Male-Bonding Activities in the DC Area

August 23, 2006 10:11 AM

What would be a fun group activity for a bunch of thirtysomething guys in the Washington, DC area in the first week of October? It's for a bachelor party, but don't let that restrict the kind of thing you suggest. The groom has a quirky sense of humor. He loves videogames, movies, and kitschy pop culture stuff.To give you an idea, Dinosaur Kingdom would be perfect if it were closer to the metro DC area.

We've got the whole day, so daytime and evening activities are both fine.

By the way, I've read the other AskMe threads on bachelor parties, so I have a lot of good general ideas. I'm hoping for DC-specific suggestions.

That aid, I'd rather have too many suggestions than too few, so all ideas--however half-baked they may be--are welcome.

posted by yankeefog to sports, hobbies, & recreation (10 comments total)

Oops. I just discovered this thread--I searched the "bachelor" tag, but not the "bachelorparty" tag.

Erm. Well. Any ideas not already covered in the previous thread?
posted by yankeefog at 10:20 AM on August 23, 2006

I think an outing to either a bowling alley or to Dave & Buster's might be the sort of thing you're looking for.
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:28 AM on August 23, 2006

Lucky Strike might be a fun place to go drinking/bowling. But beware, that place is ridiculously overpriced.
posted by echo0720 at 10:38 AM on August 23, 2006

The Renaissance Festival should meet your need for "quirky".

And as long as bowling has been mentioned, let me just say that I bowled a 190 (six strikes in a row) and a 178 (seven spares and two strikes) last night.
posted by poppo at 10:52 AM on August 23, 2006

I'm not sure if it'd be big-fun enough for a bachelor party, but one of the few places I really miss in Washington is Bedrock Billiards in Adams Morgan. Really funky bar-vibe, great beer, wonderful jukebox.

And then if it were me, I'd go to the zoo, because that's the other place I miss in Washington and it's just down the street.
posted by occhiblu at 10:53 AM on August 23, 2006

Are some/most of you golfers, or at least capable of enjoying yourself driving balls? Top Golf in Alexandria is fun if you get even the remotest joy from the driving range.
posted by phearlez at 11:08 AM on August 23, 2006

If you want to do something extremely original, the wider D.C. metro area is an incomparable location for a scavenger hunt-type game.

Prior to 9/11 you might have been able to do this with clues to the succeeding target at each location. Given recent events, however, as well as it being the D.C. Metro area, cryptic notes stuffed in envelopes are invitation to police response.

A good way around this is to give teams the name of a Metro stop, a restaurant within a few blocks of said stop, and a menu item served at said restaurant. The challenge at each stop would be to relay to the game coordinator via cellular telephone the exact price of the menu item, garnered from the menus posted at the door of most pedestrian restaurants.

Upon hearing the correct amount (to encourage team cohesion, the game coordinator could accept such calls from only one authorized cellular phone per team), the game coordinator would relay the next Metro stop (Bethesda on the Red Line!), eatery (Black's Bar & Kitchen!), and menu item (Soup of the Day!) to the team.

Of course, there are several ways this game can be reverse-engineered, from using a mobile Internet browser to simply 411ing the telephone number and asking an employee.

So if you're concerned about the honesty of the participants, you may need to modify questions/answers accordingly.
posted by The Confessor at 11:47 AM on August 23, 2006

You could all go run the Upper Gauley. It's a really fun pool-drop river (Class 5) in West Virginia that only runs during the fall as it's dam release. It's a great section of white water, which I've only run in a kayak, but I'm sure it's a blast in a raft. The above link is just to point to what I'm talking about, I don't know anything about that company or their trips.
posted by OmieWise at 11:54 AM on August 23, 2006

If you like kitschy pop culture, and you have access to a car, Perils of the Lost Jungle might be your answer.
posted by commander_cool at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2006

Thanks for the great suggestions, everybody. I'll pass them all on to my fellow party organizers.
posted by yankeefog at 10:14 AM on August 24, 2006