What to do in Kansas City 2014
 

I'll be goin to Kansas City during July for a soccer ID camp. But I don't know what to do there! I know there's gonna be giant waterslide opening, but what else?

Thanks for the support!

Baseball - either major league (Royals) or minor (T-Bones).

MLS - Sporting KC has just three home games in July

Many museums: Nelson-Atkins Art, National WW1 Museum, KC Jazz Museum, Negro Leagues Baseball in particular. The Steam Boat Arabia Museum may be the most unusual and memorable.

BBQ - KC is known for BBQ. Unlike many areas of the country where there is one BBQ dish in particular, there is a spectrum and the best place to go depends in part on what dishes you want. There is a lot of debate about which is the best. Gates & Arthur Bryants are the big old names. Oklahoma Joe's is the big new name. My favroites include Brobeck's, Quick's, LC's, Danny Edward's Boulevard and Jack Stack.

For night life, the Power Light District has a lot of activity and their are various venues around town for Blues & Jazz.

It's in a suburb of Kansas City, but this new museum just opened yesterday:

http://www.museumofpf.org/

Fish--if you post back with your interests and perhaps a date range, we can give you more specific recommendations.

Excellent post by Keith. Hard to add to it, but:

Country Club Plaza (dining/shopping). It's lost a little luster of late (due to competition by other upscale outside malls in the area) but it is still perhaps the cornerstone of the city as a whole.

Depending on the age of the kids, there is an interesting Miniature Museum on the campus of Univ. of Mo at KC (UMKC). Similarly, in Crown Center (another somewhat well known shopping area in downtown KC) there is an aquarium and a lego land. (I haven't visited; mixed reviews). A trip to Crown Center allows you to also shop and to walk through sky walks to the renovated Union Station, which has a theater (Imax?) and Science City, a kids' science museum which is worth a visit (again, depending on ages).

Of course, there is Worlds of Fun (amusement park) and Oceans of Fun and the Schlitterbahn (sp?) water parks.

These attractions are all over the city. You might clarify where you will be staying and/or look at a map to map out the most interesting of attractions. If you clarify your interests we might be able to drill down a bit.

There is a relatively recent thread started by me about KC pizza places. Look for that if interested.

(Always good to see a KC post, as I get to visit from time to time and it doesn't get much play here).

(I am not knocking your post (by omission) music fan! It wasn't posted yet when I drafted mine).

Out near the museum mentioned by music fan (who has helped me with KC questions) there is a "children's farmstead" that is good for younger children (Deanna Rose).

But musicfan's correct, before I started rambling further, please give some details about your interests and visit.

From a former Missourian: these of course come to mind: Country Club Plaza, Nelson Atkins Art Museum, Jazz Museum, WW I Museum, and of course BBQ.

Visit the National Aviation History Museum, or tour the Harley Davidson factory.

KC is the headquarters of Hallmark Cards, and there is a museum for that as well.

Kc is a great town.

Mark

@Bitter. Where are the new open air malls located?

The big waterslide opening is in Kansas City Kansas at the Schlitterbahn. The KC metro area is a pretty big geographic area. As others have asked, where are you going to be exactly? That, along with your interests, will help people give you good ideas.

japw: I'm thinking about Legends on 435 and i70 (west/Kansas side); Zona Rosa (sp?) up north; Town Center (Overland Park); And there is at least one over in MO, I think in the SE corner of the city (albeit technically in a suburb). I may be mistaken about where it is but I saw it on an online map and it reminded me of Zona Rosa.

And by "new" I mean compared to the Plaza. Not to mention the Power and Light has probably picked off some of the bar traffic that used to go to the Plaza and/or Westport, but that's only my speculation.

As a local, these malls come to mind; almost all are south and west of Kansas City in Johnson County, Kansas, a large and overall affluent collection of suburban communities:

--Town Center Plaza in Leawood
--Hawthorne Plaza in Leawood (emphasis on local stores)
--The Legends near the Speedway and soccer stadium in Kansas City, KS
--Park Place in Leawood, actually just across the street to the north from Town Center--not a great deal of shopping, but lots of restaurants
--Corbin Park in Overland Park, just a few blocks west of the new Prairie Fire Museum noted above--construction had just started on this mall when the recession hit so the whole project sat dormant for years, but it has a new owner and new stores and restaurants are opening all the time
--Prairie Fire in Leawood--mostly restaurants and entertainment-themed eateries to go along with the museum at this point I think--all brand-new or just about to open
--By October, Merriam, KS will have an IKEA store and everyone is excited about that

Hope the above has been helpful, japw82.

Also, to be accurate, the Toy and Miniature Museum noted in Bitter's post, which is excellent and quite fun is currently closed for a major remodeling and renovation effort.

@Bitter--happy to have been helpful in the past--hope you can make it back to KC soon!

Oops, Bitter--we were posting at the same time again! :)

Thanks for including Zona Rosa--I forgot about that one!

Thanks musicfan (and for the clarifications/corrections)! I think the area in MO I was referencing is in Lee Summit. Not sure if it is very interesting.

Off topic, but as for inside malls, I read that Metcalf South Macy's is or has closed which may be the final nail in that coffin, and yet Oak Park Mall and environs (a mile away) are going gangbuster!

Yes, there is a new-ish open air mall in Lee's Summit, and I have been out there once, but I don't think it would merit a special trip or anything.

You are correct--the Macy's at Metcalf South is now closed, along with almost everything else except Sears at the other end which they insist will stay open. The owners are trying to decide what to do with it as well as the property they own across the street to the north--most likely it will all be torn down and re-developed. Yet Oak Park Mall, several miles away, is booming--go figure.