Tampa’s Downtown On Ice

Located in Curtis Hixon Waterfront park and sandwiched between the park lawn, restrooms, dancing fountain and Children Museum is a long white tent housing Tampa’s Downtown on Ice.
Have you ever been ice skating at one of these portable venues? They can be hit or miss, but thankfully this one is a hit. Not quite as large as some seasonal ice skating venues, but still acceptable and reasonably priced. Our kids were able to skate for several hours @ a cost of $ 12 per person. They say you are only allowed 90 minutes, but they don’t seem to keep tab. Either that or it was of no concern since it was not very busy.
However, the one thing they really need to work on (and this goes for all rinks like this) is the EPIC foot odor that comes from the skates and skate storage area. It is a germaphobic nightmare and I personally took the liberty of diagnosing several people with athlete’s feet!
The stank emanating from those skates had me running outside for air, thus I didn’t bother skating myself and took my kids sock off and burned them afterwards! They were not getting anywhere near our vehicle with shocks that smelled like those dang skates! I wanted to take them over to the fountain just outside the tent to wash and bleach their feet, but my wife said I was going to far with my germaphobia!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Cheap entertainment, so why not… but bring a tub of antibacterial gel to rub on your feet and hands afterwards. Oh, and bring disposable socks and a torch!
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We take my nephews here every year and they love it. Prices are reasonable but the set up is very chaotic. They get very busy on the weekends and let a lot of people on the ice at once so you have no option but to skate in a circle with the flow of traffic or else you will run into someone or they will run into you.
Once you pay, they will give you skates but they do not hold your shoes. There are very few benches for the amount of people here on the weekends so you will have to wait your turn to sit to put your skates on and stash your belongings wherever you can find a spot where they won’t get stepped on.
It is located at Curtis Hixon park at the front of the park. The holiday décor in the park is beautiful at night and worth a stop even if you don’t end up skating.