Top Things to do in Utah
Top Hotels in Utah
- 1. Best Western Plus Zion Canyon Inn & Suites
- 2. Best Western Plus Abbey Inn
- 3. Abbey Inn & Suites
- 4. Best Western Plus Ruby'S Inn
- 5. Hyatt Place Moab
- 6. Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel
- 7. Goulding's Lodge & Campground
- 8. Desert Pearl Inn
- 9. Bowen Motel
- 10. La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham at Zion Park/Springdale
Top 10 Water & Amusement Parks in Utah, United States
Welcome to “The Greatest Snow on Earth” – Utah’s paradise for all outdoor enthusiasts! As host of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Park City knows how to entertain winter fun seekers. Snowboarders and skiers head for miles of spectacular slopes with deep fluffy powder and breathtaking mountain views. The Olympic Park provides family-friendly ski programs, rides and shows. Alta, Sundance, Snowbird and Brighton are other popular destinations for cross country and Alpine skiers. Those alluring snowy slopes turn to rolling wildflower fields in the summer. Golfing, fishing, horseback riding and water sports replace chilly outdoor sports adventures. Corral the family, pack a picnic and catch one of the ski lifts for an afternoon of hiking or mountain biking along scenic trails. Head to Salt Lake City, where Temple Square hosts millions of visitors a year. Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park are famous for surreal landscapes from horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters to unusual rock formations and hundreds of natural sandstone arches. Closer to home, wander along the quaint main streets of mountain villages to browse, shop and enjoy lunch at an outdoor café. At the end of the day, head home for an outdoor barbecue and an evening of games. Home rentals blend privacy, space and comfort with the cost-saving advantage of eating some meals at home.
Restaurants in Utah
1. George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 268 reviews
Journey back in time to the days when the Dryosaurus roamed and the Tyrannosaurus rex ruled at this outdoor six-acre park that displays giant dinosaurs complete with sound effects like crashing trees and earth moving footsteps. The complex also includes a museum that features hands-on exhibits of the latest fossil finds from Utah and around the world.
Reviewed By bjanavice - Brevard, United States
Most amazing museum filled with Dinosaur bones, and an excellent gem room upstairs. Then you go outside and there are probably 100 Dinosaur statues. This would be a great place for kids of all ages.
2. Cedar City Aquatic Center
3. Alpine Coaster
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 585 reviews
Thrill seekers, meet your match on Utah's largest Alpine Coaster. The elevated track winds you through more than a mile of loops, curves and hair-pin curves at speeds up to 30 mph. Just like your favorite roller coaster - but with the refreshing mountain scenery of Park City.
Reviewed By TeamTangerines
Definitely do not brake while you're on the mountain coaster. You have the opportunity to hang out and enjoy yourself on the way up, but be prepared for a thrill ride down the mountain! There's also an alpine slide next to the mountain coaster that you use a lift to get to the top. Definitely choose the fast route and prepare for fun on the way down (and feel free to use your brake here if you feel like you're going too fast)!
4. Nightmare on 13th
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 64 reviews
Nightmare on 13th is one of Utah's largest and longest running Haunted House's. Located at 300 W and 1300 S in SLC, Utah.
5. Evermore Park
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 30 reviews
Evermore is an Experience Park: a place to explore, wonder, and discover. We are a blend of theme park, events, thrills, and theatrics. Come visit us and immerse yourself in a world of adventure where you can live in an incredible story, and even build your own! Each season is tied to a festival with two main components, one theatrical and one where guests roam the park freely similar to more traditional theme parks. In the theatrical portion, guests experience an immersive story full of high-end tech and visual effects that plays out across our fifteen acre park full of Victorian-inspired buildings and gardens. Come witness what lies beyond our gates and create unforgettable memories for the entire family.
Reviewed By jhanes45 - Brigham City, United States
Our family attended Evermore “Aurora” which takes place during the winter. My wife and I went with 3 children ages 6, 4 and 3, as part of a larger group of extended family. It was between 30 and 25 degrees while we were there. Come ready for cold weather. We had our kids bundled like they were going sledding, and the weather didn’t bother us one bit. There was a holiday theme with lights and a Charles Dickens Christmas Carol sub-theme. A large portion of the park was closed off because of the “Christmas Carol” performance. The park was very immersive in its atmosphere and setting, really giving the feeling of transporting yourself to another time. During “Aurora” the park hours were from 5 to 10 PM, and though this made for a better view of the Christmas lights, in general it made everything else very difficult to see. We found ourselves being pretty let down that we couldn’t see the actual craftsmanship of the setting itself as soon as the sun went down. There were many lights on one end of the park, and very few on the other making it difficult to navigate around for someone new to the park, and even worse for someone with 3 small children and large crowds. If you're planning on coming with smaller children that aren’t trapped in a stroller, be prepared to brave a theme park atmosphere in the dark with wandering kids. It was stressful at times, but we managed it decently. Once you arrive you’re given a brochure with a map of the park and a blue dotted line to follow if you’re a first time visitor. I would strongly encourage following this line because it will allow you to hit all the main attractions in the park, while giving opportunities to sidetrack if you find something that peaks your interest. One potential issue with the park is that it is very open ended as to how you want to participate. You can choose to have an experience similar to a zoo or museum where you simply walk from exhibit to exhibit and possibly participate in an activity or two, then move to the next until you’ve finished the blue dotted line. If you did this you would do the activities in following order: archery, axe throwing, puppet show, photo opportunity near a fountain, foam sword combat, fire performers, train ride, and a bird and reptile show. Along the way you’d be in a unique and beautiful fantasy setting surrounded by interesting characters. For most family outings this would be a fantastic evening, and if you stuck to this plan you’d likely have a wonderful time. Stopping to get some food and eating around one of the outdoor open fires would be a great finish to outing. The Fire performers, and the puppet show would’ve been the highlight of our visit. Ice skating would be one other activity that would be high on the priorities of a normal family, but I didn’t include it because it was not available at the time of our attendance. Regardless, the frozen pond served as a beautiful backdrop for the center of the park, and were it to have had ice skaters on it the look would’ve been all the more magical. As it stood, our kids were too young to have participated, so it wasn’t that big a let down. Coming back to the possible difficulty of the open ended nature of the park, if you were to follow the blue line and participate in the zoo or museum style, your family likely would have a very positive experience, but at its core Evermore strives to be more than a beautiful walking path with some fun activities along the way. The other way to participate in Evermore can best be summarized to me as a real-life fantasy roleplaying game. You enter the “world” as a “world-walker” looking to join guilds, accomplish quests, learn the stories of the characters and the world itself, and to find ways to make Evermore a better place. This kind of experience is entirely unique to the typical “theme” park or museum experience, but comes with it several things to consider. First, there are varying degrees of commitment to this style. You will notice participants dressed in normal clothes, speaking normal, simply trying to complete quests and not thinking much of it. At the same time you’ll see others that have completely embraced the “world” as it were. They are dressed in high fantasy costumes, may speak with accents, and commonly attend Evermore on a semi-regular basis. These participants fully embrace the role-playing component of Evermore. They are essentially part of the “world,” and may interact with you as such. We did have a few moments of confusion as we assumed that some of these more committed park goers were actual members of the staff. They dress like staff, and spoke like staff, so it’s an easy mistake. To add to this confusion, some actually function in a pseudo-volunteer role by facilitating different activities, giving information for quests, or interacting with you in ways that normal staff members would (as if they themselves are a character in the story of Evermore). Some of the members of our group saw this as drifting a bit too far outside of their comfort zone. For them, cast members approaching you while speaking in accents, giving quests, and selling the story, as it were, was fine, but the same actions by random park-goers was uncomfortable at times. How deeply you choose to participate in this element of Evermore is completely up to you, but in my opinion a bit of open mindedness and leaving of your comfort zone can really go a long way in adding to the experience. The quests are structured through eight different guilds. You have the opportunity to join any of the guilds as an “initiate” and to do so you must speak with the guild leaders and find out the requisite quests to join. Some of the quests are physical tasks that must be done throughout the park; others involve interacting with other characters. One struggle that we had in completing the quests that involved interacting with other characters was that not all of the characters seemed to be on the same page as to what we were supposed to be asking them. They were friendly, but not overly helpful in completing the quest. So we just kept talking to anyone we saw that was a staff member until someone knew what we were talking about. For one quest we likely spoke to six different cast members until we found someone who knew what we were talking about and how to help us. This experience was fun for me, boring for my kids, and frustrating for the other adults in our group. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and to hear pieces of their story, but most of that story was beyond what my young kids could understand, and too unrelated to our goal of finishing the quest for some in our group. In the end we were able to become initiates in one of the guilds. A word of advice, the initiation ceremony at the stage was a much more fun experience then the individual initiations we saw taking place at the different guilds we passed by. If you start the quests to join a guild ask when the stage initiation is, so that you can know the time frame to be able to go on stage. Our kids thought this was a blast. Moving forward, we could return again to try and reach higher ranks in the guild or to join another guild. We had some concerns that it might’ve been too scary for our kids based on a YouTube video that we saw, but we called and the park staff assured us that nothing in the park during the Aurora setting was there to intentionally scare anyone. Apparently the Halloween season, Lore, is the scary one. I will say that although nothing from Evermore: Aurora itself was scary for young kids the staff should’ve mentioned that the other guests themselves may be wearing scary costumes. There was one individual that was wearing a very haunted house style costume that we intentionally avoided throughout our visit. Food was pretty expensive, but we had some soup in bread bowls that was awesome. We wouldn’t do the bread bowl again, felt like we hardly got any soup because the holes in the bread bowls were so small. The soup itself was great though. Train ended up breaking down while we were riding it which was a real downer because, as I mentioned before, during the Aurora setting a large part of the park was closed off for a walking “Christmas Carol.” The only way to have seen those parts of the park was from the train and it would’ve been a lot of fun for the kids. It also would’ve been a fun way to see the lights. We did get a refund, but I think it would’ve been a major highlight. Conclusion: If you’re taking a young family show up early to beat crowds, bundle the kiddos, and follow the blue dots, hit the main attractions, maybe try to join a guild if it feels like you’re able to accomplish it quickly while still hitting the main attractions. If you get bogged down with the quest stuff drop it, and just move to the next main attraction. Eat something around one of the fire pits. Kids will have a blast. If you’re feeling adventurous and don’t have young kids to cater too, jump right into the quests. See if you can join several guilds. Get out of your comfort zone a little, talk to the characters, learn about the world, and probably plan on going ice skating if it’s available. Not feeling adventurous, don’t feel like getting out of your comfort zone, and no kiddos? Follow the blue line, ignore the quests and guilds, hit the main attractions, get something to eat, go ice skating. Still an awesome evening.
6. Logan Aquatic Center
7. Desert Wave Pool
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 10 reviews
Desert Wave Pool is a fun, safe environment to enjoy all year. Ride the waves in ten minute intervals. Can you master the indoor aqua climbing wall?
8. AQUA x ZONE
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 160 reviews
AQUA x ZONE is a thrilling water park for young and old alike. Come climb, jump, slide and swim along the inflatable obstacles that float atop the reservoir. Kids must be 6 years old and 48" tall. We are located at the Jordanelle State Park, near Heber City, Utah. The park is composed of multiple inflatable obstacles tethered together above the lake. We invite you to run, jump, swim and play at the AQUA x ZONE... the fun starts here! We will be opening the 2017 season on Saturday, June 17th, 2017!
9. THE VOID
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 2 reviews
THE VOID takes you beyond the limits of reality into a rich immersive experience where you can connect with others, while engaging all your senses. By combining a physical set with real-time interactive effects and going beyond virtual reality, THE VOID lets you not only watch a movie or play a game, but to live inside it, creating unforgettable experiences and memories.
10. Lindon Aquatics Center
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 14 reviews
