Florida Guide > Days Out
Wonderworks 2011
We’ve passed Wonderworks on International Drive on many occasions – it’s easily recognised as the ‘upside down house’. After a hard morning decorating our villa, the kids deserved some time out so we headed to International Drive for a few hours of fun. Adult tickets were $25 and children $20 with a supplement of $3 to add a laser tag game (of which more later).
The basement (or rather third floor – don’t forget everything is upside down! ) has a lot of weather related information presented in fun and interactive ways. We tried out a hurricane simulator to 71mph and an earthquake simulator measuring 7. 8. There are also lots of interactive quizzes which our 18 and 14 year old found too young for them but there were lots of younger kids (and interested adults not afraid to look uncool! ) who were really enjoying them.
The next floor mainly focuses on the human body and includes several virtual sports games, like snowboarding and baseball. The brave can lie on a bed of nails (but beware damage to clothing they are real nails! ) There are some really cool special effects machines which alter your shadow, even a screen which ages your face, thankfully only temporarily!
Video simulators allow you to fly a mission to Mars, fly a fighter jet or land the space shuttle. The highlight of this floor is a 3D roller coaster simulator. There are two options of scariest and slightly less scary - we opted for the scariest option and weren’t disappointed as we flipped upside down at high speed. There was only about a twenty minute wait for this and most of the interactive activities were available either straight away or with only a very short wait.
On the top floor is the 4D cinema, Haunted train and again a short wait saw us strapped into large seats and wearing 3D glasses, lunging side to side and backwards and forwards. Also on this floor is extreme laser tag – probably our favourite, dashing round in the dark shooting lasers at each other. Although not as big as laser attractions back home, it was great fun playing with strangers from other countries. Well worth the small supplement we paid.
There were various slot games available if anyone didn’t want to play. New to the attraction is a very high 3 storey rope climbing experience in the dark – lots of fluorescent signs guided participants on single and double ropes and swings. We didn’t take part as it is necessary to wear closed toe, secure shoes which you should bear in mind if you do want to swing (of course harnesses are provided! )
One of our party is a wheelchair user and the admission price is reduced to half, although if able to transfer, most of the attractions were possible to take part in.
We saw there was a cafe and also a magic dinner show available but after three busy hours, the spa at the villa was calling! If you want to do everything you should probably allow around four hours. Wonderworks isn’t Disney or Universal but a very enjoyable way to spend a few hours if you fancy something different. Relaxing at the villa with a glass of wine later; we pronounced the trip a success!
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