Kiddie Fun at the Web

The Kroger folks built a giant new store near us a few years back.  In doing that, however, they went ahead and closed an older, smaller store not even a mile from the new store.  From two years, that old store site sat empty - until The Web opened.

The Web is the main location of a group of Laser Tag and miniature golf fun centers, and it replaced the original location of Laser Web on Route 4 in Fairfield.  It's been open since this past summer, and I've driven by it a number of times thinking "hey, I should try that out.  However, it wasn't until The Web showed up on Groupon ($6 for $14 worth of entertainment), that I actually got around to trying out The Web.

The Girl and I showed up at The Web early on a slow Friday evening.  Apparently 4:30 on a Friday isn't a terribly big time at The Web because we were one of only four cars in the near part of the overlarge former Kroger parking lot.  We went directly to the front desk and just opened with asking what we could get for our $14 credit.  The Web's pricing works on three pricing schemes:

• Premium attractions (laser tag and go carts) - $8 for one, $14 for two, $18 for three
• Standard attractions (mini golf and mini bowling) - $4 for one, $7 for two, $9 for three
• Other games (Guitar Hero, skee ball, air hockey, stacker, and more) based on credits & tokens

The way we chose to maximize our $14 was to each play mini-golf (Jurassic Par, I swear) and mini bowling (Hang Ten, seriously). which took care of exactly that $14.  Next time we'll go for go carts and just pay the extra $2.

Up first, Jurassic Par.  Man, that's a horribly punnish name for a miniature golf course - even if it is decorated with fiberglass dinosaurs all over the place.  The course is a nine-hole course in the standard indoor style of largely black carpeted holed dimly lit by fluorescent and black lights.  The holes are bordered by brick pavers (square bricks for the straightaways and wedge-shaped bricks for the curves.  The first hole is marked with a plaque stating the the holes were manufactured by a Wisconson company, and I'm assuming that the whole thing was largely bought as a kit and then somewhat customized to match the kit.

The holes are raised about four inches above the carpeted floor of the building so that they play as raised islands in a sea of carpet with dinosaurs and weird rock-plant-brick areas spaced among them.  Each hole begins with a bright carpeted tee area followed by a much darker - but still mottled - carpeted main area.  here and there are areas that play almost like sand traps and carpeted like the tee boxes.

The tee boxes roll without ridges to the rest of the holes (something that has been a problem at a couple of other indoor courses I've played.)  The first few hole rely on shape of the holes and contours of the carpet to provide the difficulties.  On an outdoor course, this would work well because the contours would show up well in bright light.  With a poorly-lit indoor course, this just means that the ball is doing things that you have no clue it was going to do when you hit it.

See that hole there to the left (it's hole #2 or #3 - I can't remember which)?  The slightly darker area to the right is a slope to the right.  It's certainly not easy to see that unless you squat down and look for it.  Even when you do see the lower area, it's tough to tell just how low it is or how much the ball will break to the right as it goes through that area.  That's kind of a problem and one that is created by the design of the entire course and space.

The latter holes still have this problem but add in a few obstacles that make things tougher but not any more entertaining.  There's a bamboo-roofed house that you have to hit through, a loop-the-loop, a weird metal plate with guides, fiberglass stumps and logs and rocks.  The weird part for some of the middle holes, however, is that they have two holes for which you can aim.  There's no explanation given as to whether one is harder or easier, whether one is worth a bonus, or why the heck they're there in the first place.  It just seems to be a random thing that goes against pretty much everything that golf is.

You can see the wedge paver edging there to the right and see that it wouldn't give a true bounce a lot of the time, something that a lot less troublesome than the two holes, hard to read contours, and even the non-smooth entry to the loop the loop that means it's tough to hit it hard enough to get through the loop without launching it off the entire hole (it took The Girl a half dozen tries to get through the loop, and she was actually trying). 

Overall, I would say that the holes are challenging where they shouldn't be, easy where they aren't supposed to be, and poorly designed for the space.  Instead of making highly efficient use of the space that they have (like Monster Mini-Golf), The Web has instead wasted much of their space with stupid dinosaur decorations and lots of walking-around room between the holes.

Plus, the course is only nine holes long.  Even at $4 a round (fairly cheap for a round of mini-golf around these parts), it's not a good value.

But the dinosaurs are kinda cute.

I don't understand, however, why the toes of the dinos are bent up so drastically.  Was that something that those types of dinos actually had?

Seriously, that seems kinda messed up to me.

Check out the toes while I keep typing how freaked out the toes left us long enough to make sure that this green dino photo isn't lined up with the orange one.

Which it isn't now.

We wrapped up our round of Jurassic Par golf by dropping our golf balls into a sort of plinko game with a third of the pegs missing and from which we could win absolutely no prizes.  Yay!

The Hang Ten bowling was actually a bit more entertaining as we bowled a full ten frames each, taking two lanes next to each other rather than alternating on the same lane.  To some extent we did wait for each other to bowl but didn't have to switch back and forth for every other frame.  The Hang Ten bowling is a miniaturized bowling alley with six shrunken lanes.  Each pair of lanes has five rainbow-colored balls between them.  The balls are lighter and smaller than normal bowling balls - weighing in at around three or four pounds but feeling heavier because they are very dense.  The balls are small enough that The Girl and I could both bowl one-handed very easily but heavy enough that small children would certainly need two hands.

The option to raise bumpers appears when the game is activated via a card sweep, and we chose not to go with the bumpers (tempting though the option was).  The did mean that I did throw a couple of gutter balls as it was a bit tough at first to get the balls rolling straight because they were so light relative to standard bowling balls.  Once I figured out that I was better off bowling from a squat and ending up on one knee rather than trying from a full upright pose - the short balls cradled in my hand ended up with a much higher release point than standard bowling balls that hang down from the fingers - I was much more successful and managed a couple of strikes in a row even, finishing just into the triple digits with my final score (twenty higher than The Girl).

The Web also has a Laser Tag arena with two-story forts, a viewing area, black lights, faux cobwebs, and science fiction decorations. Laser Tag isn't my thing, so we won't be trying that one with our $14.

There's an indoor go-kart track at the back of the space, only one car of which was out and racing while we were there.  The cars look well maintained, almost like new, and the barricades on the course look like they've barely ever been hit.  The karts must be electric (I just checked their webpage, they are electric) because there isn't the faintest whiff of gasoline in the place.  I don't know how many laps you get to run for your $7, but it is nice that the karts have spaces for children to ride beside their parents (for an extra $1).  The course has a decent number of twists and turns, but not much of a straight away to gain speed before needing to slow down into the turn.

We'll be trying to karts next time with our $14 (and an extra $2).  I doubt we'll try any of the ancillary games - air hockey, Guitar Hero, skee ball, or any of the other Chuck E Cheese-style games (stacker, token pusher, and a bunch more).  Except for air hockey, the rest of the games are ticket dispensers which can (a la Chuck E Cheese) be redeemed for various prizes at the shop near the front of the The Web space.

Up near the front of The Web, there's also a pretty nondescript ice cream parlor that serve Aglamesis Brothers ice cream.  Near the middle of the space is a small food court that serves Noble Roman's pizza and some other sandwiches, fries, and simple snack items.  There are also three party rooms for rent near the go-kart track.  These rooms are very plain and clean with seats for sixteen, hand sanitizer, and a side counter (I'm guessing the counter has simple plastic cutlery and plates in the various drawers.)  On the evening that we were at The Web, two of the three rooms already had birthday cakes and presents in place waiting for the guests that started to arrive as we were leaving The Web (sorry, I just love typing The Web).

All in all, The Web is the kind of place that little kids would love.  The attractions are too undersized to be anything that would draw adults looking for anything challenging.  Most of the games aren't for the tiniest of little ones.  But the place would be an absolute heaven for kids in the sort of five to maybe thirteen years old range.  There are five levels of parties depending on the attractions and extras that each party guest gets.  I'm guessing that lots of kids in that middle range would be an absolute blast.

For me, however, I'm pretty sure that we won't be returning to The Web after we use our two Groupons.


Oh, I did get a hole in one on the fourth hole of Jurassic Par, however, so we can officially consider my round a success.