Boomers Irvine — Attraction in Irvine

Boomers! Irvine Miniature Golf comments... This is not meant to be slander or retaliatory as a one star. I do honestly feel the comments are accurate. For tl;dr... I suspect local management is not tracking safety, cleanliness or playability for this golf park. I suggest Boomers! Fountain Valley or Camelot Anaheim. Boomers! is a chain of family fun parks that contain many attractions; video games, miniature golf, water rides and mini bumper cars. This review is more detailed towards the Irvine locations miniature golf attraction... From the entrance walk directly to the rear doors. Outside, make a sharp right and you'll be at a desk to purchase miniature golf, other activities OR passes. Note fun passes are a way of pre-purchasing all-you-can-use activities. This is within some restrictions, active word being restrictions, buyer be warned and read all fine print... Miniature golf is currently per single play $12 per adult at this location. The counter person offered choice of ball color and issued clubs. Then pointed us "left side of the batting cages". The course start is a little lower in elevation from the ticket counter so the directions were appreciated. A bonus due to lack of signage would have been a quick blurb that two red or blue courses were available for play... TIP * Right off the bat you'll see a large RULES sign, there is no welcome sign or sign that says HOLE #1 here. So note, there are two courses; a red and a blue course. We noticed most people were going right of the rules sign, the blue course hole #1 sign is closer and easier to see. The red course is to the left of the rules sign and about 25ft ahead. More on red course later, LOLz. From here on, no brainer, blue course blue signs and course accents, red course red stuff. As for the quality of the courses, see posted images but courses are pretty beat up. Green course surface material is worn, water stained, torn and uneven in many places. Both courses are ringed and bordered with brick. Because of the random mortar sections in the brick, the ball can bounce off more randomly than courses with different border material. The landscaping was quite run down. Towards the back north east side close to the freeway, large patches of dirt and weeds could be seen. I know its drought conditions but there are drought tolerant plants. Also many bushes were over grown not trimmed flush or uneven looking. Last, there were several mini structures as expected at a mini golf course. For example, a typical windmill and generic eastern looking temple were seen. I'd say 80% of the structures were badly in need of paint. The exception here was the mining (?) structure and the 18th hole structure (see pics). From a safety standpoint, some of the wood posts had been vandalized (?) or were worn and very splitered. The benches also had a sag to them when you sat. As for lighting, many light fixtures were missing the top head, so just a post and a bulb. Some posts, even main lights were bent over. For the LOLz, the red course also has too many holes (?) We noted an older hole numbering system in the actual concrete. Most of these numbers were so worn, there wasn't any paint on them. Also some of these numbers did not match the current blue/red course scheme (see pics). So expect two holes, one with a scraped out number and one with a number 16 just before the marked red course 17. Most disappointing was the water feature closest to blue course. The filtration system was off so green algae was lightly growing on the waterline. Several bits of trash were in the water. It's acceptable for a large amount of trash just to be floating for guests to see?? Dear reader if I haven't lost you, there's a few simple expectations for a miniature golf park; safety, playability and pleasing landscape. This park fails mostly on all three for me sadly to report. In comparison we've played Boomers! Fountain Valley and Camelot Anaheim (see review). No I don't work at a...

It was a great visit and my boys enjoyed it and definitely a great deal to be had when they were selling their season pass for 2020 for $45.

However, there is definitely a lot of things that worry me about this park. It seems that they do not properly train their employees to be operating heavy equipment that is hurling young patrons though the air and along the ground. They seem to also rely on their employees to be at multiple different rides as well which means they are relying on them to know multiple different attractions that probably require different operations throughout the day.

First, I believe this is a real OHSA issue that can definitely get the employee injured as well as a young kid traumatized. While watching my 7 year old son ride on the smaller go-kart track, the young attendant was standing on the track while the go-karts were going past. To make it worse, they had one foot on the track and one foot in the tire guard on an outside corner which could have easily had a go-kart careen itself into that was being driven by someone younger than 7. To make that situation even more terrible, the attendant wasn't even paying attention to the carts on the track that were passing by their unprotected foot/ankle/lower leg by about 1-2 feet. They were too busy on their walkie talkie looking out towards the batting cages.

Second, I extremely feel that Flamethrower should be removed if what happened to my son wasn't operator error, which at this point I'm not sure. While exiting the ride, the ride vehicle moved back a little and the restraints somehow decided to come down again which started to trap my son in an awkward position that he couldn't get out of. Luckily I was able to stop the restraints and pull out off of him. Ride operator didn't seem to do much except for explaining the reasoning why it probably happened. I couldn't really blame them as I feel it's probably more ac training issue and requiring them to operating multiple rides as I saw them at two different rides. I'm not sure why the ride would automatically decide to lower it's restraints as the vehicle was pushed backwards by my weight and I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a common occurrence if that was the case, which brings me to the 3rd issue that definitely deals with the safety of young kids and old patrons alike

Three, there's no clear instruction as to how the restraints work and what the riders should expect. It's just restraints come down and that's it.

it seems to be a play at your own risk kind of park from...

We just moved to Irvine a few months ago. My 12 year old daughter wanted to go here for her birthday (we did not purchase a birthday package).

This is more of a locals place not a tourist attraction (especially if you're visiting to hit Disneyland or Universal etc.). However, if you're visiting friends or family, it would be something fun to do.

I'd label this place for kids and tweens with teen and adult perks!! Something to do if yourey looking to take up a half a day or day when the water park area is open.

Pluses: something to do for everyone, great season pass rates, mini golf (I was pleasantly surprised at the course), go carts, arcade with lots of games, restaurant on site (we didn't eat there), beer for adults, a few big people rides, kiddie rides, water park (not full on wave pools and lazy river but enough to keep kids busy for a few hours - it's seasonal so not open all year round), bumper boats, Lazer tag, rock wall (snoring for professional climbers but great for kids/tweens), batting cages...probably some more things we didn't do...decent staff (we didn't need much but all of them were nice), I appreciated that it wasn't super crowded, I felt like it was clean (there was even someone in the parking lot sweeping up)!!

So-so - maybe could use some updating (but not a deal breaker!!), Some of the arcade games wouldn't work at first card swipe and I feel like I might have lost some money on that, high prices on individual attractions/not enough choices for half day or full day unlimited passes (but, we ended up with a season pass which I think is a great deal), crappy choices on lower ticket winner items (but psh who cares our kids are going to bring home just stuff no matter what!).

All in all I liked it, we'll definitely go back. Our kids are 12 and 8 and they'll have hours of...