WhirlyBall: The Most Fun I’ve Had In The Twin Cities For $15

I had the most fun in the Twin Cities I've had in a while, and it was at a place I've never heard of, doing an activity I've never heard of. It's called WhirlyBall.

We had a group of teenagers we were chaperoning around the Twin Cities. One of my friends suggested we try out WhirlyBall that's near the Mall of America. He described it as bumper cars with lacrosse. How could this possibly work?

What Is WhirlyBall?

So here's how the game works. It's up to 5 on 5 teams, where each player gets into a modified bumper car. You're given a scoop, and you try to score points by throwing a wiffle ball with the scoop at a target on a backboard. Sound easy, right?

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It wasn't until we were getting briefed by staff at the beginning that I understood how challenging it could be. The steering is backwards. You rotate the wheel left to go right and vice versa. There is no break, just one gas pedal. To go forward, you move the wheel clockwise. To put it in reverse, you go counter clockwise. It takes a minute to figure out what you're doing, which adds to the fun and chaos.

Let me tell you, it was quite the workout. I was pretty sore the next day from just a half an hour of playtime.

Honestly, it's a pretty good value.

I was surprised at how affordable it was. I thought it was a great value, because for a half an hour of time it was only $15 per person. You can even rent out the entire room with group rates. We went on a Sunday and the place had a lot of birthday parties.

The food and drinks were reasonable as well, especially for near the Mall of America. I had the chicken nachos for $9. Not bad! Chicken wings were only $8, and the popular pizzas were about $13.

More Activities For Everyone

They also have bowling, laser tag, and escape rooms. We paid less than 20 per person for an hour of bowling, which we did to kill time before our escape room slot. There are also some arcade machines.

The escape room was very fun, and well produced. It was challenging enough, and had lots of interactions with different keys, hidden doors, complex clues, and lots of buttons and keycodes to push.