Extreme Playtime

Who says kids get to have all the fun? Leave them at home and experience some serious thrills for the 18 and over crowd.
By: Erica Walsh

AA021972

Photo by: Ryan McVay

Ryan McVay

Who says kids get to have all the fun? Leave them at home and experience some serious thrills for the 18 and over crowd.

Salomon Center
Ogden, Utah
Salomon Center is a giant playtime palace; it totals more than 128,000 square feet and houses 32 bowling lanes, 100 arcade games, a 55-foot climbing wall, indoor surfing and indoor skydiving. While rolling some 10 pin can be entertaining, the indoor surfing and skydiving are this funhouse's most extreme activities. The waves on the indoor pool are perfect manmade barrels, challenging even the most agile resident of landlocked Utah. Inside the 43-foot vertical wind tunnel, free-falling is perfectly simulated. The heavier you are, the faster the wind speed; a large adult can max out at 150 miles per hour.

Sun Buggy Fun Rentals
Las Vegas, Nevada
Don't let the name fool you, Sun Buggie Fun offers some seriously tricked out trucks that make ATVs look like Power Wheels. Located 15 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip on 15,000 acres of desolate desert terrain, Sun Buggie takes you on mind-blowing and bone-rattling off-road courses. After a 15-minute safety discussion, you're handed a helmet and slid behind the wheel -- and there's no nagging safety instructor riding shotgun. For $200 you can spend 90 minutes on the Mini Baja ride, a 35-mile course in the Nevada desert.

Sky Mania
Las Vegas, Nevada
Who doesn't love a trampoline? Sky Mania knows how much fun it is to bounce, and they've capitalized on that by opening the world's first all-trampoline gym. It opened in 2004, and since then more than 800,000 people have bounced their way through their crazy fun-field. The 17,000-square-foot facility has 64 trampolines that cover the entire floor -- and all four walls. Bounce your way into 3-D dodgeball, SkyRobics or even get a workout with a personal trainer -- because you'll burn up to 1,000 calories an hour at this trampoline funfest.

Innespace
Redding, California
If you've never heard of Innespace before, you're not alone. It's a 16-foot nautical vehicle that maneuvers through water like a dolphin -- and looks like one, too. You can skim the water's surface like a jetski at speeds up to 40 mph, dive three feet underwater at 20 mph and -- the best part -- jump in the air up to 12 feet. It's the only watercraft that can actually leap above the waterline. The seabreacher is seriously imaginative and extreme fun.

Lake Cunningham Regional Skate Park
San Jose, California
Most towns now have a small skate park where kids can rail, ollie or kickflip in a safe and controlled environment. Lake Cunningham Regional Skate Park is the country's biggest and most severe skate park featuring 11 skate pools, pipes, ramps and the world's toughest vertical walls. Designed by skaters and San Jose city engineers, it's home to a 75-foot-long, 22-foot-wide fully encapsulated pipe -- that's more than twice as long as the average skate pipe. Go ahead, sign the waiver, pad up and hit the pavement.

CPX Sports
Chicago, Illinois
CPX Sports is hands-down the biggest, most elaborate paintball facility in the entire country. It's more than 10 times the size of your average paintball park, covering 143 acres of Illinois countryside. CPX is divided into 24 different playing fields and seven of them are intensely realistic theme fields: The Town of Bedlam, Armageddon, The Jungle of Doom, Fort Courage, Wastelands, El Centro and The Rainforest. The ultimate paintball game allows players to use all the fields in no-holds-barred guerrilla warfare.

Zorb Globe Riding
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
A Zorb Globe is like a human-sized, cushioned hamster ball. These globes measure 12 feet tall, allowing you to dive into them and then roll down a giant hill at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. To enhance the thrill of this whacked-out adventure, you can add 5 gallons of water into the ball with you and up to two other people. It's a fitted space, so you won't be careening into one another as you tumble down the hill. Head to Pigeon Forge, TN, to experience this unique and crazy thrill ride -- it's the only site in the U.S. where you can ride in a Zorb Globe.

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