I had a chance to visit Skyline Park, a rooftop amusement park in downtown Atlanta. Skyline Park is perched on the roof of Ponce City Market, just east of downtown Atlanta, and draws inspiration from a former amusement park on the site 100 years ago. At Skyline you’ll find a slide, Heege Tower, roller skating, carnival games, food and spectacular views. The staff here is also noticeably excellent and their professional service is part of the nostalgia vibe you feel all over Skyline Park. My 9 year old son and I spent over 3 hours here and both found it to be great fun and a good value.

Ponce City Market is a complete entertainment district with shopping and restaurants. It sits on the former site a natural spring (which was a popular tourist attraction) which then had an amusement park and baseball stadium built adjacent to it. The amusement park was known as the “Coney Island of Atlanta”, but closed in the 1920’s as development encroached on it. Sears purchased the land and built the current building Skyline Park sits atop as a headquarters. After Sears left n the 1990’s the building did a stint as an Atlanta city hall before developers began converting it into Ponce City Market, a mixed-use development, in 2011. Ponce City Market 100% leans into this rich history of the site which is great to see.

As you arrive to Ponce City Market follow the signs for parking. There are several parking areas available and expect to pay $5-$10 depending on how long you plan to stay. Follow the signs to “The Roof” which is on the large building with the “Ponce City Market” letters on top. Near the ground level entrance you’ll see a box office where you can get your tickets which take the form of wristbands. Everything but food/drink is included for one price including the carnival games for $20 for adults and $12 for kids. After you have your wristband you can head to the freight elevator for the trip to the top. Note there are food and drink options on the roof, but you could also just as easily enjoy a meal at one of the numerous options at ground level.

As you exit the freight elevator you’ll come out in an indoor lobby just outside a bar area of RFD Social. A quick turn to the left and you’ll be outside on the roof, greeted by a beautiful Skyline Park sign. From here you’ll immediately notice the views of the skyline of Atlanta and be able to see many of the park’s offerings. Everything about this breaths nostalgia and history and it all sets the mood perfectly for the park experience.

The games are the first attractions you’ll come to with 4 classic carnival games to choose from. The play areas are covered and there are mist machines keeping this area very comfortable. The games don’t cost anything additional to play and are included in your admission! Your choices are classics like the rolling ball horse derby, basketball, Skee-ball and goblet toss. You can win real stuffed animal prizes, but these games aren’t easy. For example in Skee-ball you need to score at least 400 points for a prize or in the horse race you need to wine 3 in a row. In goblet toss you’ll be given 3 different colored balls and you need to match the color of the ball with the colored hole. Your odds of winning goblet toss range from 1-3%, but you can play over and over, so statistically you’ll win eventually. The stuffed animals are small, but the games are free and they’re tons of fun. You’ll almost certainly leave with a small souvenir of your time at Skyline Park. Kids will love getting to try to win over and over again and parents will love that it won’t train your pocketbook.

There are two “rides” here, a slide and a Heege Tower. Neither of these had much of any line on a busy Saturday and were 100% included in admission. If you’re not familiar with a Heege tower, it slowly rotates and you can pull a rope (with mechanical assistance) to slowly move up and down the structure. The Heege tower provides some great views of the whole park as well as of the city. The slide is incorporated into the Ponce City Market sign and gets some great speed, especially for adults. The sacks used are by Wiegand, famous for mountain coasters, so this is a high quality slide.

There is a roller skating rink on the roof as well. It surprisingly can be easy to miss as it’s the opposite direction off the elevator to the right through a set of doors. The rink is covered and decent size and it’s all 100% included as well. There’s music playing and the skates even have lights in them. This roller skating rink probably has some of the best views of any rink anywhere. I’d also imagine the rink can easily be converted to double as an event space for the venue.

There is also a mini golf course as part of Skyline Park, but it was closed during our visit renovation. The course is very well done in that it uses many different colors of turf to mimic water and sand to make it quite attractive and not just a sea of green. It looks like a fun little course, but it does take up a fair amount of space. Perhaps someday we’ll see this used for perhaps a couple more flat rides or perhaps even a small coaster like an SBF Visa.

The food and beverage options on The Roof are incredibly reasonably priced. A water is $2, $3 for a soda, $4 for an ICEE and starting at only $5 for a beer. There’s a plethora of both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drink options available. Snacks are also reasonable with amusement park staples like nachos or burgers available. Additionally there’s an indoor bar area of RFD Social with a pool table and bowling. This is great should the weather turn bad with additional cover over the roller rink and by the games. All this gives a great indoor/outdoor feel where you don’t feel like you’re just baking on a 100% exposed roof. The staff here were also great, being both friendly and fun which added to the experience. My son proceeded to essentially immediately spill most of his ICEE all over himself and without even asking the staff was right there with another one, a little touch that means a lot to a parent.

Finally there’s the views. Wow! You can see in all directions with great views of the Atlanta skyline. Some of the best views are from the top of the Heege Tower. There are also many little nooks to sit or take pictures. The park also has nighttime hours which I imagine are also spectacular. There’s also great views to be had at the 12 Cocktail Bar in the tower or the 9 Mile Station restaurant also on the roof.

I couldn’t speak more highly about Skyline Park. Its all-inclusive fun model is great for families and it has enough things to keep you busy for several hours with so much to explore and look at. My 9 year old absolutely loved Skyline, but it’s not just for kids as adults will also have a blast here. If you’re ever bored, even for a moment, you can take in the incredible views. The food and beverage choices are fairly priced and they did a great job with little things like shading and water misting to stay cool on a hot Atlanta day. The way it pays homage to the history of the site is also great as Skyline totally embraces that old school Coney Island feel. If you’re in Atlanta be sure to check out Skyline Park as it’s great place for a family trip, date night or a group outing. Thanks too to Penni Arcade (@airtime_obsessed) for helping put the afternoon together for us!