Finally booked a trip to KC for the series on Labor Day Weekend. I coached Danny Duffy in high school so my 10 yr old became a huge Royals fan. He has wanted to go to KC so badly I finally booked the trip. Any tips for what we gotta do while we are there? We plan on going to the Saturday and Sunday games as we fly in Friday early evening (might try and go straight from the airport to the Friday game). I have never been to KC so have no idea about the area. Any tips or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
IMO Kansas City is a great place to live, but there's not a ton of touristy stuff to do on a visit.
Kauffman is a great place to catch a game, especially once the summer peak heat is past. Kauffman and Arrowhead Stadiums occupy the "Truman Sports Complex", which is a patch of land several miles away from downtown housing the stadiums, the Chiefs practice facility, and nothing else. There aren't even parking garages; just acres of parking lot. Because of this, pre-game at Kauffman is like college football tailgating. Since there aren't cool bars and restaurants right by the ballpark, fans will show up a few hours early and grill in the parking lots.
So, if you plan on doing anything besides baseball, you'll probably want to rent a car.
A couple miles from Kauffman/Arrowhead is Worlds Of Fun, a CedarFair amusement park with rollercoasters and such. Nothing historically big or fast, but a few that move you around.
If the 10 year old is a big baseball fan, I recommend the
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. It's not big enough to take up a full day, but IMO really interesting. Kansas City has a special interest in the Negro Leagues because the Kansas City Monarchs were a powerhouse whose former players include Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks, and Satchel Paige. Just a little east of downtown.
The food specialty in the area is BBQ. My favorite KC BBQ is
Joe's KC BBQ (formerly Oklahoma Joe's). It's usually floating around the top 5-10 restaurants in the country in the Yelp rankings. Be sure to get the fries with that. Other BBQ institutions include: Arthur Bryant's, Gates, and Fiorella's Jack Stack.
There isn't a whole lot to downtown KC. A little south of downtown is Crown Center, where the Hallmark headquarters is located. If the kid hasn't outgrown Legos... there's a Legoland in Crown Center with cool Lego stuff like Lego Robotics classes, building areas with ramps and stuff to test out builds with wheels, big exhibits of Lego builds like reproductions of cities around the world and in literature. There's also a Sea Life Aquarium right next door that's fun for the whole family. Your kid might be a little old for Hallmark Kalideoscope, but I'll throw it out there. Need a reservation, but IIRC it's free. Different crafts and paper stuff kids can build with remnants from Hallmark products, plus a station to design and cut your own jigsaw puzzle, and IIRC a station to melt crayons into art.
On the grounds there's also some shops and restaurants. Don't be tempted by the Crayola Cafe at Crown Center: fun setting, super friendly staff, but the food is terrible.
Just west of Crown Center is a World War I Museum and Memorial, with a tall tower you can go up and see most of the city. Popular field trip stop. If you go there, imagine all the open grass there filled with Royals fans, standing and looking at Union Station across the street. After the Royals won the World Series, the entire city population somehow squeezed into that space for the victory parade and rally. Anyway, WWI is not something I paid close attention to in school, so I learned a lot going there as an adult. Cool interactive stuff for kids, too.
This may seem a little offbeat, but right by the WWI Memorial is a Federal Reserve Building. In the first floor they have a "Money Museum" that's pretty cool. Quick history of what US currency has looked like over time, a space to observe money being printed, and at the finish each visitor gets a souvenir baggie of shredded bills that if assembled would be worth hundreds of dollars. You can cover just about everything there in an hour, maybe 90 minutes.
If the kid is into science or technology... HIGHLY recommend Science City at Union Station, just west of Crown Center and across from WWI Memorial. Lots of great hands-on science exhibits, IMAX theater that shows different nature documentaries, planetarium.. and if the kid fits the the height/weight dimensions, he's gotta do the
SKY BIKE.
South down Main Street a few miles from Crown Center is Country Club Plaza. There's something historically significant about how this retail district was designed, but it escapes me. KC has a famous series of fountains throughout the city, and the crown jewel is the JC Nicols Fountain right by Country Club Plaza. When the Chiefs or Royals are on national TV, the network covering the game always shoots some B-roll of the Nichols Fountain and runs it coming back from a commercial. This is also right by the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum (my daughter is really into art, so we're regulars - even if you don't go inside, the lawn out in front is fun to run around on), and the UMKC campus.
The airport is way out of town on the northwest side. The stadiums are east of downtown. It will be a hike from the airport to the stadiums. A pretty cool place near the airport is the Speedway area. There's a NASCAR track (NASCAR races there twice, the Indy Cars have also visited) that you can tour when it's not a race week. Also right there is the Sporting KC stadium - if y'all are into soccer and Sporting KC is in season, it's supposed to be a great venue for pro soccer. If you don't get enough baseball, the independent minor league KC T-Bones have their stadium there. And there's a Cabela's that covers about half a billion square feet and several other gigantor stores, plus a restaurant district, and a Great Wolf Lodge that is a popular staycation spot. Right across the freeway from all that is Schlitterbahn KC, a water park that currently hosts the world's tallest water slide. It's called "Verruckt", which is German for either "insane" or "biggest wedgie of your life", possibly both.