For the eldest Nomad son’s birthday, we went to the largest arcade in the world. It is called Funspot. I made mention of it in his Happy Birthday post. But, the visit seemed to warrant more than a mention.
Where do you go to find the largest arcade in the world? I bet its current location is one you likely never heard of, unless you are from the area around it. The city is called Laconia, New Hampshire. It has a population of about 16,000 and is located between two lakes in central New Hampshire.
Funspot was founded in 1952 by a gentleman named Bob Lawton. Fun fact, Bob still works at Funspot every day. The building is 3 stories tall, has a bowling alley, indoor and outdoor miniature golf, cash bingo, tavern, restaurant and over 600 games; 300 of them being classic arcade games.
When we arrived, we noticed that the outside is very unassuming. It is a beige type, metal building. I was kind of expecting it to be painted all manner of colors with blinking lights and signs. Nope. Plain beige, metal building with plain, but easy to read, signs. There seemed to be an abundance of parking options as well. This tells me that this place must get packed during other times of the year.
Now, seeing the outside, I had a preconceived notion of the inside. We entered through the 3rd story entrance off of the back parking lot. Mama Nomad found a coupon on their site (http://www.funspotnh.com/coupon.htm) before we went there. It gave us 25 tokens free when we spent $20. So, as soon as we entered, we looked for the Bowling Counter, because that is where you cashed in the coupon. Bowling was straight down the stairs from the entrance on the 2nd floor.
We used our coupon, got our tokens and we were ready. We decided to go down to the first floor and work our way up. Mind you, we did not explore the 3rd floor, even though we came in on it. The bottom floor has skee ball, a restaurant, driving games, Mortal Combat, air hockey and the prize counter.
Once we tackled the first floor, we made our way up to the 2nd floor. This had a few arcade games, but was mostly skill and luck games for tickets. Again, this is also the level with the bowling alley. I finished this level before everyone else and went up to the 3rd level.
The stairs I walked up were different than the ones I took from the entrance down to the bowling area. Yes! These were much different. They led me straight into the heart of classic arcade heaven! I reached the top of those stairs, saw the warm glow of the full sized arcade games and I was transported back in time to when I was a kid! my head literally almost exploded! I turned one way, then another. I did not know where to start. And then, when Mama Nomad and the boys joined, it was on like Donkey Kong. Literally…because they had that game and many, many more.
We planned on being at Funspot for a couple of hours. Five or six hours later, hunger began to set in and we decided to finally leave. The restaurant and tavern were both closed on the day we were there or we would have likely stayed longer. So we poured our tokens into the chance and skill games. Grabbed our tickets, made our trades and we were off.
Let me tell you something, Funspot was more than an arcade. It was a time machine. It brought me and Mama Nomad back to our childhood and allowed us to experience the good times we had then with our boys now. Everyone had a wonderful time. If you like classic arcade games, skee ball and pinball…then you have to visit Funspot. What a great time. Safe Travels.
