Featured Destinations

The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf & Ice Cream

The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf & Ice Cream offers outdoor fun for all ages and super-premium ice cream made in Wisconsin. The 18-hole golf course and ice cream shop are open daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day and on the weekends in May, September, and October. Mini golf is one of the few recreational activities that everyone can enjoy together, regardless of age and ability. Families and friends can enjoy a little friendly competition on the Oconto course.

The Mayan Civilization-inspired course provides a relaxed, care-free environment where golfers can enjoy. Designed and constructed by a world-leading miniature golf company, The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf features a few challenging and trick holes, with interesting elevation changes and water hazards. Vibrant colors, lively music, tropical thatch accents, and beautiful landscaping add to the atmosphere on the course. Water is everywhere in this tropical landscape. Golfers are surrounded by waterfalls, ponds, a stream, and fountain. Golf balls float in the water hazards, so the unlucky golfers can use a ball scooper to rescue their balls and continue their game.
 

Lots of cheering, whooping, and laughing is heard on the course, as players hit (or miss) their shots. Saturday nights are especially popular, when The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf hosts Glow Golf. Blinking, color-changing LEDs, rope lights, and glow-gear provide the illumination for golfers. The Ruins turns off all of the overhead lights Saturdays at dusk, so golfers can play in the dark with a glow ball until approximately 11pm, depending on time of year. On Saturdays in September and October, The Ruins switches from Glow Golf to Haunted Holes Glow Golf, featuring a Halloween-themed course decorated in a spooky, creepy motif.

Tina and Bryan Bruckner opened The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf & Ice Cream in 2015. Tina grew up in the Oconto area, and she thought that a mini golf course would be something beautiful in the city. Tina is a gardening and flower fanatic who traveled to Mayan ruins sites in Mexico and Belize. Hence, the golf course got its name and the tropical, ancient-civilization theme. After years of research and planning, Tina and Bryan took their far-fetched idea and made it into reality.
 
The Bruckners wanted to create a happy place for people to forget about their troubles and have fun being together. They scattered positive messages and inspirational quotes around the course. They wanted to remind everyone that kindness rules. They plan to paint a mural in 2023 with a “kindness rules” theme on the west wall by the upper deck. The upper deck provides a great view of the course and serves as a venue for private parties and celebrations. Select food and drinks are available at the mini golf course, and golfers can also have food delivered from Oconto-area restaurants. The Ruins serves Madison, WI-based Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, an award-winning, super-premium ice cream. The creamy, yummy ice cream comes in about a dozen flavors – in cake cones, waffle cones, and ice cream sandwiches. The Ruins also serves soda, beer, wine, flavored water, and slushes. The Firecracker Float is a favorite! The float combines cherry and blue raspberry slush with a scoop of ice cream.
 
A round of golf costs $7.50 per person for 18 holes. The second 18 holes costs $3 for credit card purchases and is free for cash purchases. Additionally, The Ruins offers group discounts of 50 cents off for groups of 10 or more and $1 off for groups of 20 or more. Discounts are valid only when purchased as one transaction.

The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf & Ice Cream, 150 Howard Lane, Oconto, is located a half-mile from the intersection of Highway 41 and 22 - easy off the highway and easy to spot on the northeast side of Oconto. The Ruins is located next to Mcdonald's and Tractor Supply and across the street from Kwik Trip and Holtwood Campground.

Golfers don’t have to travel too far to test their short game and experience a bit of Mayan Civilization. The Mayan-themed décor gives The Ruins Adventure Mini Golf & Ice Cream its fanciful character. The friendly competition, time outdoors, and delicious ice cream make the mini golf course fun for all ages. Three generations can easily compete on a fairly level playing field. Families and friends have lots of photo opportunities to capture fun memories.