Top 5 Family Fun
Near Orange Beach
Five outings that hold up when the beach is too cool for swimming, with the winter hours told straight.
Winter on the Alabama coast is mild and quiet, and some days it is genuinely cold. That is why this family list leans on places that still work when the water does not. Two of the five are fully indoors and warm no matter what the forecast says.
The other three depend on the season, and we would rather be honest about that than sell you a day that is not there. Where an operator publishes no winter hours, we say so and give you the phone number instead of a guess.
A retractable glass roof keeps this water park warm year-round, and under it you get body slides, tube slides, a lazy river, a wave pool and a zero-entry toddler area. That is your cold-day and rain-day insurance, attached to a theme park in Foley. The outdoor rides and the outdoor wave pool are a different matter in winter.
One honest caveat before you plan around it. Park hours vary by season, OWA does not publish December hours far ahead, and the site was serving a maintenance page when we went looking, so we could not verify the December calendar. Check the operating calendar before you commit a day to it.
Buy tickets online the night before and check visitowa.com/hours-calendar for the actual operating days. Outside summer the park runs a reduced, event-driven schedule rather than daily hours, and the published calendar often does not reach more than a month or two ahead, so check it close to your dates rather than early. OWA also puts on a Christmas program in Downtown OWA, which is free to walk through even if you skip the parks.
Twenty-five acres, walkable end to end, with giraffes, lemurs, big cats, kangaroos and a reptile house, open daily year-round from 9am to 4pm. It closes only on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Winter is the better visit here. The animals are active in cool weather instead of asleep in the shade, and the whole place is quiet. Two to three hours covers it comfortably, which suits a group with small kids and grandparents in it.
It closes at 4pm sharp and last entry is well before that, so this is a morning outing rather than an afternoon one. In late December the light is going by 4:30 anyway. If your stay spans Christmas Day, note that it is one of the three days a year the zoo is closed.
Sixteen bowling lanes plus seven VIP lanes, a two-level high ropes course strung above the arcade floor, laser tag, pool tables and a lane-side grill fill 35,000 square feet of indoor space, family-run in Foley since 1959. Bowling is the rare thing a grandparent and a six-year-old can genuinely do side by side, with bumpers and ball ramps available. The ropes course requires 48 inches of height. Nothing else here does. Open late every day, weekends included.
This is your bad-weather plan in any season. Most of the coast's indoor options close early in the evening, but Gulf Bowl runs until 1am on Friday and Saturday, so a cold gray afternoon does not have to cost you the whole day. Call ahead over the holidays, because lanes go fast when every family on the island has the same idea.
The Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail runs 28 paved miles through more than 6,000 acres of coastal pine forest, lakes and dune habitat, and it is repeatedly ranked among the best recreational trails in the country. This entry is about the inland park, meaning the trails, the lakes and the Nature Center, not the fishing pier several miles east. Paved and flat means strollers, wheelchairs and a grandparent on a rented cruiser all work on the same path. It is open year-round, and you can expect a modest day-use fee.
The cooler months are the easiest time to walk or ride this trail. No heat, no insects, and the alligators are still visible basking on the Gator Lake boardwalk on sunny afternoons, when in summer they hide. Go mid-morning once the chill has lifted rather than at dawn, and note that the Nature Center is open Monday to Saturday, so a Sunday visit will find it shut.
A five-story volcano erupts with fire and sound in the middle of this five-acre park, alongside two 18-hole mini golf courses, go-karts, bumper boats, laser tag and one of the largest arcades on the coast. It is close enough to the condo to walk to, which is why it is on the list at all.
Here is the part we will not gloss over. Almost all of it is outdoors, and the operator publishes no hours whatsoever. The website says only "Open 7 Days A Week, Please Call For Hours." We could not verify the December schedule, so we are not going to tell you it is open. Call 251-974-1500 before you walk over.
Call 251-974-1500 the morning you want to go and ask specifically which attractions are running. In cool weather the arcade and laser tag can be open while the go-karts, bumper boats and mini golf are not. Do not build the evening around the volcano show: it does not run outside the busy season, so ask about that one specifically when you call. The lit mini golf is the dependable after-dark draw.
Written by the owners, not by a marketing department. If something on this list has changed by the time you get here, tell us and we will fix it.
Gene & Jennifer