Mini golfers beware, you are in for a scare. Located in Paramus, near Bury the Hatchet, Monster Mini Golf offers a glow-in-the-dark, monster-themed, indoor mini golf course for your entertainment along with dozens of arcade games and mini bowling. There are roughly 30 Monster Mini Golf locations across the country.
Interestingly, so far I have received the most emails from readers recommending that I cover Monster Mini Golf. My wife, Ahuva, and I, and our friends Yari and Julie, visited Monster Mini Golf for the first time last week. We decided to go for the Terrific Trio combo package and played all three activities.
Monster Mini Golf definitely lives up to its name. The entrance to the course is a big arch with the word “cemetery” written across, a warning sign underneath stating “enter at your own risk,” and a little skeleton head on top for good (or bad) measure. There is also a sign with a QR code to scan, enabling us to keep score on our phones. I had never been to a mini golf place that had this feature, and I found that I very much preferred it over keeping score by pencil and paper since it was much easier and cleaner.
We entered the course area where I was immediately blown away by the attention to the detail of the adornments. Many holes had either monster drawings on the wall next to them, a scary decoration or even a full-sized robot monster. On one wall, there were depictions of a monster marketplace with stores including “Uberzombie Witch,” “Macey’s” (a mace is a type of medieval weapon) and “Worst Buy” with monsters running the shops. Another wall had cartoons of a court case between The Jersey Devil and The Big Apple monster. The cartoon jury included the Bride of Frankenstein, a monster version of Joe Torre, Bruce the Shark from the film Jaws and Jack from the movie The Shining.
In terms of robot monsters, one hole had a garbage can from which a monster would pop his head out every few minutes. Probably the most iconic animatronic monster was a giant hideous green ogre who was usually fast asleep and snoring loudly. Every once in a while, however, he would wake up, stand up to his full towering height, and declare that he wanted to eat all of us. It was a terrifying sight to behold! There were other monsters, too, including zombies, skeletons and evil jack-o’-lanterns.
Another distinct aspect of Monster Mini Golf is that the entire room is glow-in-the-dark, which accentuates the orange maze color, the monsters’ colors, the drawings on the wall, the putters, golf balls and even us! My peach shirt was radiating bright orange, while my teeth were shining blue! The actual perimeter of the course is relatively small, but these cleverly designed orange mazes made each hole trickier and lengthier.
Each of the holes had its own unique obstacles. Notably, the second hole had a spin-the-wheel, offering various outcomes that affected the first shot of the hole, sometimes to our advantage. Other times it could prove to make the hole quite challenging. First, Julie spun the wheel and got the mission to put her first stroke with the putter upside down. Then Ahuva spun, receiving a gift that if she would shoot a hole-in-one, she would actually get a 0 added to her score instead of a 1. Yari spun next, having to bowl his first putt by rolling the golf ball on the floor with two hands. Then I spun and obtained the hardest challenge of all. I had to choose an opponent to stand as an obstacle for my first stroke. I foolishly picked Yari who spread his body across the floor, thereby preventing me from putting in my shot. It was really funny, causing us to crack up at the absurdity of the challenges.
Many of the holes required putting the ball underneath a coffin, up a ramp, through a loop and even through a robotic tree that taunted us—yes, taunted us! One hole actually had a fan blowing wind at the ball, making it harder to score. The hardest hole for me was the cone-shaped hole where you had to hit the ball just hard enough that it got over a hill into the center of the cone, but not so hard that it went rolling down the other side. I ended up getting an 11 on that one, 7 over par! The last hole required us to putt the ball through an evil clown’s mouth (reminding us of the clown in the movie Happy Gilmore), and then the ball would track back to the reception area.
Besides the horrors of the course, which added to the thrill of an otherwise simple game, Monster Mini Golf played great pop music to keep us entertained. It had an amazing sound system with the latest hits, which enhanced our game play, enabling us to let loose and enjoy the game even more! In the end, once again Ahuva came in first place (I have yet to beat her in mini golf).
Following mini golf, we returned our putters and headed over to mini bowling. The mini bowling had two small lanes with 10 pins attached by wire to the bowling machine. The bowling ball was much smaller and lighter than typical bowling balls to account for the lane being much smaller. Game play consisted of five rounds of bowling. At first, we were unsure how to get started, so we tried scanning our cards twice. Eventually, it worked, and we had two players’ names on each screen, but the bowling timer is 30 seconds per turn, so we ended up missing a round of the game during the chaos of figuring out how to work the game. We told the cashier what happened, and he called the manager who gave us two extra game plays (we had originally purchased four—one for each of us).
Next, we headed over to the arcade. There was a mix of classic games such as Pacman, basketball hoops, whack-a-mole (Spongebob version), Space Invaders and skeeball, as well as some modern games such as The Walking Dead and Typhoon—a roller coaster simulator. Ahuva and I played on the coolest air hockey table we have ever seen. Each time a goal was scored, a camera from above that was recording the game would show an instant replay of the goal, all the while playing the sounds of a cheering audience and flashing lights. Then, the camera would switch to the person who got scored and show his or her defeated face. It felt almost like playing in an actual NHL game—just without the ice and jerseys. I also played the claw machine game, and to my surprise, ended up winning a Twizzler! I was ecstatic and leaped with joy! That was until Yari pointed out that on the machine it said “play-til-you-win,” making me realize my victory wasn’t such an accomplishment.
Our favorite game was Giant Hungry Hippos. The four of us each got to sit on our own hippo and had to pull a lever that opened the hippo’s mouth. Dozens of balls were released into a center bubble, and we had to time the opening of the hippo’s mouth with the ball being underneath for it to eat as many balls as possible. I did not do so well, with the hippo eating only four balls, compared to Yari who won with a score of 12 balls. At the end, we cashed in our tickets, purchased a deck of cards and a mini frisbee with which we played catch outside the store to cap off the evening.
Personally, I think Monster Mini Golf is the premiere indoor course in Bergen County. The course was clean; the monster decorations were gruesome, but fun; the music was great; and the course’s traps were challenging. The one downside of the course was the store’s small size, with a lot of walls to utilize the course’s available space, making it difficult for me to plant my feet. This made it tough to swing a decent putt and was frustrating at times.
The mini bowling was pretty fun but felt extremely rushed due to the quick turn-around time of 30 seconds per turn. For some reason, there was a game timer of 60 minutes, but that wouldn’t be possible if you multiply 30 seconds times five rounds times two players, which equals five minutes, so I am not sure why that timer was even there. Also, I was a little upset that our game didn’t work well the first time around. Overall though, I enjoyed the arcade games a lot, especially their advanced air hockey table. Buying the combo packages was definitely a good move since it was relatively inexpensive and provided a few hours of laughter and entertainment. I think Monster Mini Golf is ideally suited for middle-school-aged individuals but can be fun for all ages. I recommend taking a swing and heading on over there!
Hours: 2-9 p.m.
Address: 49 E. Midland Ave, Paramus, NJ 07652
Admission: 1 round of Mini Golf $13 per person; $12 per child; $10 for seniors, military, EMT, first responders, college students; $5.00 for five frames of mini bowling
Combos: Monstrous Mix for $19.00 a person, get one round of Mini Golf and a $10 Arcade Card; Terrific Trio for $22.00 a person, get one round of Mini Golf, five frames of mini bowling, and a $10 Arcade Card. Here is an exclusive coupon code for Jewish Link readers: enter “JL2OFF” at checkout in the “Apply Coupon” section to get $2 off when you purchase either combo package through Monster Mini Golf’s website. Code expires on 11/11/2022. It is only applicable to the two combo deals on Monster Mini Golf’s website and will expire 11/11.
Phone: 201-261-0032
Website: www.monsterminigolf.com/paramus
Zachary Greenberg is a health and benefits consultant analyst at Mercer and the TABC track coach. In 2019, Zachary was a resident advisor at Yeshiva University for Rubin floor 7. Additionally, he recently watched the classic horror film Jaws in 3-D at AMC Riverside. If you have any recommendations of fun places for Zachary to cover, please email him at [email protected].
