Funland Amusement Arcade Blackpool

Funland Amusement Arcade is one of the largest arcade venues on the Blackpool Promenade. Ideally situated between the Sealife Blackpool and Madam Tussauds, its frontage occupies a large section of beach road with uninterrupted views of the golden beach, Central Pier attractions and (of course) the Blackpool Tower.

With Coral Island and the Golden Mile arcade being only meters away, this area really is the epicentre of arcade gaming in Blackpool.

Arcade Entrance

With pavement space limited by the enormous amounts of daily footfall that this location sees, there aren’t many options for arcade machines on the sea front, though there is some signage out front advertising the upper floor amenities including kids soft play, mini bowling and toilets. 

There are several wide double doors opening into the arcade and so wheelchair access appears plentiful. To the north end of the amusement arcade is also an outward facing food kiosk selling fun food and drink options to passers-by including slushies, burgers, hotdogs and doughnuts. 

Entering next to the food kiosk, visitors will find a foyer area with a great selection of young kiddie rides including fire trucks, an A-Team van, Minions aeroplane and Looney Toons Airport. 

One of the highlights of the Funland arcade can also be found at the north end of the foyer area, which is a piece of classic seaside history in the form of an arcade shooting gallery called Dead Mans Cove – Pirate Adventure. Here players can pay one pound per play and have the opportunity to shoot a range of different targets with the airguns that activate different animatronic parts of the display. From dynamite to treasure chests to parrots. See how many you can hit!

Upstairs Area

There is an escalator close to the shooting gallery and prize shop with a beautiful children’s carousel next to it on the ground floor. Heading upstairs from here, visitors can find the upper floor, which has a six land bowlingo alley for just one pound per play and also a good-sized kid’s soft play area. Perfect if your energetic little ones need to let off some steam. 

There is also a café upstairs, though it wasn’t open when we visited. There is also a selection of coin pushers, air hockey tables and five-pound jackpot fruit machines. To get back outside, visitors have to navigate a separate stairway that leads down to the side/rear of the arcade.

Coin Pushers

Delving further into the ground floor arcade, players will notice the ticket redemption prize shop tucked around the corner behind Dead Mans Cove. The prize shop is large with an orderly queue system, and it has a huge range of great prizes and friendly staff to help exchange tickets. 

There are also many coin pushers in this front area, stretching to each end of the arcade. Here players can enjoy the latest ticket coin pushers including Push Yer Luck, Butterfly, Minions. Sweet Success, Sweet Falls and Jurassic Park.

Funland Amusements has busy turnover, meaning players with keen eyes can easily spot the best coin pushers to play to win a shelf prize or bank more tickets to redeem for a fun prize at the prize shop. The coin shelves are packed full of great prizes to win including sweets and lollies, keychains and toys such as rubber duckies. 

On the upper floor there is also two more large coin pushers – Push Yer Luck and Tom & Jerry, both paying out ticket wins. 

Crane Claw Machines

Funland Arcade has a wide variety of different claw machines to play, and visitors shall be pleasantly surprised by just how many different claw grabbers are available to play. There are many of the colourful E-Claw grabbers dotted around the venue with a great range of plush prizes. 

They have a Cosmic XL game, which is a large claw machine hybrid with a wheel spinner, so that even if you don’t win a teddy bear prize, you can still 'spin-a-win' some tickets.

Smaller machines for smaller hands including Toy Family, Find a Key and several Skill Cut games where players can win a giant teddy bear. 

Classic Arcade Games 

Funland Arcade in Blackpool has some fantastic classic and retro arcade machines to discover. Visitors can enjoy a full-sized Blockstacker machine from LAI (seeing less and less of these machines today), where players can win some great plush prizes.

Observant folk will spot the two Whittakers Roll-n-Win machines, which are examples of some of the first roll-down style machines, where players can win tickets by rolling down two pence pieces to try and hit mini bowling pins. The idea here is to hit different colour pins for different prize amounts. The machine then spits back more two pence pieces at the player as a prize. Unusually addictive! 

Upstairs patrons can find two Hot Flash air hockey tables next to the Bowlingo for some classic fun in a very retro looking setting. 

Fairground Arcade Machines

Funland amusements has a great range of fairground games, and these include Derby Day (camel racer), Fast Gunman (gun shooting), Lane Master & Bowling Champ (bowling skee-ball) and many more.

Close to the prize shop is a row of fairground games and these include Coconut Shy, Gold Fishin, Down the Clown, Sonic Allstars, Zombie Bowling, Ring Toss, Lets Bounce and Space Guard. Funland also has a row of young kiddies fairground machines, which are just a smaller version of the aforementioned games. 

Big Arcade Machines

One of the strong points of this arcade if you enjoy the largest of gaming machines then check out the Demolition King, Minecraft Dungeons Arcade, Dinosaur Era, Bump-n-Smash and Space Invaders Frenzy.

At the rear of the arcade players can find Tornado and Pearl Fishery machines, which are both ball pusher hybrids that provide exciting gameplay and pay out ticket wins. The standout machine at this arcade venue is the two-player Meteor Ball game where balls drop down across the game board that has a rotating star and players have to catch them in the basket below in order to win big ticket prizes. 

Ticket Slot Machines

Funland arcade has two rows of triple ticket slot machines and these are located next to the Prize shop and include Aladdin and Freddies vacation. Are these more like fruit machines or slot machines? They certainly look like and behave like fruit machines, though pay out ticket wins and have upper feature boards. 

£5 Jackpot Fruit Machines

Funland has a fantastic range of five pound jackpot fruit machines, and they can be found all over the venue, with some also inside the adult casino area. There are many different types of machines from retro classics to modern games.

Players can enjoy sit-down quad versions of Party Time Arena from Astra Gaming and a quad Monopoly with the digital screen as the upper feature board. Triple slot machines include Solid Gold, Golden Game, Batman Begins and Over the Rainbow. 

There is a large number of standalone £5 jackpot fruit machines in this venue on both the ground and upper floors and these include Top Giza, Dragon Drop, Adders and Ladders, Pink Panther, Cluedo with many more to discover.  

Fans of Skill Ball will also love this amusements arcade as there are several Skill Ball Deluxe and Skill Ball Zingy 2 gaming machines dotted around the rear of the venue offering a top prize of £50.

Casino Slots Area

The adult gaming slots lounge is located at the rear of the arcade venue and is called 'the Broadway club'. It is a large area that features classic mechanical fruit and slot machines also a section at the very rear featuring all of the latest digital casino gaming terminals. 

In the front section players can find a treasure trove of eighties Electrocoin classics with chrome and veneer style cabinets. These have lots of different jackpots from £5 to £8 to £25 and this is why they are in the adult slot machines area. Further into the casino slots area, players can enjoy a Party Time machine with £100 jackpot.

There are rows of the latest digital slots terminals from Blueprint Gaming that include the latest casino slot games and these include Big Catch, Wolf Legend Spin Boost and Deal or No Deal Bankers Boost. 

Venue Verdict

Funland will always be a busy and popular amusement arcade due to its great location on the Blackpool Promenade. They have a great range of games from the latest modern ticket arcade games to classics from the eighties and nineties. Some of the décor is dated, though that adds to the rustic appeal of the place and this is certainly the type of arcade that is fun to explore each section whilst winning tickets and coin. A trip to Blackpool would not be complete without a wander through Funland. 

Featured Machine: Meteor Ball Ticket Redemption Game