Malibu Castle Golf & Games

Cute fun throwback to childhood place? check.
Fun date spot? check.
Exciting mini courses? not check!
I think this is a cute spot if you just want to have an easy breezy day of mini-​golfing and arcade games. I wouldn’t go for the type of crowd there but the type of crowd you’re with.
I personally didn’t like each course and thought it could have been designed more excitingly.

Malibu closed down? Now where am I gonna get time in at the batting cages, or make good on my mini-​golfing trash-​talk?
Seriously — I can’t find another mini-​golf course on the peninsula! What am I gonna do now? Take up real golf? Yeah, right … like that’s gonna happen, LOL.
Oh well. Five stars now, for the nostalgia of days gone by. Like way back in elementary school, when I went to some friend’s birthday party here. It was pouring rain, so we couldn’t do go-​karts or mini-​golf or anything outside, but at least we could still run around inside and play video games — until the power went out! But that didn’t faze us too much, because then we played hide-​and-​seek in the darkened arcade! It must have been the biggest and scariest game of hide-​and-​seek that I ever played, hiding behind pinball machines with thunder and lightning outside, because I remember all of that, but I don’t have a clue who’s birthday party it was!

Everything will be missed except for that one rude lady who works behind the counter. Forgot her name but you definitely can’t miss her.
After waiting in line over 30 minutes she wanted to skip me and said to wait for another worker because she knew the lady who was AFTER me. I don’t need to go into detail about what happened but it was the most disgusting display of customer service ever!

I wouldn’t come here again. The food lines at arcade were long. The golf course needs a little maintenance. But the employees are on a different level.
They were rude and didn’t seem to care about customers. One employee actually got mad while working at the water ride with the bumper boats because she was splashed with water. On top of that, She almost got physical with the person. Then she walked away from the booth while the line was full so that made the wait a little longer then it should have.
The only thing that made the day okay was the batting cages. They are pretty fun by themselves but they too need some maintenance

I’m only in it for the batting cages. And the last time I was there (two weekends ago? three?), they only had TWO BATS available for everyone. TWO. DID YOU HEAR ME? WHAT THE HELL, GUYS?
They said that people keep stealing them. Which sucks. But then so does putting 20 into the token machine and then not being able to enjoy it because a family of four showed up right after you and they are staring with longing at you and your bat, waiting for their turn.
BRING YOUR OWN BAT and it’ll be fine I guess.

Although my loyalty leans towards Scandia when it comes to mini golf, I’ve visited Malibu twice in the last month. It may or may not of been the free vouchers I have. Nevertheless, it’s mini golf and most courses are the same with a castle here and a hole there. The first thing you’ll notice about Malibu is how run down it is and that seems to be the number one complaint as well. It seems like management just doesn’t care to fix the course, with some of the holes being in terrible condition. If I were to compare it to Scandia, I’d say Scandia is much better without a doubt, both in terms of games, the course, and the overall ‘fun’ atmosphere it’s supposed to project.
I’m not sure if Malibu’s big draw is the go-​karts because the track is across the parking lot. Granted it does look rather large so this may be Malibu’s bread and butter. Nevertheless, I come for golf and I haven’t left disappointed and that’s merely because my expectations are low, much like the Griswolds in National Lampoons Vacation. Malibu does have everything you’d expect, such as a go-​kart track, mini-​golf course, batting cages, bumper boats, and of course, an arcade. Would I come back? Sure, if there’s no good movies in theaters. $ 8 for adults and $ 5 for kids.
Pros:
+ 2 mini-​golf courses
+ Cheap ($ 8)
+ Large arcade
+ Batting cages
+ Bumper boats
+ Go-​karts
Cons:
— No difficult hole 18 like Scandia w/​free game reward
— Gold course traffic if it’s busy

«Welcome to the Future. I’ve gotta tell you, this place is excellent. The water is clean, the air is clean, even the dirt is clean. Bowling averages are way up, mini golf scores are way down. And, we have more excellent waterslides then any planet we communicate with.» — Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
So I’ve now been here for 2 birthday parties… once for my niece 2 and a half years ago and now for my nephew. Unfortunately, while the facility «has everything here» as my nephew puts it, they need help with staffing.
We reserved the party room for the pizza and cake portion of the party for 15 kids and a smattering of adults. Of the 4 pizzas we ordered, only 3 were brought to us. Immediately, we informed the girl of the problem, and she said she would handle it. We also got some pitchers of sodas, but asked for a pitcher of water. After 15 minutes, still no missing pizza or pitcher of water. So I went to the snack stand and got us a pitcher of water (all the other drinks had been consumed by the kids). The head girl (no clue of her name) came back to «check on us,» and we informed her — still no pizza. «oh they didn’t bring it?» she asked. 5 to 10 minutes later, in came the pizza and another pitcher of water. This is where they lost all of their stars.
On to the arcade games. The kids ran amok with tokens and had a blast. Self-​entertainment works for 8 year olds, so this is a plus for the grown ups. However, some of the games were not properly dispensing tickets and were eating tokens, so the kids were getting frustrated.
We moved on to the bumper boats. Since only 11 boats were working and we had 15 kids, they had to go in 2 shifts — no big deal. The kids had a blast chasing each other in the water and squirting each other — always a hit.
Finally, there was the mini golf. Again, off the kids ran to play on the different courses. I will say that a couple of places, things were broken and they need to be fixed (half a star taken off here).
None of the kids were tall enough for the race cars — maybe in a couple of years. But if you are going to do birthday parties, be attentive as they are NOT cheap.

I had a bright idea to come here with my two year old and the kids for New Years Eve since we really don’t celebrate. Big mistake. Not Malibu’s fault but rather mine for thinking my son would cooperate while holding a golf club. LOL
This is going to be great when he is older. Miniature golf is really fun as is driving those go carts! Make sure you look for deals on line before you come here and get robbed in the arcade!

BATTING CAGES — favorite place to whack some baseballs. Open air. Only $ 2 for 15 pitches. :)
MINI GOLF — ehh went thru course 3? Not very creative. It was essentially the same for all the holes. A lollipop shape straight on or bent. Not as many variations as it is at Golfland (Milpitas) with the up down trap doors, portal holes, volcano, platforms, and final hole into the dragon’s lair with possible chance for a prize. The Malibu final hole was confusing, like a skiball thing with multiple retries. Also, this putt-​putt course didn’t have little table tops to write on the score card. ³⁄₄

Want to be a kid again but don’t have the time to fly to Disneyland? Come here! Malibu is perfect for the kid in you. Practice becoming the next Tiger and play round of mini golf, combat aggression at the batting cages, indulge in your need for speed at the Grand Prix go-​karts, and if you thought bumper cars were fun… try bumper boats!

I always passed by this place on the freeway! Finally got to go!
$ 7.99 for an adult to play mini golf
(+) the last hole (#18) doesn’t eat your golf ball so feel free to entertain yourself there bc I know I did! Ahah
(+) the coolest hole was the one with the cave aha spent a while there just taking pictures (located in course 1 and 3)
(-) there’s 3 different courses but the holes are pretty much the same and gets a bit repetitive…
(-) some holes have unexpected inclines that messes up the shot!

This place would be fun for kids, but all that we adults saw was a run-​down-​ish fun center in an industrial area right by Hwy 101 — there are a lot of things to do here, but the facility looks old.
If you’re bringing someone here and you want them to get a good impression of the place, bring them in from the «castle» building’s front entrance. We didn’t realize this front entrance existed, so we parked at the Grand Prix entrance, and that was pretty underwhelming.
A huge selection of games inside. Batting cages (with many speeds & your choice of either baseballs or softballs). Mini golf. Bumper boats. If you walk across the way to the other building, you can also do go-​karting.

Ah to be 15 again and in lurve…
My husband and I had a date night here when it struck us that we never went here while actually dating! Well it was just as I remember it being. Crowded with amped up suger crazed kids trying to trade in their tickets for a toy that will fall apart in two days. Parents trying to find their children/​calm their children down/​given up and sat down.
Mini golf was our destination. After what seemed like an amusement park line up to get our golf clubs and balls we got to the front to meet a young woman who was slower than those turtles in the DSL commercial. It took eons.
The courses… well…nothing has changed except that everything is well… the same. Sort of. The courses are old. The greenery has bumps and «stuff» in it causing my professional mini golf career to tank.
The batting cages was also on the list of fun. The cages were old. The bats were even older. And I have a very strong fear that lice will be caught by those helmets shared by all. Grosssss
All in all. It was a nice time reminiscing but for sure they have to step up their game (s)!

It should probably be renamed ghetto golf but it’s still a lot of fun.
It’s right next to the freeway, the courses are on the shoddy side, and my date’s golf ball got stuck in some trash.
My recommendation: Bring four lokos and you’ll have a great time.

$ 10 TUESDAYS!
If I were a kid still, I’d probably be more excited. They have specials all over the internet for each day and this is the one that coincidentally was happening when we visited Malibu.
The ‘$ 10 Tuesdays’ deal is basically all you can play buffet of video games as long as you want. Play until your trigger finger is numb or your eyes bleed. Since those things I just mentioned do not sound appealing at all, I decided not to do it. Also, there were not a lot of arcade games that fit my fancy. If you were to want the deal though, all you had to do was pay $ 10 and you’ll get a wristband to let the workers know that you’re a member of the all play all you can for the day club. A lot of the arcades choices were pretty old, which also encompassed the arcades in the other building. This $ 10 special doesn’t include the ticket yielding games where you can earn prizes. That actually would be stupendous.
Since electing to pass on the video games, Bun and I started our escapades of miniature golf. We spent a great deal of time playing, touring through all the multiple routes you can take (three all together I believe). Bun loves the miniature golf; that is until she starts to lose. She does perform well time to time and I do make it ultra competitive. I can’t help it though. I have that competitive blood in me. Upon her reading this, I know I will get a phone call to debate this topic. Yes, I purposely lose some of the holes, so she won’t get peed off sometimes. There I said it! At end of it though, it was great fun. Alas, the evidence is gone as I left the scorecard in my pocket upon washing my jeans.
Available as well at the castle side of Malibu are batting cages, bumper boats, and an eating area inside the «castle». The batting cages were full, scratch that. Thoughts of water squirted at me by an eleven year old didn’t sound too fun, so we skipped on the bumper boats. Since we ate before driving over, there was no need of partaking in the Chuckie Cheese equivalent of pizza they serve. Kid’s birthdays and other parties were happening at the time.
The course itself is OK, it’s not the best miniature golf course I’ve been to. Maintenance is the most important thing when it comes to quality of enjoyment for places like this. So the quality of enjoyment was fine. It was definitely not spectacular.
The best part of Malibu are their race cars; a review to be left for «Malibu Grand Prix». I have no clue why they’re split into two on Unilocal,but I’ve decided to split my review into two as well.

TO BE CONTINUED… (At «Malibu Grand Prix»)

We came here as a date night idea to play putt putt golf… and engage in some healthy competition in our relationship. Needless to say Hubster’s beat me and I proceeded to go home and cry. Actually, I didn’t go home and cry… I just had to pick up the dinner bill!
The facilities are fairly dated and the courses weren’t that challenging. The frustrating parts were the torn astroturf which made the putting really hard. Maintenance clearly needs to be done but we had more fun joking around and coming up with silly bets between us.

For $ 7.99 a round of mini-​golf, a pink ball and 20 tokens for the arcade, I was sure to have fun!
I have been to Malibu before but I’ve never done mini golf ever in my life (I know I know, I’m so lame) so I was excited.
The place has 18 interesting courses. I had two 6 scores on my sheet but who’s really counting. The whole idea is to let loose and have a good time. I had a hole in one on the last course which was an awesome finish. This activity is good with company of course. Be it your friends, co-​workers, family or the kids.
Other activities outside are the boat ride and the batting cages. There is a covered area for tables and chairs, great for birthday parties or just to eat after or before your activity.
The arcade was huge. I can’t believe how much cool stuff they have on there to play for wins. Like the iPAD, hello? The thing is, with the expensive stuff, it did not have instructions posted, yeah that was the catch. You have to spend time figuring out how to play the game and by the time you do, time is up. So I like the Dance dance revo and the basketball. And the tickets of course to exchange for those prizes they have.
Great for kids and the kid at heart.

It’s hard for me to get excited about Malibu, though it is close to home and my kids enjoy it. It seems far too expensive for such a run down place, and I haven’t really found an activity I love here. (But I have yet to check out the racing car course next door).
Bumper boats — The best activity on a hot day, since you have a powerful squirt gun built into the controls. But it’s about $ 8 a person for 5 minutes of play. Yeesh.
Mini golf — Old, cement courses covered in various bright hues of astroturf. Looks like it was built in the 80’s. My kids typically get bored half way through and want to do something else. More money well spent…
Batting cages — Not bad, though there is a limited choice of helmets and bats to choose from, and you can’t reserve any half-​hour slots on the weekend.
Arcade games — Way too many of the «games of chance» style, where odds are against winning big, and the machines spit out tickets for fabulous, crappy, plastic prizes. There are only a few other games of interest, including a few driving simulators and one or two über-​violent shooting games. I’m a former videogame arcade loiterer, but I’ve never found many games that appealed to me here.
2.5 stars for being mildly better than Chucky Cheese.

Fun? Yeah, but.. .
COME ON GUYS! MAINTAIN THE DAMNED PLACE!!! All of the golf courses are wearing down with ripped turf, chipped paint, and dead areas where the golf ball just sinks into depressions. Don’t get me wrong – I like this place and I don’t mind spending some money to come here and have quality time with my family. But, the place is just starting to look run down and worn. The arcade and food are typical for the genre.
This place needs a renovation – and badly. They don’t have to shut down the whole place at one time – just do it in pieces. Update it – take out the worn crap and replace it with something new that doesn’t look like it’s been sitting in the elements for 30 years.
It’s the only miniature golf around, and for that reason, I’ll keep going here. If they renovate and modernize their place, I’ll go more often.

Definitely not the worst place I’ve ever been but it’s pretty run down.
*The few adult video games they had were fine.
*The mini-​golf wasn’t all that challenging.
*The food was mediocre but I was surprised to see beer on the menu.
*Prizes seemed cooler than those at Dave & Busters but the ones we got didn’t work.
*Loved the batting cages although one didn’t work at all and another was spitting two softballs out at a time.
*The bumper boats didn’t seem entertaining enough to even try.
Overall, it was a good place to waste a few hours.