during a filming of WTTW's Wild Chicago, Novelty Golf & Games owner Craig's brother stood next to a 10-foot fiberglass chicken and lamented, “This is the world’s loneliest chicken.” Its match had recently been stolen, and every fiberglass fox in the city had a solid alibi.

Shortly after the taping, a viewer called in with a tip: he’d seen the missing hen roosting in a backyard, clearly visible from the window of the Brown Line train. Boarding the "L" himself, Craig confirmed the spotting, and soon enough, the Loneliest Chicken's counterpart was on its way back home in the bed of a pickup truck.

Thus reunited, the two chickens stand proudly today over the 36 mini-golf holes at Novelty Golf & Games, along with the full menagerie of bears, elephants, mermaids, circus seals, and dinosaurs that the course has accumulated over its 63 years. Some of the attractions are as old as the course itself, including a 15-foot fiberglass shoe hand-built over a chicken-wire frame. While the statues are often replicated, Craig and his business partner Cassandra continue to design new obstacles the only way they know how, often sharing margaritas as they sketch their designs on cocktail napkins. “We change things,” they say, “but not for the sake of change.”

The course, after all, has always been a place of innovation. In the 1960s, Craig's mother opened an onsite restaurant and promoted the rabbit statue on the 14th hole to head doorman, earning the eatery its perennial nickname, “Bunny Hutch.” Throughout the years, the family has also acquired popular games, including four pinball machines, Dance Dance Revolution, an authentic photo booth, and a 1950s metal-stamping machine. Though they welcome each new addition, they strive to maintain the course’s classic appeal, insisting that “you can’t improve on perfection.”

On the same token, you can't just sit idly by when perfection flies the coop.

For three weekends each October, wicked surgeons, rotting corpses, and malevolent clowns haunt the corridors of St. Thecla Parish’s basement. A team of designers, actors, and effects artists with more than 30 years of haunted-house experience designs each petrifying scene, with a scare level catered to guests aged 12 and older. Numerous exits let terrified visitors escape, while No Scare Days invite costumed kids aged 11 and younger to feast on candy and wander the lit house during the daytime, when it’s not full of frightening creatures or owls holding staring contests. Proceeds from Hair Razor Haunted Scenes help fund and sustain St. Thecla Parish.