FUN TIMES AT ARCHIE BROTHERS WITH THE GRANDCHILDREN....

e had a special treat lined up for our Grandies for our first day of our get away up to the coast....  They had no idea what we were going to be doing, in fact, they were itching to know, but all we kept telling them was that it was a surprise....

My friend Jannett's daughter manages this company called "Archie Brothers" throughout Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.  She has often said to me that Lana would love to give us some passes so that we could take our grandchildren, but I am certainly not someone to ask.

Anyway it just so happens that Jannett had bought some candles off my girls for Christmas and her daughter Lana was going to be bringing them home for her but needed someone to drop them into her at her work at Toombul on Tuesday on our way back up to the Sunny Coast.  Her bargaining chip was that we could bring the children for a fun morning bowling and at Archie Brothers playing on the arcade games.  We were pretty sure that the kids would love it, so it wasn't hard to agree to it....

We've arrived for our fun morning at Archie Brothers...

Family photo

A little fun with our family photo...

Lana had booked up in to go bowling at 10am.  When we arrived, we were given the VIP treatment.  The staff were wonderful, very friendly and helpful.  They organised shoes for me, and then gave us each a card to tap onto any of the games we wanted to play after we went bowling.  These cards, were valid for  2 hours and we could use them on any ride or game at the venue.  They even told us that we could come back and top it up if we wanted to stay any longer... Just amazing...

Ready to bowl...

Max is right into it...

 Now they organised for the bumper rails to come down for the children to play but not so for the adults.  Big mistake...  I definitely could have used the bumper rails as I had a hard time keeping the ball on the lane and not in the gutter...

She proved to be pretty good at this bowling...

 

Willow managed to get some good scores.  Most times she ended up with a score of 9 each round, even managing to get a strike or two as well.  She had style with her bowling...

Yes a strike...

The legend...

My score no so good...

Now Max had a real style with his bowling...

Pretty happy  with his bowl

Still no having much luck...

You can see from our overall scores that I played dismally and for as many as I got no balls, Steve managed strikes...  Still even so, we had so much fun... Max was pretty excited thinking that he had won, but in acutal fact Steve took out the winning prize this morning with Willow coming in just behind him....

Archie Brothers.... not sure how to describe it,  it's dazzling, it's delightful, it's a spectacle for all ages.  In face Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq is a real prize for the eyes... a kaleidoscopic circus of arcade and ticket games that give old fun a new life.....

They have got lots of things for young and old, and all of them are a lot of fun.... Dodgem cars, carousels, shooting hoops, Virtual Reality games, air hockey, and so much more and we tried them all..

After we bowled, we ran ourselves ragged around the arcade trying all the activities and even going back and doing some of them again and even more..  It seems he fun never stops at Archie Brothers Cirque Electirq...  The other great thing about here, is the eye candy.... so much colour everywhere...

The first thing that Max was keen to try were the Mario Racing cars.  In fact we all had to line up to race together.  I think that Willow took out the winner place on the first round of our races.  We did come back and play this several times during the morning...

And the race begins...

It was pretty hard to know where to go next as there was so much on offer.  In the end we headed over towards some of the Virtual Reality games

We chose to shoot the cowboys on the Virtual Game.  After tapping our cards, Max decided that he really didn't want to do it.  He thought it would be too scary and no about of trying to convince him that he would love it would work with him.  He just refused to have a good and see it.  

Willow, Steve and I loved it.  We were right into it trying to shoot as many rogue robotic cowboys as we could.  This ride had has feeling like we were actually in the screen and part of the action and Willow and I both screamed when we went over the edge of a HUGE waterfall and when we were on the train track.  It was a great experience but so real and we loved it so much that we fronted up for a second go at it a bit later. 

We headed from one Virtual Reality game to another but this time, only the children had a go and disappointingly, one of the machines wasn't working, so only Willow could participate on the first go.  It wasn't scary at all, but more fun, as their was a Santa Bunny riding a sleigh and a Reindeer Bunny pulling the sleigh.  They were riding along on the sleigh too, and it was funny to watch them sway from side to side as if they were riding in the sleigh twisting and turning as it made it's way across the sky.

Whilst Willow was doing this, STeve and  Max decided to shoot some hoops and play an aerial version of Connect 4.  Maxie loves shooting hoops and he is really quite good at it.  They had a few games of this before heading to the Air Hockey....

Max and Willow got right into the air hockey.  They were pretty good at it also.

The challenge is on...

Max was keen to see how high he could make the lights go, hitting with the sledge hammer.  He didn't get them anywhere near as high as he would have liked.  Meanwhile, Steve managed to get the lights to hit the top when he had his go...

This was right down near the dodgem cars, so the kids were keen to have a go on them  Unfortunately Max wasn't quite tall enough to ride one on his own, so Willow very kindly offered to drive him and they had fun trying to bump into Poppy as well as trying to avoid him.  

They did get locked up in a pile up of the dodgem cars several times, as it got quite congested as you drove around the centre pole.  They did have a kit if fun on these though...  Good thing we weren't paying for every ride of activity we went on.  To ride the dodgem cards was $6 or $7 a go and the first Virtual Reality game we payed was $8.50 a ride.  These sort of prices would have soon added up...

Two pretty excited children

Chasing Poppy around the track... Their faces say it all...

Now it's Poppy's turn to chase them...

They had so much fun riding these cars.  Max can't wait until he is tall enough to be able to have his own car...

Once we had finished on the dodgem cars, Max wanted to go back to the Mario Racing cars again.  This activity was one of his favourites...

I didn't join in this round, I was just happy to shoot some pictures of them having lots of fun....

My the time the children had finished driving the Mario Cars, they realized that the Bunny Virtual Reality game had been fixed and that they were both able to do it together.  They were quite hilarious to watch as they swayed around trying to dodge things in their pathway.

Steve found a shooting up game that he turned out to be remarkably good at.  He got very high scores and had a couple of goes playing this, bettering his score each time he played...

The have a lovely eating area there which was all set up in a circus theme and was oh so colourful.  We didn't indulge in any food today as the kids were having so much fun that they didn't want to stop and eat...

Max Willow and I then went back to the Virtual Reality game of shooting the robotic cowboys.  It was a great game, although didn't last nearly long enough.  Max still couldn't be talked into have a good, so he played the ring game whilst he waited.  Willow joined him in playing it also, once our ride had finished....

The kids were still not quite ready to leave, so we found a few more games that we could either shoot hopes and then using balls to hit targets.  This was a lot of fun as we competed against each other...

Max and Steve shoot some more basket ball hoops

Whilst the boys were doing this Willow found a wheel to spin. 

Max discovered another basketball game.... This one you had to punch pretty hard to get the balls to bounce up into the hoops.  Willow then joined him in playing it...

The children were starting to get a bit hungry by now as it was nearly 1pm.  They were still torn between wanting to have lunch and squeezing in a few more games...

Max was starving so we had no trouble convincing him that it was time to leave.  He was keen to go get some lunch and both children wanted to know if we could have Maccas for lunch to complete their perfect day.  How could we resist and since we had to walk right past it to get to the car it seemed an OK option....

Lunch stop

Patiently waiting for their lunch

What on earth have you got Poppy. 

After lunch, we wandered back through Toombul Shopping Centre to get to the car.  This is a pretty impressive shopping centre and one I couldn't mine exploring one day.  It was nicely decorated for Christmas,  had a lovely balloon like feature as well as some great artwork..

By now it was almost 3 pm and time to head up to the coast.  The traffic was pretty bad getting out of Business but once we were on the M1, the traffic was flowing pretty freely and we made good time to Bell's Creek where we had to stop off and pick up a Christmas present for one of the kids that Sarah has ordered on line.  

It's been a great day, up there with the best according to Max...