I first heard of Bobby’s ElectroAstroid Fun Park when the hubby and I were taking the kids to Saturn. We’d spent nearly a full day in the packed Spacejammer and let me tell you, once you fit in all your bags, food, water, and other supplies (I do NOT leave home without my Solar Bug Tamer anymore, not after we lost the dog to a Europan Waterspider) there’s very little room left to stretch out. The kids were cranky and my husband wasn’t much better. Then we saw the flashing neon lights proclaiming that Bobby’s ElectroAstroid Fun Park was the funnest place in the solar system.

I have to admit, I tried to dissuade the kids at first, but there was no stopping their pleading once they’d seen the sign with the giant arrows and pictures of cotton candy and rides. Elba, my eldest, has a bit of a sweet tooth but we’re working on it.

The hubby made the executive decision to catch the fun and I’m so glad he did!

First, the positives:

Not one flesh eating bacteria on the whole asteroid! Can you believe it? Giant rock hurtling through space, picking up every drifter in the solar system and I didn’t have to apply ointment even once. Not even after we left. Score!

A fun house with real fun! I’d never been in a fun house that wasn’t a collection of horrors or just plain boring, but this one managed to make me laugh so many times. The mirror that made me fat? Hilarious. Though Elba finally saw herself thin and that made her cry but then I bought her a deep fried stick of butter and she was fine. There was an actual butterfly room where the butterflies tickled you with their wings! They’d been genetically modified to have super big wings. Like, I’m talking baby-arm sized. Fun!

The android comedian was hysterical. I nearly peed my pants when he told my husband he looked like a Martian Miner hungover off of recycled rocket fuel. Who knew androids could be insult comedians? They’re usually so nice. The hubby didn’t like it but I told him it was because he hadn’t shaved in days. Want to be complimented? Look your best.

The petting zoo. Sure, Jimmy lost an arm to a giant Tardigrade, but it was his mechanical arm so I didn’t sweat it. He’d lost the real one years ago in an unfortunate lava incident when we took the kids spelunking on Venus. That’s a whole other story. Besides, I told him not to get too close. They don’t call Tardigrades extremophiles for nothing, right? But the other animals were exquisite. They had a real life tiger, not one of these cheap robotic mockups you see these days with the fake fur and wussy growls. Nope, they’d had this one bred specially in a lab and grown in the belly of a zebra. Can you believe that? Delivering the animal that will most likely kill you? All us moms know how that feels. Am I right, ladies?

Bobby himself. Couldn’t be nicer. He runs the Roidrant – his not so clever name for the asteroid restaurant. Poor portmanteaus aside, the food was delicious. Elba bet me she couldn’t eat the four pound burger. I lost that bet but she lost all snacking privileges for two weeks so that shows her. I took her right back to that fun house afterward and made her take a good look in the skinny mirror. You bet I did. But Bobby came over to the table and congratulated her and gave her a free pass to the Place and Stay. It’s the only part of the Asteroid were you feel completely motionless. Elba told us it was really peaceful and she wanted to live there forever but for twenty bucks a minute I told her to buy some stabilizer shoes and get over it. That set off another round of tears and another trip to the Fried Snack Shack.

Now, for the part no reviewer likes. The Negatives:

Cleanliness. Sure, my skin didn’t slough off and believe me, I’m grateful for that small kindness, but everything in the park was covered in chalky dust. Bobby said it was because we were traveling so fast that the asteroid was actually destructing minutely each day and the dust was trapped due to gravity. I told him space is a vacuum so he needed to find a way to suck it up. Ha! We had a good laugh over that one, I tell ya.

Robot Help. Maybe it’s just me, but when I pay good money on an entrance fee, I want there to be human employees. I get tired of talking to cold, emotionless robots for every transaction. If I wanted to be condescended to by an unfeeling humanoid, I would just talk to my husband. Zing! No, but really, I like to know that we’re contributing to the local economy but if there’s no human help then I’m really just contributing to the economy of Bobby. Employ some HUMANS!

The worst part of the park were the medical facilities. Yes, they had a mechanical arm in stock in Jimmy’s size (not that it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg!) but it took thirty-three minutes for the doctor (another damn robot) to attach it. Jimmy loses arms all the time. I’ve taken to attaching them myself in our garage and I’ve gotten pretty good, if you ignore the one time that he got an infection and almost died, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Or in, Jimmy’s case, what doesn’t kill you leaves you with kidney failure, but he got new kidneys for Christmas that year so all’s right with the world. I can attach an arm to that kid in eleven minutes. I’ve timed myself. If I, a simple housewife, can put on a mechanical arm that quickly, then why the hell can’t a doctor? I’ll tell you why, because they followed “procedures.” Procedures are a boring waste of time. They numbed Jimmy and had to wait for the numbing agent to take effect. He’s a tough kid. Sure, he screams a bit but that’s mostly the fear of the soldering iron, not real pain. That kid doesn’t know what real pain is. Let him give birth to a baby the size of Elba and he can tell me about it. Fourteen pounds, I shit you not. Fourteen pounds! I almost died. Twice. Once giving birth and once holding her for the first time. But they finally did get his arm attached, so that’s good.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend Bobby’s ElectroAstroid Fun Park if you see it passing by. Worth the stop!