2016 Magical Mystery Tour (Wed/Thu prePAX adventures)

punzie

2016 Magical Mystery Tour of San Antonio!
Twitter: @PAX_MMT

Who: You! And me. And other PAX peeps. AKA your future friends.
What: Visit interesting places in and around San Antonio.
Where: Schedule will be posted below.
When: The two days before PAX: Wed 1/27 and Thurs 1/28. Traditionally runs from 9am to 5pm but you don't have to do the whole thing. (Follow the twitter feed for live updates of where we are.)
Why: See something of San Antonio other than the convention center and your hotel. And do it with cool people!
How: Walking and San Antonio's public transit

Schedule
Wednesday:
09:30a meetup- Grand Hyatt front doors (600 East Market St)

Thursday:
09:30a meetup- Grand Hyatt front doors (600 East Market St)


Voting
Done

Potential stops:
As new places are suggested, I'll add them here. Read them over, visit the websites, form an opinion, discuss their merits in this thread. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SUGGEST NEW DESTINATIONS!
Prices listed are per each adult. Discounts are often given for children, seniors, students, and sometimes military.
Any notes about reservations are for my benefit.

13th Floor

What it is: a haunted house
Price:
Hours: 7pm-10pm
Additional Notes: I expect the usual jump scares. Not recommended for pregnant women or children under 12. Some rooms are able to be bypassed (in case they're too scary).

The Alamo

What it is: A mission and site of a battle between Texans and Santa Anna.
Price: free!
Hours: 9am-5:30pm

Alamo City Ghost Tours

What it is: An hour long walking tour of downtown San Antonio with ghost stories
Price: $15
Hours: 9pm
Additional Notes: They provide ghost hunting equipment, which is a cool bonus. But their website hurts my eyes and they apparently don't know the difference between "hung" and "hanged." Discounts for groups of 10 or more.

Amazing Mirror Maze

What it is: a mirror maze and laser obstacle course
Price: $11.99 for 1 attraction, $14.99 for both
Hours: 10am-7pm

Japanese Tea Garden

What it is:
Price: free
Hours: dawn to dusk

K1 Speed

What it is: indoor go-karting
Price: $19.99 for 1 14-lap race
Hours: 12pm-10pm

McNay Art Museum

What it is: an art museum housed in a Spanish Colonial-Revival house
Price: $10
Hours: Wed 10am-4pm, Thurs 10am-9pm
Website: http://www.mcnayart.org/

Natural Bridge Caverns

What it is: primarily 2 caverns to explore, this place also has a giant maze, canopy challenge, and some other activities.
Price: Depends on what you do. Most individual activities are around $20.
Hours: 9am-5pm
Website: http://www.naturalbridgecaverns.com/
Additional Notes: this requires some physical activity. Walking, stairs, and reduced lighting are involved.

Panic Room

What it is: a room full of puzzles. solve it and escape the room in the hour time limit. or not.
Price: $20 + tax
Hours: 2pm-8pm, rooms start every 2 hours
Website: http://texaspanicroom.com/sa/
Additional Notes: rooms can manage 4-10 people. if we don't fill a room, randos may purchase the other spots.

Rio San Antonio River Tour

What it is: 35-minute boat ride through the Riverwalk area of the San Antonio River
Price: $8.25
Hours: 9am-9pm
Website: http://riosanantonio.com/rivertours/

Ripley's Believe it or Not

What it is: a collection of oddities, wax museum, and a "4D" theater
Price: $20.99 for one attraction, $23.99 for 2, and $28.99 for all 3
Hours: 10am-8pm
Website: http://www.ripleys.com/sanantonio/
Additional Notes: discounts for groups of 12 or more

San Antonio Botanical Gardens

What it is: 38-acres of gardens. Look at the plant life!
Price: $10
Hours: 9am-5pm

San Antonio Zoo

What it is: A zoo. Look at the animals!
Price: $14.25
Hours: 9am-6pm

Sister's Grimm Ghost Tour

What it is: 1.5 hour walking tour of downtown San Antonio, with ghost stories.
Price: $15
Hours: 8:30pm
Additional Notes: Total walking distance is about 1.5 miles

Spring Loaded

What it is: a trampoline park. bouncy bouncy!
Price: $12 for 2hours
Hours: 3pm-9pm
Additional Notes: you have to watch a safety video and sign a waiver before you can play

Tower of the Americas

What it is: 750foot-tall tower with observation deck. Also has a 4d movie
Price: $10.95
Hours: 10am-10pm

Witte Museum

What it is: a museum about natural history, science, and south Texas
Price: $8
Hours: 10am-5pm
Additional Notes: Admission looks to be cheaper right now because of construction. That probably means fewer exhibits than usual.

punzie

And suddenly, at near the last moment, the MMT thread appears!
Last year was an interesting adventure in improvising with places being unexpectedly closed, the river tour rained out, the trip up the tower being hilariously miserable, everyone deciding at the last second NOT to visit the place they'd chosen to go. Maybe this year can be just as meandering and sporadic. Or maybe it will all go exactly as planned (hahaha not likely).
Where do you want to go this time?

GhostDan

Can't wait, one of my favorite pre-pax events. As a Ghost I vote for 13th floor and Sister Grimms but on Thursday since I don't get in till late on Wed

StinkyTurd

Hmm I'd love to do the 13th floor and Riplets if its on Thursday since my greyhound doesn't get in till 8 30 am.

DanQ

I was wondering if there would be one of these. This is the first year I'm getting to PAX early enough to take advantage.

well I'll be there for half the day wednesday (after driving 12 hours, so we'll see how much I'm actually up for doing things) and all day thursday. Aside from the Alamo, and touring the riverwalk, I'll need things to do. I guess the boat tour would be good for seeing the river walk.

Also I was considering trying to see if PAX people wanted to do one of those escape the room challenges. There are a couple in San Antonio it looks like, but this one is $20 and the other is $40.

http://texaspanicroom.com/sa-reservations/

MagnusCarter

I'll be there, bringing jet lag this year. I'll vote for the river tour again, as we didn't get ti do it last year.

MaggieTheCat

San Antonio local here. The Panic Room was TONS OF FUN. My husband and I and one other couple (so, four of us total) did one of the rooms earlier this year and we had so much fun with it. We did not solve the room entirely but we got really close and the attendant said for our very first time ever doing a Panic Room we did really well. She said that medium-sized groups (like 4-7 people) tend to do best. Their cap is 10 people per room but the more people there are, the more hectic it tends to get with people just running around not sure what to do.

The boat tour really is fun, and really relaxing. I like going on it whenever we have visitors from out of town staying with us.

The Alamo will take you like 20 minutes tops to go through.

Edit to add: If you go to either the Botanical Gardens or the Zoo (it's a pretty nice Zoo), you should check out the Japanese Tea Gardens. Right next to the Zoo, about a mile away from the Botanical Gardens. It's free and a nice walk-through.

macrogeek

We arrive mid-day Thursday. I'll follow the twitter and if we get settled into our hotel on time we may attempt to intercept the tour.

cabsy

Apparently the zoo is about 30 minutes by transit and is $14.25 pp - I fuckin love zoos but I know other people might not
http://www.sazoo.org/plan_your_visit/
there's also a groupon for 2/$20 or 4/$39 https://www.groupon.com/deals/san-antonio-zoo-and-aquarium-1

depending on what ends up being chosen and our financial situation, @beardhawk and I will probably go on Thursday

Virgil_Leads_You

Ah, I'm glad this will be happening this year!

I'll be popping in around 3 on Wednesday, so I probably can't get up to much
But I'll see you folk on Thursday, definitely.

punzie

Ok this is what I'm thinking for the tour:
Wednesday: ripley's, lunch, panic room @2pm, tower of americas, optional dinner and ghost tour in evening
Thursday: witte museum, zoo, japanese garden, late lunch, river tour

I didn't really leave time for voting this year, so I hope this looks good to many of you. Leave some feedback and I'll finalize the schedule with actual times this weekend.
Depending on the mood of the Wednesday morning crew (and if it's open), we could swap out ripley's for the mirror maze.

DanQ

Hmmm. As long as the friends I'm going with are interested, we should be down for the boat tour, and maybe lunch. I'll have to run the Japanese garden by them. I would love to do the panic room if it was on Thursday, but our arrival time is uncertain on Wednesday.

japester

Ha, ha. I've been local for over 10 years, and several of these are new to me (we have a panic room?! cool!). I will say that Natural Bridge Caverns is fascinating if you've never been inside a cave system. They have some really beautiful formations in there. And while it may not sound flashy, the McNay is one of my favorite places to decompress when stressed (which I know can happen after a long, wintry drive to a con!). The central courtyard of the house is a gorgeous little garden with a fish pond in the middle. It's a lovely place to relax and meditate.

I hope you all enjoy the city.

StinkyTurd

Danq I was looking at possibly going to the panic room and/or Riplets on Thursday afternoon if you would be interested in joining me sadly I'm coming in by greyhound and won't get in until 8am on Thur in desperate need of a nap.

GhostDan

Sad I'll miss out on ghost tour but still looking forward to it all

LerlertHerb

I would love to do Panic room as well but am not arriving until late Wednesday.

punzie

If there's enough interest, we can swap the days. But I'll need a hard and definite head count for the panic room. I'll try to do a google form later tonight.

punzie

Short google form for you: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Bs4YDfFGzaVk1tGQ_RGXR44asOq_5-o_e7SuvNuWSgA/viewform?usp=send_form

DanQ

I would assume it's you that booked the slot ahead of time based on feedback here, but the 2pm slot on thursday is already full. If that wasn't you, we might have our answer already.

podunk the mighty

If you want to do some pre-gaming before PAX it looks like there's a console and classics arcade that recently opened in SA. https://groupon.com/deals/ultra-arcade

punzie

Well, you're right, the decision was made for us. We're doing the panic room Wednesday. If you want to participate, go buy a ticket for the museum heist at 2pm Wednesday: https://www-14c.bookeo.com/bookeo/b_214WLMPNE14BE3224F4F_start.html?inwidget=false&a=214WLMPNE14BE3224F4F&_ga=1.72863121.320153201.1453747663

Baka Al

Well, I've just booked for the panic room, so there's going to be at least one PAXer with you Punzie!

Baka Al

Oh, just a quick question, what's the proposed meeting point/time for Wednesday?

MagnusCarter

Either it sold out already or you can't book less than 24 hours away online, as it's no longer available.

Meeting times are in top post, 9:30 at the Grand Hyatt entrance.

punzie

I think you can't buy less than 24hrs in advance online. We'll find out tomorrow! Yes, meetup is 9:30 outside Hyatt. I didn't figure out times so we're winging the schedule. Can't be worse than last year, right?

Baka Al

Gah.. I'd missed that one completly!

And I did get an email from the panic room advising that the bookings close 24hrs in advance, but could add others to booking then.. Granted this was a few hours ago and only just seen it due to travelling, so not sure if can still add now..

And no, Punzie, I don't think it can top last years fun issues..

MagnusCarter

We can give it a good try though!

Virgil_Leads_You

Zoo times were fun times, thanks for setting this up again, Punzie!