Boomers in Irvine - fun for small kids?

2Feb07 | 1 comments

We had some visitors in town and thought we'd try out Boomers in Irvine. I've seen the advertisements quite a bit. I thought the kids were finally getting of age to go there. I had never been there so it was just a guess.

The kids were two boys ages 7 and 4 1/2, and one girl about 5 1/4. It was a beautiful saturday afternoon in January. I was quite suprised how busy they were. You had to walk in through a very noisy gaming room. It was a little disorienting trying to find where to go. But we soon spotted a McDonalds inside and immediately stopped for lunch since everyone was starving.

After lunch we found the ticket booth and bought the all day ticket pass for the kiddie rides and one kiddie gocart ride each. A bit expensive but we thought they'd have fun all day playing.

The first thing we did was try the kiddie gocarts. The line wasn't that long but it moved slower than molasses. Long enough for the 7 year old to decide he didn't want to do it. It took about a half hour for their turn and the 7 year old was finally talked into it.

I have to say it was hysterical watching them. These were actual bumper gokarts that are not on a rail, they really drive them. Of course they can't go fast and the track is only about a 20 foot long loop.

The 7 year old, even though he was initially afraid, did rather well and really enjoyed it. The 5 1/4 year old girl eventually got the hang of it. The 4 1/2 year old boy just had no idea what to do. He just could not grasp turning the wheel.

After that we went to ride the kiddie rides. There were 5 rides. The teacups which all kids seem to love. A swinging boat which really scared my daughter. The boys handled that well. They also had a merry go round and a train. And the last ride was one of those seats that go up high and drop fast. Although my daughter wanted to ride that, I know she would've been extremely frightened. She is afraid of heights and some movements.

The one boat ride broke before we could get on and we had to wait for them to fix it. No one was manning the merry go around or the train so we had to wait till someone from another ride would come over and operate those for us.

Finally we gave up on the rides and went to the gaming room where we played a few of the kiddie arcade games for awhile. All the ones you'd find in a chuck e' cheese.

Looking around the have a really nice older kid's gokart track, rock climbing, bumper boats, and batting cages and miniature golf. So it's probably a very nice outting for the 8 and older crowd. For us though, it didn't quite meet our expectations for the little ones. Perhaps we just had the wrong expectations.