Last night my family and I went to play Pixar Putt – the traveling mini golf course themed after various Pixar movies!
It was pretty expensive for mini golf at $30 a person, but as a family of Disney lovers we had to give it a try while it was in town. Here are the things we felt were most important to know for anyone considering taking their own family for a round of Pixar mini golf.
The Holes in Pixar Putt Are Unexpectedly Difficult
So most of the holes at Pixar Putt were actually quite difficult, and not in a fun challenging way.
The first hole we played was themed after the recent movie Lightyear (2022). It involved hitting your ball up a curved ramp underneath a spaceship as Buzz Lightyear’s cat/robot Sox watched on the side. Sox was not impressed with our performance. While one person in our group managed to take the ramp, the other four of us struggled around a bend of unnecessary obstacles on the lower level just to get in the vicinity of the hole.
They were more difficult or at least equally challenging from there. Don’t even get me started on the Lightning McQueen one…
The Holes and the Flags Inside Them
At the course we played on, the holes themselves were incredibly cheap. I know, how can you make a hole cheap? It’s just a hole.
Each hole at Pixar mini golf had a metal marker flag inside the physical hole, this was fine. But the poles were so thick that, many times, they would keep the ball from going in. The ball would get stuck between the edge of the hole and the metal flag and physically not be able to fall in.
That’s when the flag was set up perfectly center and straight and didn’t just bounce your ball away from the hole completely.
If your ball did manage to fall in the hole, it was unnecessarily difficult to get it out! The person with the smallest hands had to fish around between the metal flag into some kind of shallow basket that created an uncomfortable lip underneath the hole itself. But at least reaching in was better than your ball falling out the bottom of the poorly constructed platform and bouncing away down the pavement.
It was a surprisingly poor design, showing a clear lack of effort. Maybe due to its need to relocate from city to city? Still a real experience killer.
Pixar Mini Golf had Poor Overall Hole Design
Speaking of poor design, the actual holes were very poorly designed for actual mini golf play. Certainly the movie themes were adorable and the music was fun, but the course was only half playable. The sides of each hole were so low it was incredibly easy to hit your ball off course. A few holes, like one featuring the pelican and seagulls from Finding Nemo (2003), were made out of hard wooden boards instead of “golf green” which made it hard to direct your ball anywhere.
Each hole had a tee up area marked by the Pixar star ball, but sometimes the area was so small or so close to the edge of the platform each hole was constructed on, there was truly no room to stand when setting up your swing.
We lost interest on a few holes after the course itself got in the way of a reasonable number of strokes. I’m not sure how young kids could have the patience to play on a course like this.
The staff was constantly fetching stray balls from underneath the platform of adjacent holes, so clearly it was not just us.
In the end we still managed to have a good time because we were together and we enjoyed the movie details, but the whole thing was surprisingly cheap for something with Pixar’s brand plastered on it. It certainly carried Pixar’s price tag.
Also there were three Toy Story (1995) themed holes and none for Brave (2012), so this Princess Merida fan was miffed.
Check out Pixar Putt’s website to see if it’s coming to a town near you. Maybe you’d like to try it for yourself! Let us know if you have a better experience.