tie: Troon North Golf Club
10320 East Dynamite, Scottsdale
480-502-5360
and
Tournament Players Club of Scottsdale
17020 North Hayden, Scottsdale
480-585-3428
BEST CITY HIKING TRAIL
Camelback Mountain
BEST CITY PARK
Encanto Park and Recreation Area
2605 North 15th Avenue
602-261-8994
BEST KIDS' FREE FUN SPOT
Tempe Town Lake
BEST KIDS' FUN-FOR-A-PRICE SPOT
Castles-n-Coasters
9445 North Metro Parkway East
602-997-7575
BEST PLACE TO SPEND THE DAY WITH YOUR DOG
Any dog park
If you tire of killing, if that's possible, GameWorks offers all sorts of other entertaining cyber realms. And yes, there are numerous nonviolent games for children if you're some sort of daisy-pickin' pacifist.
After a hard day of killing, you can retire to GameWorks' full bar and a menu of mostly excellent food. The upstairs restaurant and pub makes a nice place to hide from children asking for more money.
To stem the high cost of killing, GameWorks offers daily specials as well as reduced pricing for bulk-killing. Now, if they could only pipe in the smell of napalm in the morning.
You can practically hear the whiff of your plaid corduroy trousers just thinking about it.
But now you can relive those easy times at Terry's Performance Raceways, where slot-car racing is way more than a nostalgia trip. It's pretty much a lifestyle. Terry's features (for now) two modes for mini-scale enthusiasts, beginning with the so-called "H.O." racers, those Hot Wheels-style cars that are authentic enough to induce a flashback in almost anyone. And it only costs $6 an hour: $3 for track time, $2 for a car, and $1 for a controller.
Then there's the drag-racing track, where speed is the only thing that matters. Even with cars that are 1/24th scale, Terry himself claims, cars have been clocked on the 55-foot-long track going as fast as 50 miles per hour, real time. He's currently building a 1/32nd-scale road course, but for now the main event is on Friday and Saturday evenings, when diehard slot jockeys compete in earnest. For a $5 entry fee you can compete if you make the qualifiers; and winners can receive up to 30 percent of the pooled money in store credit, which the proprietor says can sometimes be enough to buy you your own new car -- Terry's, you see, also sells a full line of cars, tracks and slot-car accessories.
"Racing cars to win more cars," Terry says. "That's just gotta be the best thing on Earth."
Indeed, "pockets mark the difference between a gentleman and a bum," and a young man's idle hours are better spent learning a game of skill and coordination that's not a carpal-tunnel-syndrome-inducing video game.
Most billiard palaces won't even allow minors a peek inside, but we've found a pool table that's easily accessible to kids at the Original Hamburger Works, located on the outdoor patio away from secondhand smoke, beer and guys named Fats, Philly and Moe. There's also a Ping-Pong table and horseshoes for those times when you've got to wait for the pool table to free up. The official eatery of the Phoenix Outlaws is a safe bet your kids won't grow up to be juvenile delinquents learning how to line up a bank shot.
While the lure of bumper boats, batting cages and go-carts you need a license to drive makes this park a top draw for preteen parties, it's also ideal for toddlers. The park's Kiddie Land offers six flagship rides including Flying Dumbo Elephants, the Miner Mike Roller Coaster and rookie go-carts. Value Packages are $16 for guests 60 inches and taller, $12 for guests 36 to 59 inches tall, with an additional $3.50 for the laser tag. You could probably make a case for the Value Package 2 if you're a short dad, but then they might not waive the height requirement for the go-carts.
It's worth the drive to Florence just to see the shock on your spawn's faces when they realize their Native American counterparts passed their time not by shopping but by actually making baskets, pottery, quilts, arrowheads and figurines of other hardworking Native Americans. Other sobering turn-of-the-20th-century artifacts include blacksmith equipment, antique medical supplies that were a marked improvement over bloodletting, musical instruments that don't plug in, tools, historic maps and jail objects like old nooses that have swung as recently as 1965! We can't guarantee your kids will be humble and hardworking once you get back to the future, but you've given them an interactive past money can't buy.
Open April-June, and September-November, noon-4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; December-March, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon-4 p.m. Sundays. Closed July-August.
Of these resorts, Pointe Hilton's Squaw Peak resort is best-known because of its sprawling lazy river. It's great fun, but our money goes with Squaw Peak's sister hotel at Tapatio Cliffs. That's because Tapatio Cliffs has The Falls Water Village. And more so than the lazy river, the Water Village, a three-and-a-half-acre expanse of swimming pools, waterfalls and water slides, offers enough different activities to keep the whole family entertained for the whole day.
Besides numerous water features, the Village offers lots of time-occupying programs and events for kids. That means parents can slip over for a drink at one of the several themed bar and grills!
Also, more so than most area resorts, the Tapatio Cliffs management really works to fill your plate with events and free stuff. As part of this summer's Summer Splash event, for example, guests for $109 a night also received coupons for events worth more than $50.
If you've got kids, and you're sick of the heat and sick of cleaning and fixing meals, Tapatio Cliffs is a great way to break things up with a quickie vacation.
