Not every exciting experience requires being outside. While we’re always looking for excuses to enjoy the sun and sand, there’s also plenty of fun to be found inside — no weather app required!
Action-Packed Adventures
At iFLY Virginia Beach, experience the rush of skydiving, minus the plane, parachute and potential peril. You’ll feel totally weightless as you float on a smooth column of air, created by iFLY’s state-of-the-art, ultrapowerful vertical wind tunnel. Children as young as three and even those with certain physical disabilities can fly. Just slip into a flight suit, grab a helmet and get ready to defy gravity.
If you’ve never hurled an axe with your best friends, now’s the time. Tribal Axe offers more than just traditional targets — here, you can play digital games like bowling, cricket and tic-tac-toe. Not a fan of the lumberjack look? Try knife or ninja star throwing. The attached restaurant and bar serve shareables like nachos and totchos, as well as sliders and chicken tender baskets.
What could be more adrenaline-pumping than racing around an indoor roller rink? Lace up and roll at Sk8 House, a family-friendly venue with 11,000 square feet of skating floor, three local food vendors and themed nights like Teen Sk8 and Adults Only.
Interactive Games and Friendly Competition
Live out your early-retirement dreams at Beachside Social, an ocean liner-inspired indoor bar with floor shuffleboard, bocce, foosball and board games. Grab a beachy cocktail like the Lost at Sea (vodka with elderflower liqueur, lime, cucumber and mint), enjoy elevated bar fare like coconut shrimp or fried cheese curds, then hit the court for a round of shuffles.
Perfect for family outings, escape rooms challenge visitors to complete puzzles, find clues and ultimately solve a mystery to escape themed rooms. At Escape Room Virginia Beach, go ghost hunting at the Fryte family mansion, channel your inner outlaw for a Wild West heist, or become a hero and find King Neptune’s missing trident. Play Clue: The Escape Room at Breakout Games to find out if it really was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a candlestick, or save a tropical island from an exploding volcano.
Whether you’re basically pro or have never picked up a club, the games at Topgolf Virginia Beach are great for any skill level and any weather, thanks to year-round hitting bays with both heat and cooling fans. And the food and drinks make the experience all the better — think upgraded bar food like chips and queso, cheesy macaroni bites, wings, flatbreads and more.
Family-Friendly Indoor Fun
Bumper cars, electric go-kart racing, laser tag, mini golf, bowling, escape rooms and a ropes course — what more could you ask for? Apex Entertainment in the Town Center District is a gamer’s paradise, with nearly 100 vintage and modern arcade games and sports simulators (zombie dodgeball, anyone?). The kid-friendly menu features pizza, burgers, sandwiches and footlong hot dogs, plus gluten-free and vegetarian options.
Dive into 800,000 gallons of underwater fun at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, just minutes from the Oceanfront. Take a self-guided tour to meet sea turtles, harbor seals and North American river otters, or choose your own adventure with daily keeper talks, animal ambassador presentations, seal feedings and enrichment, and virtual reality pods.
Kiddos jumping off the walls? At Get Air Trampoline Park, they can, thanks to thousands of square feet of wall-to-wall trampolines. Older teens can go head-to-head in trampoline dodgeball, while the little tots can bounce and play at the Kiddie Court, reserved for those under 46 inches tall.
While the impressive arcade at Flipper McCoy’s Family Entertainment Center houses Skee-Ball lanes, pinball machines, and air hockey and pool tables, the real draw is the laser tag arena, built to resemble a combat zone. Run through fog, dodge obstacles and outmaneuver your opponents to gain power-ups.
Arts and Culture Experiences
Embark upon a multi-level immersive, interactive adventure at Lost Planet Selfie Museum. Discover more than 20 different colorful worlds with family-friendly photo ops in nearly every room. The Planet Adventure includes a full-size foam pit in a neon-colored forest, a black-lit bungee maze and laser hall, and a Mirror Maze that takes visitors through a mirrored illusion with several iconic landmarks along the way.
Art lovers, head to the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). This museum displays colorful, community-centered contemporary art; previous exhibits have included Heather Beardsley’s “Tell the Bees,” an interactive sculpture promoting conservation, and “Made in VA,” celebrating Virginian artists.
Explore compelling local art exhibitions, chat with resident working artists or get hands-on at an art or pottery class at Virginia Beach Art Center & Artists Gallery. Visitors of all skill levels are welcome to join a class — styles include oil and watercolor painting, scratchboard drawing, crochet and even meditation for artists.
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