Get Out Pass for Epic Field Trip Fun

This post is sponsored by getoutpass.com. All opinions will forever remain our own.

Homeschool Field Trips – A Beloved Pass Time

Everybody loves field trips.

As a public school student, I lived for the days we could go on a field trip. Unfortunately, we were so busy spending time in desks writing and reading and calculating that we didn’t get to take nearly as many field trips as I would have liked.

That is one of the things I vowed to do differently in my homeschool.

Our family tries to go on at least one homeschool field trip a week. Quite often, we find the time to do more.

And even though I can honestly say my children love just about everything about being homeschooled, they would still say field trips are their favorite part of the week.

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Making Homeschool Field Trips Affordable

Unfortunately, going on adventures as a family gets expensive. Especially for those of us with bigger families.

Related: Large Family Homeschooling Tips

A lot of cities offer free and discounted field trip opportunities for homeschoolers. If you can find these deals, it can make a big difference in your field trip budget.

But eventually, those free and discounted options get boring.

So what’s a mom to do?

The secret to fun-filled field trips for days is a family membership pass. One price gets you a year’s worth of fun. Who could say no to that?

And with Christmas right around the corner…what better gift could you give your kids than the promise of regular field trips for an entire year?

Related: Family Experience Gift Ideas

I will be writing this article from the perspective of a homeschooling family living in UTAH. But keep in mind, there are currently 9 Get Out Pass locations – with more being added regularly! Make sure you check the website to find a location near you!

Get Out Pass Locations

NOTE – Get Out Pass is available in more locations than just Utah. And they are adding more regularly! Check their website to see if there is a location near you!

Currently, families all over the United States are happily enjoying their very own annual pass to family friendly venues.

As of February 2020, the following states have participating venues:

States with a Get Out Pass

• Get Out Pass Utah
• Get Out Pass Colorado
• Get Out Pass Sacramento
• Get Out Pass Washington
• Get Out Pass Idaho
• Get Out Pass Tennessee
• Get Out Pass Nebraska
• Get Out Pass Oregon
• Get Out Pass Washington D.C.
• Get Out Pass Cinncinati
• Get Out Pass Cleveland
• Get Out Pass Columbus
• Get Out Pass Indianapolis
• Get Out Pass Louisville

With more locations being added all the time, be sure to check back often to see what new fun places there are to play.

Get Out Pass Utah Review

We have tried several family membership passes in Utah over the years. Some we loved and enjoyed for many many months. Some were absolute duds and a complete waste of money (think pass of all passes in Provo).

But only one has given us so many field trip and family fun day options that we wondered if we would even have enough time to do everything!

The Get Out Pass.

My honest review of the Get Out Pass is this: I have been decently happy.

There are many options and participating venues. Even as homeschoolers, we’re going to be hard-pressed to find time for absolutely everything on this list. That being said, these venues have limited hours that they accept Get Out Pass people so even though we’ve had this pass for over a year, we haven’t even gotten to half of the options because of scheduling conflicts.

Know that you will have a hard time getting to everything, even if your schedule is flexible. This could be good or bad. However, if you don’t go to enough places to make your pass worth it financially, Get Out Pass will automatically takes the price difference between what you ‘spent’ vs what your next pass would cost and credits it towards your next year’s renewal. Theoretically, this means you will always get your money’s worth.

At the time of writing this, just a few of the participating venues include:

• Lagoon
• Cowabunga Bay (one of Utah’s fun water parks)
• Brighton Ski Resort
• Fat Cats (multiple locations)
• Cherry Peak Summer Concert Series
• Bricks and Minifigs
• Trampoline Parks (including but not limited to Jump Around Utah)
• Escape Rooms
• Indoor Rock Climbing Walls
• Laser Tag
• Dart Tag Arenas (such as Dart Nation)
• Bowling
• Swimming
• SeaQuest Aquarium
• Kayak Rental
• GoKarts (think FastKart)
• Weapons and Shooting arenas (such as Axe Utah)
• Virtual Experience games
• AND MORE!!! All with one pass!

We try to use our annual pass at a fun-filled venue at least once a week and we have not even come close to hitting up all of the available venues. We use our passes for family fun days, parent-child dates, couples dates, homeschool field trips, and physical education.

The Get Out Pass Pros and Cons

While the Get Out Passes are a great resource for a lot of families, there are some pros and cons you should be aware of before committing financially.

These pros and cons might differ for other families in other situations. But here are our family’s Get Out Pass pros and cons.

Get Out Pass Pros

• Ages that can play – Different venues target different age groups. This means whether we want a family fun day, a couple’s date, or an activity with only a few of the kids, there is usually a venue available for that day’s plans!
• Flexible options – There are so many ways to use your Get Out Pass! We use these to reward the kids for working hard or accomplishing something. We also use them for one-on-one dates with our kids. They are so versatile!
• Try something new – Having these Get Out Passes has given us the opportunity to try new things we have always been nervous to try before, due to not wanting to waste any money. Now if we hate it, who cares! And if we love it, we know we are happy to spend money to come back another day.  And there are so many fun things to do at all these exciting venues all over your state!  The Utah pass has free admission to venues in Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, and Weber, counties, plus Logan and St. George cities.

Get Out Pass Cons

• Available times – Each venue chooses its own available time for users to use their passes. Most venues only have Monday through Thursday available. This is fine if you have more than just weekends available to play. Just something to keep in mind. Other venues only have Saturdays available. Don’t plan on using your pass on the same day of the week all year long.
• Ages that can play – If you have teeny kids (think 4 and under) plan on utilizing a babysitter for at least half of your family outings. But don’t worry too much! There are plenty of options that are accommodating for younger kids – just not everything on the list!
• Checking for usage – You can only check and see if you have visited a particular venue on the say that venue is typically available. For example: if you can’t remember which members of your family went to play laser tag last week, and laser tag is only available on Fridays, you have to wait until the next Friday to see which family members can still visit that venue.
• Discontinued Venues – Sometimes a venue you are excited about gets removed before you had a chance to visit.  Like Funtopia for example.  We were going to go to Funtopia for probably 2 months and finally found a time to visit and they had been pulled from the pass the week before.  We were pretty disappointed.  This doesn’t happen all the time, but I would still recommend going to your favorite places first, just in case.  
• Some Additional Fees – Some venues, such as the trampoline parks or bowling alleys, might require additional fees (specialty socks or shoes for example).  But this is not really a deal-breaker because your annual pass still gets you so much more savings than any other pass we’ve tried.  It’s just something to be aware of.

All in all, I highly recommend this pass. (And that’s the honest truth!)

The Perfect Solution For Homeschool PE

Utah is a state that is filled with – well, with weather!

The summers are hot and the winters are cold.

Utah is a beautiful place to live, but sometimes (okay, a lot of times) we just don’t want to be outside!

So how are we supposed to get any semblance of homeschool physical education in our children’s lives with all this weather?

Free play in the yard is great! But some families are looking for a better solution to their homeschool PE conundrum.

Today’s homeschool PE hack is this – a lot of the activities included in the Get Out Pass are indoors and physical. And the ones that are outdoors are so much fun, you won’t even mind the weather. (Skiing, anyone?)

If you’re looking into getting a Get Out Pass for your family, you can kiss your physical education worries goodbye. You’ve now got your entire Homeschool PE Curriculum planned for the entire year.

Unlock Homeschool Field Trips with a Get Out Pass Utah Membership

I hope this article has been useful for you. I also hope your year is filled with some spectacular homeschool field trips!

Until next time,
Happy Learning!

Free Bonus Printable – Get Out Pass Venue Entry Tracker

One hurdle I’ve encountered with my Get Out Pass is keeping track of where I’ve been and which family member have used the pass at which time.

There is a handy section of the website where (once you’ve logged in) you can see what offers are still available to you. But what happens when only a few pass-holders go to the venue in question?

For example – let’s say some family members go on a daddy/daughter date to a particular venue. Then a few weeks (or months) later, other family members want to go on a mommy/son date. Or just a few siblings want to go somewhere and the adults want to go another time.

The website makes it easy to keep track of whole-family venues still available. The sign-in section of the website makes it easy to sort venues to date you want to visit and what county you are in that day. It is also easy to see, as a group, which locations have already been used as a group.

But I wanted a way to, at a glance, know which places had been visited on an individual basis.

So I made a printable tracking sheet! And because I love you wonderful readers, I am sharing it with you.

This digital sheet allows you to keep track of which family member used his/her pass at which time. That way nobody misses out on any of the fun!

This tracker is not perfect. I will do my best to keep it up to date but I will say right now that I am not perfect. If I missed a venue (either because it is new or it is no longer participating) or if a venue changes the frequency of allowed visits, I sincerely apologize.

Currently, there is an available tracker for both the Utah and Idaho locations.

Download your tracker now! No opt-in required.

As per the Get Out Pass website, the venues and their offerings are subject to change.

I will do all that I can to keep on top of this list. But something is better than nothing, right?

And because it is digital, feel free to edit it as you see fit.

I hope this tracker helps you as much as it has helped me!

Free Coupon Booklet For Get Out Pass Venues

We have been testing out a few of the available Utah venues with our kids in super-stealth-mode. Why? Because we plan on breaking the news about the Get Out Pass as a super fun, epic Christmas gift!

Our kids will each receive a copy of a Get Out Pass venue coupon booklet on Christmas morning. They’ll be able to flip through and see all of their fun options. They’ll be able to turn in coupons whenever they want to go somewhere new!

They are going to be so excited! I can hardly wait!

Now let me tell you, this coupon booklet was a pain in the booty to make! Wow. That was not a quick 5-minute project to say the least. (I spent 2 whole days on it!)

To save you the same agony I had to go through, I am offering a free copy of my Utah Get Out Pass coupon booklet to my VIP subscriber list.

To get your booklet, click on this link and fill out the form! In the resource library, you will find the coupon booklet under the travel section (Use the handy table of contents to jump.)

At this time, I only have a booklet available for Utah pass holders. If you want me to make a booklet for another state, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do. (What can I say? I’m always happy to serve you!)

Use this booklet when you gift your kids their new Get Out Pass! Or just use it to help kids visually see their available venue options.

Enjoy!

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How To Unlock Homeschool Field Trips with a Get Out Pass Membership