A lot of families plan vacations over the summer months, but we are planning our BIG family vacation to a tropical destination next winter. This left me wondering what we could do with the kids this summer, that is within driving distance, won't take a whole week, and won't cost a ton of money. If you are wondering the same thing... please read on!
*Complimentary passes were received for some of these locations in exchange for my review, but the opinions are my own*
DES MOINES
My husband and I, along with 11 and 4 year old boys, started our adventure on a Saturday morning and headed to Ames. This is a two hour trip (give or take). We went to see the Nitro Circus Live Show at Jack Trice Stadium. The weather was warm, but beautiful, and the kids loved watching the bike tricks. We stayed overnight with family in the area, then hit the Blank Park Zoo on Sunday.
This was our first visit to Blank Park Zoo, but my sister-in-law has a family season pass and says it is worth every penny. It was another hot day, but there were lots of new babies and many opportunities to interact with the animals. There were activities going on all morning that were posted on signs throughout the park, the kids in our group all got to feed an ostrich and thought it was pretty neat. The food and children's rides weren't ridiculously high priced like you would find at many other attractions. The best deal was definitely the $2.50 slice of pizza that was bigger than my husband's head. If you travel to the area enough to take advantage of the family season pass, it also gets you discounts on the extras like rides and food. We spent another night with family before heading to Kansas City. Breaking up the drive with this visit to Des Moines was the best idea I had.
KANSAS CITY
Upon arrival in Kansas City at lunch time, we went to Fritz's Railroad Restaurant where trains serve the food to the tables from an elevated train track. It was good diner food and burgers with fries were only $4-5.
In planning our trip, I was hoping to stay at a waterpark hotel so that we didn't have to always be on the hunt for something to do. The best one I found was Great Wolf Lodge and they had a website discount for 30% off. They had indoor and outdoor waterpark attractions, restaurants, minigolf, an arcade, and spa, all on site. This was, hands down, the best hotel we have stayed in. Check in is not until 4pm, but you can use the waterpark starting at 1pm on your check in date. Our room happened to be ready when we got there at 2pm, so we were able to check in early before heading to the waterpark. The kids got "Paw Passes" that allowed them to get all sorts of extras, including mini golf, arcade credit, a "stuff-your-own" stuffed animal, tons of freebies, and a scavenger hunt style fantasy game that they would have played all day for 3 days if I would have let them. There were also free kids activities happening each day, including yoga, walks, music, and crafts. With all the entertainment at the hotel, we would have had plenty to do if we could have stayed one more night. Our room was great, it had a seating area with a pull out couch and a small balcony, as most of their rooms do. These rooms are equipped to sleep 6 and include 6 waterpasses, but we only needed four. The waterpark is private to hotel guests so it wasn't super busy and there weren't long lines. We hit the water features every day of our stay.
On the first night, we spent a few hours at the waterpark before finding Legends Mall nearby (literally like 2 blocks from the hotel), where there were tons of stores, outlet stores, and restaurants. Dave and Busters was our first choice for dinner and the kids were very excited after seeing all of the commercials for it on TV. It was a higher priced casual dining location, but the quality of food and service were good. There was also a really cool dinosaur themed restaurant called TREX that we had lunch at on our last day. The menu items were kind of pricey, but it was very family-friendly and there were live-action dinosaurs moving and making noise the whole time we were there.
We tackled the arcade and 18 hole miniature golf course on the day we checked out, rather than spend more time at the waterpark. The kids got free mini-golf with their Paw Passes, but ages 4 and under are always free. Adult price was also reasonable, $7 each I think, and it took us about an hour and a half to get through the course.
On our second day in Kansas City we headed to Crown Center to check out the LEGOLAND Discovery Center and SeaLife Aquarium. With a little bit of research, you can find some discount codes online for admission to these. We even found a BOGO admission coupon on a kid's menu at the restaurant we ate lunch at the next day. It is definitely doable to go to both of these in the same day, and there is a discount for purchasing combined admission as well. I thought we would get through both before lunch, but my kids were having way too much fun building things at LEGOLAND, so we spent about 2 hours there before catching lunch (lots of options at Crown Center, it's like a mall), then went back to the aquarium. At LEGOLAND, admission included using the different building stations, as many 4D Lego movies as you wanted to go to (we only went to one, but there were 4 different ones that played on rotation every 20 minutes), an indoor ride for all ages, and their NEW Train Station Adventure play zone area. The kids could have built Legos and played in the play zone all day, this was also a nice break from the 90 degree weather outside. Check out their website for more information or to order tickets.
At the SeaLife Aquarium, we loved seeing all of the creatures. There were touch tanks and exhibits with many saltwater fish and animals that we don't normally see here in the Midwest. There was a punchcard that the kids took through and stamped throughout the aquarium, which got them a sticker and small prize at the end of the tour. They also had an awesome new travelling crab exhibit called Claws that showcased a ton of different crustaceans. Some of them were kind of creepy, but the kids thought they were pretty cool. You can check out their website as well.
Overall, I would say that Kansas City was a great choice for our family vacation, with Des Moines being a great mid-point to help break up the trip. We did stop to see family in Des Moines on the way home for about an hour, but not stay the night, and the drive from Kansas City back to the Cedar Valley wasn't terribly long, approximately 5 hours total. Thankfully, our 4 year old slept about half the way.
I hope you all have a fantastic summer vacation and get to spend some quality time with your families, even if it's in your own backyard.
Peace, Love, and Summer!
