Ball pit · Local
Ball pit around Green Hills: worth the drive?
Written for families in and around Green Hills, who mostly want to know whether it is worth the drive.
For younger visitors the pit alone is the attraction. Some never touch a machine and leave perfectly happy.
For a Green Hills family the trip works best folded into something else - the shopping that was happening anyway, a birthday that needed a venue, a Saturday that needed a plan.
Getting there
The colour is half the appeal. A bucket coming up full is a bucket full of red, yellow, blue and green, and it photographs well from the rail.
Take the phone out of your pocket before they start rather than after. The moment worth filming is usually the first one.
What you will find
The crate the machines dig in is a proper ball pit - a deep bed of plastic balls, not a token layer over a hard floor. It is what makes a scoop worth watching.
Balls behave like a liquid until they do not. Dig a hole and the sides slump back in, which is exactly the physics children spend twenty minutes exploring without calling it physics.
How long to allow
A pit this size means the surface is never the same twice. Every scoop leaves a dent and every dent changes where the next one goes.
Take the photographs early. The best ones happen in the first fifteen minutes, before anybody is tired.
Worth the trip?
For younger visitors the pit alone is the attraction. Some never touch a machine and leave perfectly happy.
The colour is half the appeal. A bucket coming up full is a bucket full of red, yellow, blue and green, and it photographs well from the rail.
Questions parents ask
How deep is the pit?
Deep enough for a bucket to disappear into it - the machines dig rather than skim.
Do children go into the pit themselves?
The machines work the crate from the rail. Follow the instructions the staff give on the day.
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.
How do I get in touch?
By phone on +1 (424) 387-6232 or +1 (615) 968-4925, or by e-mail at info@newlife-entertainment.com.
Planning your visit in Green Hills
Families searching from Green Hills are usually weighing one thing: whether it is worth the trip for an hour of something the children have not done before. The honest answer is that it depends on the child, and the rest of this page is about telling which.
Do not schedule anything immediately afterwards. An hour of concentrated play is tiring in a way that shows up in the car park, not in the room.
Feed them first. Every attraction in the world is improved by not being hungry in it.
The nearest of the two centres to Green Hills is the one to aim at - Opry Mills in Nashville - and the drive is the ordinary sort rather than an expedition.
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.