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Labor Day falls on Monday, September 7 this year. Add the weekend before it and you get three days, which is the last open stretch on the calendar before fall sports schedules and school-year logistics eat everything through Thanksgiving.
Most Kansas City parents can already name the options. Your kids have walked the ocean tunnel at SEA LIFE enough times to describe it from memory, and the zoo stopped feeling like an event around the third visit.
So here are five places that skip the usual Kansas City family list. All five come with a GetOut Kansas City membership, which runs $64.95 a year and covers 57+ venues around the metro. Anyone who wants the standard list first can start with our guide to family-friendly things to do in Kansas City with kids, which runs year-round. The first three below sit inside the metro for anyone staying home. After that, two more are waiting four hours south if you feel like driving.
What's Still Open Labor Day Weekend in Kansas City
Some housekeeping first, because a couple of things close for good this weekend.
Black Bob Bay in Olathe has its last weekend right now, open 12:30 to 7 p.m. through Monday, and then metro outdoor swimming is done until June. The Beach at Lake Olathe shut down back in early August. Monday the 7th is your final shot at a pool day if that's what your kids have been asking for. Our last-chance summer checklist has the rest of what closes as the season ends.
Everything else on this list keeps normal hours through the holiday. Indoor spots around here tend to run Labor Day Monday like a busy Saturday, which helps when the forecast says 91.
Saturday: Puttery Kansas City on the Country Club Plaza
Puttery is new to the Kansas City pass and hardly anyone frames it as a family option, because it arrived here with a reputation as a spot where adults putt and drink cocktails.
The Kansas City venue welcomes all ages throughout its published hours. That sets it apart from most others in the chain, several of which switch to 18+ or 21+ once the evening starts. A few third-party listings still show an old 18+ rule after 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, so phone ahead if you're planning to go later in the day.
You get three themed nine-hole courses inside the Jack Henry Building at 612 W 47th St. One is built as an art museum, another as a conservatory, and the third is called the Rooftop even though the whole thing sits indoors with skyline views worked into the design. A round takes about half an hour. Digital scorecards do the counting, which quietly removes the biggest source of arguing on a mini golf course.
Parking above the building costs nothing, and on the Plaza that matters. There's a scratch kitchen downstairs with weekend brunch, so a late-morning start rolls into lunch without moving the car. Walk-ins are fine. Reservations are smarter on a holiday.
Best for: ages 6 and up, and any group with a wide age spread
Sunday: Summit Lanes in Lee's Summit
Summit Lanes earns a spot here for a reason that has little to do with bowling.
It's the one venue on the Kansas City pass with a daily visit frequency. Everything else runs yearly, quarterly, or monthly. You could bowl there Saturday, come back Sunday, and go again Monday, all on one membership, without paying anything extra. Across a three-day weekend that adds up.
The Pollard family has run the place in Lee's Summit since 1967. Thirty lanes, automatic bumpers you can switch on lane by lane so a four-year-old and a fourteen-year-old can share a game without either of them sulking about it. There's a snack bar and a pro shop, and the kitchen makes fresh soup every day, which is an odd thing for a bowling alley to be known for and also why a lot of Lee's Summit families have been going there since the eighties.
Sunday hours run noon to 9 p.m., with Monday through Thursday going to 10. At the counter you're paying $6 per person per game plus $4.25 for shoes, so four people playing two games each lands somewhere around $65 before anybody eats. Compare that against what the membership costs for a whole year.
Best for: groups where nobody can agree on anything, grandparents included
Monday: Main St. Skate in Grandview
By Monday afternoon of a long weekend, nobody wants a whole outing. You want two hours that empties the living room and puts everyone back home before dinner, with school waiting the next morning.
Roller skating does that. Main St. Skate in Grandview runs public sessions with rental skates, and the commitment lasts exactly as long as your kids stay upright, which usually means somewhere between forty minutes and two hours. The building is air conditioned. Your kids will remember it partly because you never do this.
Session times move around week to week, and holidays can run on a different schedule, so check before you drive out. Northland Rolladium and Skateland Family Fun Center both sit on the pass too if the timing at Main St. doesn't line up.
Best for: ages 5 and up, and short-notice afternoons
If You'd Rather Drive: The Branson Version of the Weekend
Branson sits four hours south. That drive is a rough sell on an ordinary Saturday, and it works fine spread across three days.
The reason to go is the Silver Dollar City add-on, which you pick at checkout with a Kansas City membership and which covers one visit. The park is large enough to fill a day without you circling back over the same ground. Early September lands right at the seasonal shift down there, which changes the crowds.
What families tend to miss is that two more pass venues sit within a short drive of the park, so one day out of town stretches into a weekend.
Fun Mountain at Big Cedar Lodge
Fun Mountain covers 50,000 square feet at 190 Top of the Rock Road in Ridgedale, on the Big Cedar Lodge property just below Branson. The public can go, no resort stay required.
Inside there's an underwater-themed bowling alley, over 60 arcade games, bumper cars, laser tag, an augmented climbing wall that projects graphics and tracks your body, a golf simulator, a ropes and zipline course, go-karts running through a section called Thunder Alley, and a pirate ship rigged with slides for smaller kids. A restaurant and bar operate on site. Plenty of families walk in for two hours and leave after six.
It also handles the Ozarks weather problem. Early September afternoons down there can produce a thunderstorm with almost no warning, and Fun Mountain sits entirely under a roof.
The Track Family Fun Park
The Track operates several locations around Branson, and the thing everyone photographs is the elevated go-kart tracks that climb three levels above the strip. Ground-level tracks run alongside them, plus a family track built for two-seaters and separate kiddie and rookie tracks for drivers too small to reach the pedals on the main courses.
Past the karts you'll find blaster boats, bumper cars, mini golf, Kids Country rides for the youngest ones, a large arcade, and thrill attractions like a Skycoaster and the Branson Ferris Wheel.
Put Silver Dollar City together with Fun Mountain and The Track and your three days in Branson are covered by a membership you bought for Kansas City. Families who make that drive more than once a year sometimes add an Arkansas membership on top of it, since the highway keeps going in that direction and the next set of venues starts about an hour past Branson.
What This Weekend Costs at the Gate
Price out only the metro version. Puttery for four people, a Sunday afternoon at Summit Lanes with shoes, then Monday skating. You clear $150 before a single soda gets bought, and none of that touches the zoo or a museum ticket.
The GetOut Kansas City membership costs $64.95 per person for twelve months, marked down from a $106 comparison value, covering 57+ metro venues. A weekend like this one pays for it outright.
Those twelve months begin the day you buy, which is the part people underweight when they purchase in late summer. The same money carries you through fall break, into Kansas City Mavericks hockey once October arrives, across a whole Missouri winter of indoor venues, and back around to next June. Purchases come with a 120-day risk-free window, with terms spelled out at checkout.
Traveling for the Long Weekend?
Labor Day is when a lot of Kansas City households point the car at somebody's relatives. GetOut operates in more than thirty markets, and the closest ones happen to be the places you were already driving.
Four hours east on I-70 lands you in St. Louis, which runs its own lineup of venues. Anyone who makes that trip a few times a year for a Cardinals series already knows the drive well enough to do it on a Friday night.
Go the other direction and Nebraska is roughly three hours out, covering Omaha and Lincoln. Plenty of families around here have people up there.
Oklahoma sits about the same distance southwest and spreads across Tulsa and Oklahoma City, which makes it a reasonable target when Branson feels too far and staying home feels like nothing.
Then there's the mountain version. Families driving toward Colorado for the holiday weekend, or later in September once the aspens start turning, will find the same arrangement waiting on the other end. One membership, a local list of venues, the same app you already have on your phone. Anyone headed to Texas instead can read our Labor Day plan for Dallas-Fort Worth, built around the same three days.
Kansas City Labor Day Weekend FAQs
What is there to do in Kansas City on Labor Day weekend with kids? Black Bob Bay in Olathe runs its last weekend of the season, 12:30 to 7 p.m. through Monday, September 7. Puttery on the Plaza and Summit Lanes in Lee's Summit both keep normal hours, and so does Main St. Skate over in Grandview. Families with all three days sometimes drive to Branson instead.
Is anything open in Kansas City on Labor Day Monday? Most family attractions run the holiday Monday like a weekend day. Hours differ by venue, so confirm before you head out. The GetOut app lists current information for everywhere on the pass.
What are some Kansas City family activities that aren't the zoo? Indoor mini golf at Puttery, bowling at Summit Lanes, roller skating at Main St. Skate or Northland Rolladium, climbing at RoKC, and trampoline parks like Leap and Urban Air all sit on the Kansas City pass and get a fraction of the attention the big attractions do.
How much does a Kansas City attraction pass cost? $64.95 per person for twelve months, down from a $106 comparison value, covering 57+ metro venues. Silver Dollar City comes as a one-visit add-on you select at checkout.
Can I use my membership more than once over a long weekend? Yes, though frequency depends on where you go. Summit Lanes allows a daily visit. Others run monthly or quarterly, and some are once a year. The app shows each venue's limit before you leave the house.
Is Puttery Kansas City kid-friendly? The Kansas City location welcomes all ages throughout its published hours, which differs from several other Puttery venues that go 18+ or 21+ at night. Older listings sometimes show an 18+ rule after 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, so call first if you want an evening slot.
Is it worth driving from Kansas City to Branson for Labor Day weekend? Four hours each way suits three days better than one. Silver Dollar City arrives as a one-visit membership add-on, and both Fun Mountain at Big Cedar Lodge and The Track Family Fun Park are already on the same pass, so the trip fills a weekend without more admission costs.
Book One Thing Tonight
Three days like this won't come around again until Thanksgiving. Pick one of these and put it on the calendar before Saturday, and let the other two stay optional. Once the holiday passes, our pre-fall weekend itineraries for Kansas City map out the September weekends that follow.
Explore the GetOut Kansas City membership and see all 57+ venues on the pass.