Like many families, we’re looking for ways to spruce up our kids’ Christmas break with safe activities both around the house and out of it. Options are limited these days, but thanks to the kind folks at the Courtyard by Marriott Worthington up at Crosswoods, we treated our boys to a little overnight staycation that focused on a lot of local activities.
We stayed early in the week before Christmas, so the hotel wasn’t busy. That gave us almost free run of the place.
The Courtyard by Marriott has all the appropriate protocols in place to ensure a safe visit. They generously gave us a small suite with two bedrooms.
We were able to check in just after lunch-time, so we stopped by Amano’s Sports Bar in the back of The Shops at Worthington Place to pick up a pizza, mozzarella sticks, and a giant meatball.
Did I say giant? It weighed one pound and was stuffed with cheese!
The pool is open at the Marriott, which is a big draw for our boys. They wanted to spend most of their time in it.
In order to maintain proper social distancing, guests sign up for slots at the front desk.
We allowed some screen time at the hotel, but we also tried to focus on other projects, games, and books. For the boys we brought projects from AR Workshop Worthington: a pair of banners with painted stencils that fit their personalities.
AR features a variety of take-and-make projects; as our boys are a little older, we let them do the painting themselves.
The end result: avocados and video games!
Continuing our streak of local meals, we ordered out from Sushi Ko in Crosswoods, barely a minute’s drive from the hotel.
We ordered a selection of crab rangoon, tempura vegetables, California rolls, the Christmas roll, the kamikaze roll, and the conical volcano roll. All expertly prepared. Highly recommended for the sushi-lover.
We brought a small stack of board games from home, including the always-delightful Throw Throw Burrito, a game from the creators of Exploding Kittens (one of whom is Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal).
Zaftig Brewing had just released some big barrel-aged beers, so I packed a bottle of their 2020 Big Barleywine, aged 22 months in Weller bourbon barrels.
The next morning we ordered breakfast online from First Watch inside the Worthington mall, just a couple minutes away.
We feasted on everything from breakfast tacos to cinnamon pancakes, eggs benedicts to breakfast burritos.
After one more swim in the pool (of course!), we checked out of the hotel and headed over to Play: CBUS. Play is tucked into a light industrial area in Worthington just north of I-270, and it is a sight to behold.
At 52,000 square feet, Play: CBUS has the designation of being the world’s largest indoor ropes course. The facilities include ninja courses, multiple climbing walls, ropes courses of varying difficulties, a kid’s play area, and even a full-service restaurant and bar. And because of its size, it’s ideal for socially distanced indoor play.
We’d never deign to call ourselves an athletic family, but we handled ourselves fairly well on the courses. Fairly well. Thank goodness for good padding on the courses.
After falling repeatedly tackling a couple of the ninja courses, we got harnessed up to take on the ropes course. They train you first on using your anchor line to move around the course; it feels perfectly safe – you’re never unhooked from the safety lines.
There are two levels to the course, the higher level being the more difficult. We stuck to the main level (which is still one story up).
It was an exhausting but fitting end to our staycation!
I also blogged a little more about Worthington-area staycation options at experienceworthington.com/blog/winter-worthington-staycation
To learn more about where we went on this trip:
- Courtyard by Marriott Worthington: marriott.com/hotels/travel/cmhcw-courtyard-columbus-worthington/
- Amano’s: amanosworthington.com
- AR Workshop Worthington: arworkshop.com/worthington
- Sushi Ko: sushi-ko.net
- Zaftig Brewing: drinkzaftig.com
- First Watch Worthington: firstwatch.com/locations/worthington
- Play: CBUS: playadventureparks.com/location/columbus/
