Super Bowl Live at Discovery Green... with Kids!

Super Bowl Live is open!

I was tempted to stay home and avoid the crowds... but my friend reminded me that if we don't have to fight traffic and parking, the crowds really don't bother us. So, we gathered up 6 kids and took METRORail to Discovery Green!

We went on a weekday, right after school... and I'm glad we ventured out to the Super Bowl LI activities!

Here are some tips if you head to Discovery Green this week:

• Super Bowl Live is FREE.
• No big bags and no outside food is allowed inside. See the rules HERE. (Parents have reported that they could take in food for babies and toddlers but not anything else.)
• Take the train! If you ride the Red Line to Main Street Station or the Purple/Green line to the Convention District, you are within a few blocks of the park.
• Riding the train is EASY and only $1.25 for people over 5. See how to ride  HERE. (Also, this is free through February 1.)
• We parked in the museum district and took the red line to Main Street Station. (On the way back, we also took the purple/green line from the Convention District to the red line at Central Station... but this took longer than just walking back to the red line!)
• If you drive, a lot of streets are closed. The best bet is to park on the west side of downtown and walk or take one of the shuttles.
• Super Bowl Volunteers are everywhere. They are along the train lines, on the walk to the park and all over the park.
• Discovery Green is a little hard to recognize! The splashpad is covered up, there are giant tents, stages and structures everywhere. It took me a few minutes to get oriented in the park I visit every single week.
• There is live entertainment, space booths, food trucks, football games, TV stations broadcasting live and more.
• We spent most of our time in Future Flight... and it is very interactive and very educational. We launched a rocket, took a bus ride on Mars and even "rode" the space ship through virtual reality goggles. There are lots of Super Bowl volunteers here, plus employees from NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin (and others) to answer questions. This section was a lot like a museum visit.
• The Mars ride, that "drops" you from space, is very popular... and even 15 minutes after opening, the line was 1.5 hours long.  BUT, the best tip we got was to just wear the goggles! Right at the entrance of the ride, there is a spot to just wear the goggles and headphones and take the trip. There was hardly any line for this... plus my 5 year old could do it (and he was too short for the ride).
• There are booths that are selling merchandise, but we skipped all that.  In the Future Flight area, after looking at the rovers and building rockets (and more), we got several free items... a little astronaut, a rubberband powered rocket and sunglasses.
• The playground and ice rink are open. And my kids were determined to play on the playground that they play on all the time.
• You could walk all over east Downtown at Discovery Green Live... but we stayed close to the Discovery Green playground and space booths.
• Food truck prices are set by the Super Bowl and expect to pay about $10 per person. We just got drinks... and these were $4.
• I bet Discovery Green will get more and more busy as we get to Sunday. If you can go right at opening and during the week, you might have the best luck. On Monday at 3:00pm there were a lot of people, but it was easy to watch the kids.
• The kids we brought were 5, 7, 9 and 10 (and the baby).
• We just stayed 2 hours, but we could have stayed all night. There were concerts and light shows that we missed!

Have you been? Send us your tips!

I am glad we went to experience the Houston Super Bowl celebration... but if it's not for you, don't worry! For more Super Bowl weekend activities... including non-Super-Bowl events, go HERE!