Avoid like the plague.
First of all, when booking a party be sure to find out how they charge. We were led to believe that our child was included when booking a party of 12 kids. Once the event was over we were invoiced for an extra child despite what we were promised prior to booking. This put a bit of a downer on the day but no big deal. £12.95 per child is not too bad even if the sandwiches were a bit curly looking around the edges. Paying the extra was not a big issue to us, it was the attitude of the manager on shift that day. He didn't care and almost laughed in our faces as he demanded extra money.
You are given an evaluation sheet to fill out before you leave. We filled ours out and it didn't make for good reading. It's our opinion and we are entitled to it.
We received a phone call a couple of days later from a "manageress". We thought initially she would be apologetic and ask us what they could have done to make our sons birthday party better. Instead, this girl started to have a go at us saying that our comments were unacceptable and unfounded and how they went out of their way to help us and make our day special. So as you can imagine, customer service is severely lacking. She was ranting and raving at us about a confidential form, only for the eyes of their management.
She also lied to us saying that our helium balloons were not weighted (which they were) and three had floated up to the ceiling and set the alarm off. This was not true because all the balloons had all been taken out the premises by the kids at the end of the party. They were tied to the kids wrists. I was the last to leave and I checked to make sure that no balloons had floated up as we were made aware prior that they don't allow helium filled balloons unless they are weighted down. I was actually worried about this happening so I made sure I check before I left.
If anyone has a bad experience with a particular company you would certainly make sure you told them how they could improve things , I would have thought that any business would appreciate an honest evaluation of their services.
It seems that you cannot critique this company unless you want a menacing call from the management who ironically, are barely out of nappies themselves.
As for the facilities, they are quite good. The children play apparatus is very good and there is plenty to do for children over 3. Food and drink is slightly overpriced but didn't look too bad.
The boys toilets on the other hand is a different story. Now bear in mind that the kids have to wander about in their socks (no shoes allowed on the apparatus), the toilet floor is sodden in urine which they have to walk through to get to the urinal. We all know that kids (boys) at the best of time have a job aiming into a urinal but you would think that there would be a staff member periodically checking the state of the toilet floors. Most of the boy went home with urine soaked socks.
Another concerning issue was the security. A couple of people in our party had the back of their hand stamped to show staff that they were authorised to go in and out of the building as their child was attending the party. Most people in our party were not stamped but were still allowed to go in and out of the building without any checks whatsoever. Any adult wanting to go into the facilty were simply "buzzed" in, also without any checks being made. Obviously this is a bit of a worry when you consider that this place is aimed at kids. There were way to many people wandering in and out of the building for staff to just simply recognise them. This is a serious security flaw in my opinion.
We would have probably gone there again and put our first trip down to bad luck but the fact that we were harassed by a manager by phone means that we will never set foot in there ever again. All the other parents in our party were disgusted to hear about how we were treated and have also vowed never to go there again.
We are quite passive people and hardly ever complain about anything but this really did shock us. To be treated by management like that was not only an insult but is also a lesson to anyone on how not to run a business. read more
