A friend and I took our almost-2-year-old boys here on a rainy Saturday morning a few weekends ago and LOVED it. According to the parents at the check in counter it can apparently get fairly crowded at times, but when we were there there was hardly anyone at all.
In the front room, my son spent a lot of time at the train table (of course!) and with a lights and noise busy box toy in the padded infant area. There were also several rocking horses, construction toys, and a dress up corner that some older kids were having loads of fun with.
But the majority of our time was spent in the gym/gross motor space. There were all variety of balls, big cars and ride-on toys--some that were donated by local stores--small slides and climbing structures. By far his favorite was the "roller coaster" cart and track they had against the back wall. I had never seen anything like it before and at first I thought it looked a bit unsafe (like how did the kids not go toppling over the edge of the track or zooming off the front of it...) If you've seen this track maybe you can understand my concerns but after watching a few other kids go first it seemed pretty fun so we tried it. And then we did it over, and over, and over and over as toddlers are wont to do.
So, cart fun aside, the parts that *I* liked best were: easy parking on the sidestreet next to the church, cubbies next to the door for storing shoes and bags, I could take my coffee inside with no problem at all, clean bathrooms, there were seats in the gym area for parents to sit, and kid sized picnic tables in the front room for snacktime. You can even buy snacks and drinks there to have.
I commented to my friend that I wished there were books and she pointed out there were a few boxes of them up against one of the walls. There didn't appear to be many, though, and I guess that would be the one thing I might improve--at one point in our several hours there my son was kind of in a lull and could've used some quiet time so a more inviting "quiet time" space with books and bean bags or whatnot would've been nice I think.
This place is run as a co-op, meaning those who pay the $45 to join for the winter must commit to volunteer a certain number of hours. We paid $10 as first time visitors and will definitely be going back so they said we could apply the $10 toward our membership next time (if I can find the receipt).
Overall this was a great place to spend a few hours with an active toddler and we'll definitely be going back. read more