Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Scavenger Hunting and American Ninja Warrior in Atlanta!


The kids and I went to Atlanta for a day of fun. We started off seeing the Nutcracker at the Fox Theater. We ended up with front row seats and had a great view. Brianna and I see the one in Macon every year, and it's pretty much the same every year, so it was nice to see a different version and compare the two. Junior didn't like the Nutcracker at all. He said it was boring and would be better if it didn't have so much dancing lol.




After the Nutcracker we headed to Centennial Olympic Park. I had found something new for us to try: a scavenger hunt around Atlanta! I found the website while searching for things to do we haven't done before. It's called Urban Adventure Quest, and they have hunts in various cities around the country. You can check them out here. I googled promo codes and found one to use so it wasn't quite as expensive. The Atlanta one takes about 2 hours and is about 2 miles of walking. You use your smartphone to access the clues and input your answers. We started out near the fountain, where we had to find names on one of the brick flagstones and use it to figure out where to go next.

Next was a statue of the founder of the Olympic Games. We had to read the information on the plaque to fill in the blanks on the phone to see where to go next. There were a few more stops in the park but I kept forgetting to take pictures because we were so busy figuring out the clues!

When they saw the playground we had to take a break so they could play. You are timed, and they have a leaderboard on their website, but we didn't care about how we did, so I let them play.


Once across the street in the Coca Cola courtyard we got to take a picture with the founder of Coke.

And we found some huge ornaments to take a picture with.

After a couple clues here it was back across the street to the park and then over to the CNN center. Some of the clues involved copying codes or crosswords onto paper and then figuring them out. Here they are working on a word search to figure out the next clue.

And they got cookies from the lobby in the Omni Hotel!

In all I think there were 16 clues. It took us about 2 hours to complete, but we spent a while on the playground and taking pictures at various places. It was fun and something they would definitely want to do again in another city. I am hoping they will come out with another one for Atlanta!

After completing our scavenger hunt we headed to Norcross to Slingshot Entertainment. We are big fans of American Ninja Warrior and they have a Ninja Warrior training course here. My kids are too short for the big course (you have to be 56" tall) but the Ninja Warrior Jr course was perfect for them. They have a slanted wall and a warped wall.




The sideways rock wall and net


I was pretty impressed with the way they got across the glass wall.


Neither of them ever got across these. You had to hang from the balls and swing from one to the other. They gave it a good effort though!


Don't know what this is called but it was a lot of fun! You had to step from one to the other. It wasn't as easy as it looks!



I think this might have been their favorite obstacle.





In addition to the Ninja course they also have a huge 3 story net area to play in. I thought I got a picture of the whole thing but I didn't. Parents can go in the net area also. It has 3 levels of climbing and 3 slides.


I paid for 2 hours on the course and net area, but after an hour they were exhausted and ready to quit! The Ninja course is really physical. We headed up front to where you pay and they were nice enough to let me switch our second hour to an hour of bowling. 






While we were there we also checked out the adult's course. Some guys there that were doing it said it was really hard. This is the adult warped wall. I think they said it was 10 feet high!


They also have indoor go carts but we didn't ride them.

On the way home we went to Atlanta Motor Speedway to see the Christmas lights. It was $15 a car load to get in that night. The lights were not that great. Callaway Gardens was much better. The kids said the only part that made it worth it was getting to drive on the track and take pictures standing on the track. (FYI if you go-you're not supposed to get out your car. But we were the only ones there and we couldn't resist getting a picture. When else do you have the chance to stand on a Nascar track?)




We had a very fun day and got to try new things! We have done so much in GA we are always looking for new things to do! Do you have any ideas for interesting things to do in GA?