by Angie Fong, Former NSC President

Alameda, CA May 2, 2023

Here’s something fun to consider when you’re not on the slopes! I recently discovered the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda! With the price of admission, you get unlimited pinball play with “in and out” privileges for the day!

As a kid, I grew up playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Galaga, Turbo, Frogger, Centipede, etc. In addition to video games, I LOVED playing pinball and spent many hours playing in our San Francisco arcades and corner grocery stores, as well as South Lake Tahoe where my family spent a lot of “time” in casinos.

Prior to my Alameda visit, I read the reviews for the Pacific Pinball Museum on Yelp, as well as directly on their website. I discovered that the best time to visit was on a Tuesday since the museum is closed on Monday for pinball machine repairs and even better, Tuesdays are ½ off admission prices! Additionally, if you park 1 block away in the residential areas, you won’t have to worry about parking meters interfering with your play time! YAY!  =0)

There are several rooms of pinball machines from different decades and eras. If you plan to visit and are short on time, please do some advanced research so that you know which rooms and which machines to target first. Apparently, they have quite a few machines in storage and they rotate them now and again, current pinball list here. Even playing there for almost 8hrs, I didn’t have a chance to play all of the machines, there are so many options to choose from and that’s AWESOME! (Note: Yes! Both of my forearms were very sore for 2 – 3+ days after playing that day!)

My favorite machine that I read about and played there is called “Safe Cracker”. I highly recommend that you play this machine at least 4 – 8+ times, tons of FUN! It is located in the same room as many other “unique” machines. (Highly recommend that you also play “Spooksville” and “Orbitor 1” which will surprise you!). The unique attribute of “Safe Cracker” is that it will dispense a special “token” that rolls directly from the lower Backglass onto the pinball glass if you are able to break into the safe! It rolls pretty fast, so be prepared to catch it as it rolls off the center glass toward you! With this token, after you finish your game, you use it to play a special multi-ball game called “Assault on the Vault”. Unfortunately, I only discovered this after leaving the museum and researching on Wikipedia! I can’t wait to return to win tokens and invoke the special game! If I ever hit the lottery, I will buy this pinball machine! I think I played it for a couple hours (in between letting others play it too!). I also often played it in 2 or 4 player mode since you have unlimited play, why not?  =0) I was able to win 6 tokens that day, but returned them to the cashier upon exiting for the night not knowing about the special game mode!

I had a blast playing any machine I wanted without having to wait in line for any machine. I only saw 5 – 10 people max at any given time that Tuesday. (Side Note: You might want to visit soon because once the High Schools and Universities let out for the school year, you might have more people playing on the machines that you want to play!) Bonus: There are 3 awesome jukeboxes to choose different eras of music tracks for unlimited, free play. Choose the music tracks that you want to hear, then choose the machines that you want to play! You can’t beat that! Lastly, there are many restaurants in walking distance, but I chose to eat next door to try Cambodian food for the 1st time at Phnom Penh House. The food was tasty and I was able to have an early dinner, then return to play for another hour or so before returning home!  =0)

I am already looking forward to another Tuesday visit! I hope that you will enjoy your visit as much as I did! Have Fun!  =0)