Winter afternoons · Story
Winter afternoons in Old Hickory: what an afternoon looks like
Not a review - a description. Here is roughly how an hour goes.
Winter shrinks the list of things to do with children to whatever is indoors and warm, or indoors and cold on purpose.
The drive back to Old Hickory is where you find out what they actually thought. Children review an outing about twenty minutes after leaving it, never during.
Walking in
Dress for the room you are going to, not the car park you are crossing.
Tell a nervous child what is going to happen in the order it will happen. Surprise is the thing they mind, not the activity.
The middle of the visit
On the Nashville side the answer is the opposite - a warm room, a deep crate of balls and machines that do not care what the weather is doing.
An ice rink in winter is not the contradiction it sounds like: the cold is the attraction rather than the problem, and it lasts an hour rather than a day.
The last ten minutes
Winter shrinks the list of things to do with children to whatever is indoors and warm, or indoors and cold on purpose.
Let the child lead the order of things. Adults optimise; children choose the thing that looks best, and they are right more often than they are wrong.
What sticks
Dress for the room you are going to, not the car park you are crossing.
On the Nashville side the answer is the opposite - a warm room, a deep crate of balls and machines that do not care what the weather is doing.
Questions parents ask
Is the rink cold?
It is a real rink, so yes. Layers and gloves make the difference.
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 Old Hickory
If Old Hickory is home, this is the sort of place you end up returning to rather than ticking off. That changes what a first visit is worth planning around.
A birthday group runs better with a rough plan of who goes where first, even if you abandon it in the first five minutes.
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.
Plenty of the families in the room on a weekday morning have come from somewhere like Old Hickory. 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
Questions about a specific day, a group or a party are best asked directly - info@newlife-entertainment.com, or either of the numbers on the contacts page.