Family Entertainment Center Assessment

Since Hurricane Jeanne was making a bee line towards Florida I decided to ride out the storm in the gulf coast city Sarasota, FL. To relax I spent some time with my family and friends. I figured since I had to visit a family entertainment center why not bring them along with me. So after we all prepared our homes for the approaching storm we made a trip over to Pirates’ Cove Fun Park. Pirates’ Cove is the text book definition of an Indoor/Outdoor entertainment facility. This five acre entertainment facility features ed go-cart racing, bumper boats, laser tag, challenging mini golf, softball and baseball batting cages, and an arcade full of redemption and video games.

We arrived at a fairly busy part of the day and there was a little over a hundred visitors spread out all over the property. This facility was not catering to a birthday party when we arrived but I consulted one the employees and he assured me that they do allow birthday parties. Unlike other FEC’s I’ve visited who have had separate rooms that families could reserve for birthday parties Pirate’s Cove only had four rows of long tables in the center of one of their gaming areas. Considering that the gaming area, for the most part, is loud and chaotic, to host a birthday here would be less than appealing. After reading a report on FEC’s I found this troubling because most of these facilities make 50% of there revenue off of birthday party sales. I approached a Pirate’s Cove associate again and asked if they didn’t have any separated birthday party rooms what kind of birthday packages did they offer? It turns out that Pirates Cove gives discounts on their staple attractions like mini-golf, laser tag and go -karts for birthday party groups. I decided to check out what kind of options this facility had for food. The Pirate’s Cove concession stand didn’t have much variety containing staple food items such as pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, nachos etc.. The food offered seemed to lack in quality but not price. After a disappointing excursion from the concession stand our group decided to check out the Arcade area.

This arcade had a 50/50 ratio of redemption games to regular arcade games. All the machines were token operated and there were many strategically placed dollar to token exchange machines all throughout the arcade area. Many of the redemption games were ones I’ve seen when I was little like ski ball, crocodile bop, or light ’em up. One game I found interesting was a baseball themed pinball game in which you could win baseball cards for hitting home-runs. There were plenty of first person shooter games which looked intriguing enough but since each cost a dollar’s worth of tokens to play I only tried my hand at two.

After the arcade we felt like giving the mini-golf a shot. This is an older course. There is no discernable theme but there are lots of holes (three 18 hole courses). There were weeds coming out of cracks within the greens, holes that didn't line up with the cup, water hazards that were unintentional etc. All of this adds up to make it fun in my opinion. It isn't the typical run down course, it is beyond that. However, it has had minor renovations not taking away from the overall feel. As far as actual design goes though, it's not that original. There are a couple of noteworthy holes. Near the end of the yellow course there is a hole with a ramp over a water hazard. The problem is the ramp points off the course. This leaves the player with two options, hit into the water or off the course. Also in the yellow course there is a two level hole with an incline that will always send your ball back where it started so you just shoot until you make it. There are some inexplicable obstacles on the course. On top of what looks like an oil rig there is a bird house that says "sheriff" on it and a tiny model train on top of a building on another. This is a fun course where you can play for a long time. A round of golf costs around five dollars and any additional rounds are only one dollar.

Then it was off to the go-cart race track entitled “The Wild Woody.” The Wild Woody is a three-tiered wooden track that spirals three stories high, and back down and around again like a roller coaster. Like the mini-golf this attraction also costs five dollars to gain admittance. As our group boarded each of our respective carts you could feel the air grow thick with competitiveness. When the green light went on we bolted from our starting positions. Like most go-cart tracks I’ve been to some carts are inexplicably faster than others and the pack seems to fall into place naturally. I fell into 2nd place just behind my friend Donovan. Since the layout of the track was essentially one big spiral up then one long spiral down there we really no long straight-aways in which passes could be made. This placed all the thrill in that first sprint and left everything after that lacking.

After the go-carts our group decided to call it a day and we hit the road. We spent around two and a half hours at Pirate’s Cove Fun Land and suffice to say we all had some fun. There were a lot of attractions that we could have tried, like laser tag or the batting cages, but we just didn’t want to spend an arm or a leg in doing so. I myself spent around twenty dollars. Lord knows I could have spent much more but my self-restraint kicked in and I stopped myself from going broke. The lack of adequate birthday party rooms would have been a turn off if I were a parent looking for those services. But, if your just looking to for a few rounds of mini-golf or some over-priced arcade games Pirate’s Cove Fun land is definitely for you.