Some we’re considering, though not all at once. 🙂
Natatorium is $240/year. A season pass of 4 months is less, $120 or so? It’s about a 10 minute drive from here. The outdoor pool is less but in Texas there is maybe one month of the year you would want to swim – it’s so HOT and then too cold. Indoor pool seems better investment.
Dallas Museum Nature & Science is $90 for family pass for year or $150 family pass to join Kids’ Club and get into the Heard Museum and the Fort Worth Science Museum as well… all three are about 45 minutes from us.
Texas State Parks Pass is $60. That gets us to the camp grounds (camping is another fee) and “beach” on the lake plus bike trails, hiking, etc. It’s about 30 minutes north of us I heard.
Frank Buck Zoo is $55. (Now that the Fort Worth Zoo does family memberships with a fee PER PERSON in the family it’s way too much for us. I’m bummed, it used to be much cheaper. But they do a discounted homeschool day 2x a year.) Frank Buck is about 30 minutes north so no traffic that direction.
We are looking at some of these as family gifts for the holidays. We would do probably one a year over the next few years. We decided against a pass for the art museums because they all have a free day. The botanical gardens have at least some parts free, so we’re looking at passes for the places that are the most expensive and don’t do discount days/free days.
Be careful if you decide to sign up for the Natatorium family pass. We did it a couple of years ago and they kept changing the hours the pool would be opened. Many times it would be completely roped off for swimming lessons and at one point we couldn’t come after 5 pm (so we couldn’t ever swim as a family when Dad got home from work).
Jennifer, thank you for the tip! I’ll ask about that… do you think a season pass (4 months) would be better?
Maybe when their busy season is over?! I just know they try to evade the questions by saying that the lap pool is still open to members but the lap pool is freezing (the kids HATED getting in there and their lips would start to turn blue in 30 seconds) and it’s a lap pool . . . deep water that’s roped off . . . not exactly “family” friendly. I don’t think the employees really know what’s going to go on there anyway–all of a sudden there would just be a notice on the door saying the hours had changed or there was going to be a swim meet over the weekend, etc. The off-season was much better. But overall, we were disappointed with paying for the full-year when we couldn’t even go as a family for a portion of the year. If I were to do it again, I would opt for a season and would make a bigger stink if they changed the hours all the time.