NJ Staycation with Kids: Day 3, Skyzone and Yestercades

What to do on a rainy day with 6 children? Since I mostly prefer to be outside, I decided to just dive in and take them to the places they are always begging to go — large, fluorescent-lit, windowless, money-sucking, germ factories….or a trampoline park and an arcade. Our first stop was Skyzone in Springfield, NJ, which, if you haven’t been, consists of several areas of about 50 trampolines connected in a grid, so you can jump from one trampoline to the next or play dodgeball. They also have some Ninja Warrior stuff like warped walls and foam pits. You can book 1, 1.5 or 2 hours of time; if you book online, get there a little bit before your start time to fill out waivers. We did 1.5 hours for $27 each, plus $3 for their mandatory special socks. I felt this was the perfect amount of time for our crew. Everyone had a blast, including me. Many other parents stood on the sidelines, idle and bored, as I dunked a basketball, scaled the warped wall and competed with the kids on who could sit between bounces the most times in a row. If you are on the fence about bouncing, get in there!

We went to lunch at Tinga in Westfield. This Mexican restaurant was a great spot for us. First, it wasn’t pizza. Yay for me! Second, the food was great and there were choices for everyone. And third, the server was fantastic, waiting patiently as all six children ordered for themselves and changed their minds and changed their minds again.

After that, we headed to Yestercades just up the street. I, like most adult humans with children, despise arcades. Even if you don’t think you do, I’m on to you, and you do, dammit. A trip to the arcade with small children ends in tears or whining like 90% of the time. They use up all of their tokens in 10 minutes because their hand/eye coordination and overall judgement are astoundingly poor. (Why would you think that flimsy claw could pick up the arm of that teddy bear when the rest of its body is buried under a mound of other teddy bears??!) They beg for more tokens, then waste them on some stupid game that they believe has a high ticket yield. Then they either don’t get enough tickets to win the piece of crap of their choice, or they do win said piece of crap and it breaks 3 seconds after you walk out the door.

But, I was diving in, remember? So after expounding on the virtue of having an experience for its own sake, and the evils of consumerism to 5 eye rolling children and one oblivious 4 year old, we entered Yestercades. But wait, what was this? No tokens? No tickets? No prizes? Instead you pay $8.75/hr (then in 15 minute increments) to play any game you want. And their game selection is legit, from classics like Donkey Kong, Q*bert, and Punch Out to big screens with a variety of old school and newer gaming consoles. While the 10 year old boys plopped themselves on a couch to play Fortnite (thumbs down), the little girls played endless amounts of skee-ball. After a while, I interested them/forced them to try out some of the classics. We hit up things like Hamburger Time (am I the only one who remembers this amazing game?), Pac-man and Spy-Hunter. They enjoyed them all despite the only prize being the experience! And ok, a shot at the high score board, but this is old school so it’s fine, right? This place was awesome. I would wager a jumbo stuffed dog plus a plastic snake that it was invented by a parent.