A screen free afternoon · Faq
A screen free afternoon in East Nashville: asked and answered
Short answers to the things worth knowing in advance.
What replaces a screen has to be more interesting than a screen, which rules out most of the obvious answers. A machine a child actually controls is one of the few that works.
The drive back to East Nashville is where you find out what they actually thought. Children review an outing about twenty minutes after leaving it, never during.
The short answers
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
Screen free is easy to say on a Saturday morning and hard to do by two in the afternoon.
The longer answers
The feedback loop is the same one games use - do a thing, see a result, adjust - except it happens with hands, in a room, with other people watching.
A short visit that ends while they still want more beats a long one that ends in a meltdown, every time.
Still worth asking on the day
What replaces a screen has to be more interesting than a screen, which rules out most of the obvious answers. A machine a child actually controls is one of the few that works.
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
Questions parents ask
Is there screen time involved?
The machines are levers and cables. The ice is ice.
Where is New Life Entertainment?
Two centres: 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214, and 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027.
What are the opening hours?
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, and 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
Planning your visit in East Nashville
From East Nashville the practical question is timing rather than distance. Arriving in the first hour after opening is worth more than shaving minutes off the drive.
Bring a spare layer even in summer. Malls are air conditioned, rinks are colder than that, and a cold child is a child who wants to go home.
A birthday group runs better with a rough plan of who goes where first, even if you abandon it in the first five minutes.
Plenty of the families in the room on a weekday morning have come from somewhere like East Nashville. Nobody is local to a mall attraction; everybody has driven.
The practical details
- XCAV ZONE — 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214: four child-operated machines over a ball pit.
- ICE PARK — 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027: a real rink with bumper cars on the ice.
- Opening hours — 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
- Phone — +1 (424) 387-6232 · +1 (615) 968-4925
- E-mail — info@newlife-entertainment.com
If a visit needs planning around a date, a group or a long drive, the centre is easiest to reach by phone: +1 (424) 387-6232 or +1 (615) 968-4925.