cape may family fun center

This facility has a very nice mini golf course. The family and I played a round of mini golf and then went over to the driving range and drove out a small bucket of balls.

Every review of mine to date has been for a hotel or a restaurant, so this one requires a change in approach. We’re not talking about comfort or taste, just the fun factor. So, here it goes.Let’s start by mentioning the Cape May Family Fun Center web site. The main page (as of this writing) states that the location is in Cape May, New Jersey. I really hope they meant to say Cape May County, New Jersey. Cape May, as we all know is at Exit Zero on the Garden State Parkway. The Fun Center is near Exit 17 which is the Sea Isle City exit. The street address shown on the web site is Ocean View, NJ which is accurate. Not quite sure why they advertise Cape May.I have been a mini golf fan for decades and have played many courses so comparison is easy.Okay, it’s a late Saturday afternoon and it looks like I’ll be the only customer here. Walk in to the office and see a sign on the wall posting the prices. $8.00 for an adult and $7.00 for a child. Same price no matter what time you play. First of all, I find $8.00 to be very high. We’re not on the boardwalk in one of the resort towns. This is a suburban location with small neighborhoods up and down Rt 9.It’s a long walk from the office to the course, passing by the batting cages. There’s a practice green before hole 1. Now for the summaries. As mentioned, this is a suburban setting which means that the surrounding vegetation ends up on the greens. Plenty of twigs, pebbles, leaves, etc. make for more obstacles than what’s built in to each hole. Several of the sign posts for each new hole had a few missing or damaged numbers. At the top of each post was a slanted hard surface used for writing on the score card. These were rather low to the ground and had a rusty appearance. There were bricks used for the greens’ boundaries, some of which were knocked out of place. And some were not butted up against each other making for an inconsistent boundary wall. Bricks do not allow for true bounces the way lumber boundaries do. In other words, you can never be sure which way the ball will rebound when it hits the brick. You can plan a shot all you want based on the geometry of the intended rebound, and the ball could easily go in some other direction.The turf carpet could use some replacing here and there. And, I honestly could not tell whether there was supposed to be water flowing through parts the course, but my guess is yes.Another negative aspect of the course was no guaranteed holes in one. You may end up hitting your ball where you believe is the desired route and find out it does not put your ball near or in the hole. One of the later holes rewards you by sending your ball off the course after hitting it into the more difficult avenue. The ball enters an upper lever hole and bounces out in the lower level gardens after travelling down a wooden shoot. No, I’m sure that’s not supposed to happen.This is an 18 hole course with the 19th hole for surrendering your ball. I honestly don’t know if the 19th hole gives a free game if you hit the ball in the clown’s nose. There was no mention of that posted.I will have to say that there is quite a bit of maintenance needed to take care of all the details mentioned in this review. Apparently, maintenance may not be a daily routine here. And, as stated at the top, even the web site could use some maintenance to fix the advertised location.At $8.00 a game, I cannot recommend playing here. If everything were in tip-top shape, $8.00 is still high at this location. With so many courses in Cape May County, I’ll be looking for another. There are more on my list I’ve never tried.