WonderWorks Panama City Beach — Attraction in Panama City Beach

There's a lot to do here and it works well for a wide range of children. The price is great for what they offer. It does require closed toed shoes and a weight under 240 to ride the rides (and they keep scales at every ride and will publicly weigh you), which are largely included in admission (there's 3 rides that you have to pay extra for). There's a ton to do and you could easily spend a day here.

However, my 1 year old daughter got seriously injured here and was taken by ambulance to the hospital after falling into the giant peg board. The staff, while very friendly, was extremely young and had no idea what to do. They have no medic on staff (which surprised me with the number of rides) and, while the young staff showed a lot of concern, they had no training for an emergency situation and didn't even know how to get an ice pack from the first aid kit. It was my husband who called for the ambulance.

The manager seemed to be the only person on staff who wasn't in her early 20s. The only interaction we had was when she wanted a picture of my injured daughter for her incident report. There was absolutely no emotion or sympathy.

My daughter was examined for brain trauma and put under observation and ultimately released, so we decided to return, as we still had activities we had paid for and hadn't done yet, and we didn't want it to be a bad day for our other children. The young staff was relieved to see her, but the manager never came out to check on her.

The children really enjoyed this place, but I was very concerned about the lack of medical training and the manager's extreme indifference. We expected that the manager or owner would follow up to make sure that our baby was ok after we returned home, but they did not. They filed their incident report and washed their hands of us.

We don't blame them for what happened - it was a freak accident - but the failure of the manager to show any sympathy, or even to step up when the young staff was freaking out and didn't know what to do, stood out very starkly. It made me concerned for anyone who has children with conditions like epilepsy.

However, if your children are healthy and don't have a freak accident, most of the staff was extremely friendly and this place was fun for all of our kids ages 1 - 16. It was much larger than we had anticipated. We went on Thanksgiving weekend and there was no wait or...

I don't know what was going on the day we came, but my group had a pretty negative experience. We came on a Monday afternoon around 1PM in the middle of July, and had to wait about 20-30 minutes to get our tickets because of the long line. VIP tickets for 4 adults (myself, wife, and two sisters) cost around $200, but it seemed like it would be worth it for all of the fun attractions. However, when we entered, the place was completely packed. I don't know what was going on that Monday, but every experience either had a 30-90 minute wait, or was not operational. Several cool experiences just were not working which was disappointing, such as the extreme weather simulator. We waited about an hour to ride the 360 bikes for 30 seconds, which was a little bit fun but uncomfortable. Waited an hour to get in a rotating cage- that was fun but short. After that we walked through a lot of the simple experiences you would find in a place like this or Ripley's- a bubble area, optical illusions, themed areas, nothing crazy. We got there at 12:30 and after doing just those two tame experiences, it was already almost 5pm and still no less crowded. We ate at the expensive concessions stand, and decided we only had time for one or two more experiences. Asked someone near the front of the line for the ropes course how long they were waiting, said it had been an hour and a half. The lines for all other experiences- including the ones we paid VIP for- were the same situation. So we paid over $200 for two extremely simple rides you would find at the entrance of an amusement park. Also, the AC was out, and the upper floors were pretty muggy. We decided to leave, and stumbled into the laser tag on the way out, which had no wait luckily. Unfortunately, it was the lamest laser tag I had ever seen. No music, no fun lighting, and all in one small 1 story room- with 20 people, you were constantly next to someone at all times, it was extremely awkward and very difficult to take seriously because you could never get away to aim or keep yourself from getting shot. After that we left, and would definitely not come back. If it was less busy and we got all the value we paid for, maybe, but when we went to Ripley's across the street last year in May it was a much...

BRING SHOES! FYI you cannot do a few of the rides and the rope course without it. We had so much fun here here still! 3 adults and 2 kids under 9 and we could have spent all day here if we didn't have plans made already.

About the cost- yeah its a bit spendy however think of it as a prepaid arcade experience. If we had gone to Dave n Busters we would have spent so much more and been there less time. I can see that this place might be hectic during peak tourist season - you may have to wait a bit to do some of the video games and activities- but there is so much to do I am sure you can circle back to stuff when it is free. I think for the best experience it is not for kids under 6. They may be too short for some of the rides and might not be able to enjoy much - it really seems geared towards kids in the elementary to middle school range that are being introduced to STEM- It is a STEM based interactive kids museum so it is really for little kids like a play place. That said I think most young at heart adults will enjoy the heck out of it. Also I know a few people mentioned weight/size being an issue with rides for them- and yeah I could see that. I mean the rides and stuff are really built with kids in mind- They can't make everything oversized or it won't be safe for them. The VR coaster is already borderline too big for kids- when you go upside down you will lift out of your seat even as an adult.

The lazer tag was super fun and was probably our favorite. To reiterate the pricing again - consider that one game of lazer tag is usually more than $10 a person and we each played 3 times. That almost paid for our admission itself.

If I remember right there were only 2 rides that needed the VIP add on cost (we didn't do this). It was the Monster Truck VR ride and the bumper ball cars (this looked so fun...). Really want to go back in the fall after tourist season...