what is there to do

my family and i are coming to hot springs this summer and we are looking for things to do. we do not need a hotel room because we are staying with family. my children%26#39;s ages are 9, 6, and 3. what is there to do to have some fun? we will be there for a week. any info would be great. thanks a lot!!!

what is there to do

1. Mid America Museum is educational and a pretty interesting building. It is a quality museum. You can get some discount coupons in the brochures at the city tourism office. The 6 and 9 year old would probably like it and maybe the young one might also.

2. Garvans Gardens (I may not have spelled that correctly) is a very nice botannical garden. Coupons are available for this also.

3. If you want to splurge, rent a party barge and take the kids tubing on the lake. That%26#39;s my 10 year old%26#39;s favorite.

4. The Fordyce Bath House restoration was kind of interesting to my daughter a few years ago. She still loves walking around the park at bath house row where the hot springs waterfall is.

5. There are some other tourism places which aren%26#39;t our favorites like a wax museum, an alligator farm and a small aquarium but others may like them.

what is there to do

My wife and I are trying to visit every National Park. We spent most of one whole day at the Park; hiking, sightseing, the visitors center. The lake looks like a blast in the summer. The downtown area looks really nice but did not offer us much to do...

try magic springs, It is a theme park and water park combined. I%26#39;m sure the kids would find it a blast.

Magic Springs is a very good theme park, especially for it%26#39;s size. It also has a water park included in the admission costs. It%26#39;s on the edge of Hot Springs and definitely worth a look. The magic show at the Malco might be good, too.

My family went last summer. I have 9, 11, 14 girls. Great fun. Their favorite in downtown HotSpr is the Duck tour. It was fun, bring water. We bought a combo with the wax museum...big waste of time. They are really lame. Took only 20 minutes. Children%26#39;s Museum was wonderful. We spent 3 hrs. there. Do not do the virtual roller coaster, spend your money downstairs on the extra attaractions offered on their theme. The lazer show was cool but almost too long. I think it was only a few bucks, worth it I guess. Bring a picnic and eat on a blanket. We did that every day to save money. We did eat out once a day. The magic show was really cool. The girls raved. They caught cards that the magician shot into the audience, and got them autographed during the intermission. Expensive, but worth it, LasVegas-style action, funny too. Small theater, every seat is a good one. Minituare town, train store looked cheesey and we did not go in. We did look for a good 30 minutes next door at the rock store, looking is free. The bath house tour downtown is also free, you can cut it short if your kids are bored, but they thought it was interesting. Def. go to the tower up the mountain. The girls loved the view and walked down all flights of stairs faster than we waited and rode in the elevator. They thought that was cool. There is a picnic area there too. Ask locals or tour guides where to eat. We had great food next to the magic show. Go first to the tourist bureau to get maps and magazines with coupons. Oh, start collecting jugs for mineral water. There are free fountains downtown to collect the hot springs water. It is HOT too. But supposed to be beneficial with all the minerals. We used the milk jugs to re-fill our water bottles that we kept in an ice chest in the car. That made it fun. We did not have enough time to go to the ameusement park, I think that would have been great. There are no public pools, everyone swims in the lakes. We camped at Lake Catherine. Wooded, lake has sandy bottom, very clean. We ended everyday in the lake, then grilled dinner at camp. Bees were really bad at that time, hope the Rangers found the bee hive they were looking to remove. You can go for the day there. Just pay the day pass, swim, hike at the trail. We took the small loop and it took 1 1/2 hours. You could just hike clockwise to the waterfall, splash around, then hike back. That hike was only 15 minutes. Then finish in the lake. There are showers at the swim hole. Bring a cooler and picnic, no concessions when we were there. No a good bike campground, lots of hills to go up. That%26#39;s our trip in a nut shell. Oh! Adults can do the Wine Room. But there is a $5 fee. I didn%26#39;t think it was worth it. All the wines from Arkansas are sweet, too sweet for a wine expert. But wine-o%26#39;s loved it....

Magic Springs is a blast! Two summers ago we took our boys, now 3 and 4, they loved it. My niece and nephews also went with us... ages 9, 7, and 6 now. Even us three adults had a blast! They have several different ';water'; features... we pretty much stayed in the kiddy pool because of our kids ages but they have a wave pool that looked like a blast, a lazy river, and several other ';water'; rides.

What we did is got there in the morning as soon as they opened, rode a bunch of rides, ate lunch, and then by that time it was super hot so we went to the water. A few hours later when we got tired of that we finished the rides. A full, tiring (but super fun) day!

The one thing that I really liked is that it wasn%26#39;t too big. It%26#39;s not nearly as big as Six Flags, but they have plenty of rides for every age group. You just didn%26#39;t have to walk so much. Magic Springs is the perfect amusement park for me. We%26#39;re planning on getting season passes this summer so we can go more than once.

Here is the website.... http://www.magicsprings.com/

We just got back from Hot Springs, kids spring break (march 2007) We went there after going to Crater of Diamond State Park (in Mufreesboro, about an hour%26#39;s drive away).

I was a bit disappointed at Hot Springs Nat%26#39;l park, the park%26#39;s Bath House Row are beautiful historical building, but right it front of it. is the the main street %26amp; old stores (tourist shops, etc). It didn%26#39;t go well together. Cars made it noisy %26amp; crowded, street in front of bathouse should be off limit to cars.

Behind the Bath House Row is a hill with trails on it, there you see

the hot springs covered with green metal covers.

My 9y.o. enjoyed going through the Nat%26#39;l Park VISITOR CENTER

(used to be a Bath House), it had all the old plumbing, tubs, spas they used in the 40%26#39;s. He also enjoyed running up and down the

trails behind the BathHouse Row.

We all enjoyed the DUCK TOUR, even my 12y.o. son. It%26#39; $38 for 4 of us 2adults/2kids. but worth it.

South of Downtown is Pirate%26#39;s Cove, is a miniature golf (very nice one). And Magic Springs Amusement Park - was closed when we were there, but it will be open in the summer.

Hope this helps.