I took my almost two year old here to play a few weeks back and he had a decent enough time. We are avid indoor play space explorers and have tried many in the Portland Metro area. This one was just middle of the road for us.
To start off, the playtime/scheduling at this playground is different from what we have experienced from the others. You have a set start time in two hour increments (9am, 11am, etc.) so you cannot set your own time. Play starts at the top of the hour for your block and ticks down for 90 mins, whether you are there playing or not. When you are paying $18.50, you definitely want to get your money's worth and having such strict start times can be difficult for families on schedules for meals, naps and whatnot. We scheduled for 11am and showed up at 11:15 (my fault) but we then had to wait for about 10-15 additional minutes to go in and play because the person doing check-ins was the same person doing all the orders for food and beverage. They were helping someone who either wasn't ready to order yet or was having a payment issue and a line of us waiting to check in formed in the small dining area. I would have expected a little more play time since this was out of our control but the end time is very strict. While this is not the only play place we've gone to with a 90 minute limit, it was the most rigid and the only one that starts the timer before you get there. It is also the highest price point we've encountered so the play time to value ratio ended up being the lowest.
The play room was absolutely trashed by the time we got into it and there were no staff members tidying up at any point while we were there. I imagine they probably pick up between play blocks but a space this size with so many toys, it would be helpful if someone even just moved toys back to their general area a couple times per play. As I mentioned above, we go to indoor play spaces and children's museums often and I have never seen a place get this messy with toys.
Once we were settled in, my son had no problem finding things to entertain himself. He really liked the train table and the little café. The slide was nice, too. I will say we found the sand table a little frustrating because you can't bring toys from the playroom into the sand but there was also nothing in the sand to play with. It was just an empty bin of sand! No scoops, buckets or similar. There was a light show going on but it wasn't particularly entertaining, especially for the target age group of the play space. We witnessed several toddlers trying to bring the little plastic animals into the sand and getting frustrated when they were told no. It would be nice to either get rid of the sand table all together, and do the light show on a wall to clear up space for other activities or to add some sand appropriate toys to the bin to interact with. Just a suggestion.
Two other things that were a little frustrating were the room temperature and the bathroom situation. The temperature in the play area was sweltering. All three of us were visibly sweating by the time we left and we were dressed in pants/shorts and t-shirts. Would be great to have a bit more airflow in the part of the room where the play is happening. There are also only two single occupancy bathrooms which seemed to always be occupied. I waited to go into one only to find that it had no changing area so I had to change my toddler in the back seat of my car.
Overall, like I said before, this was the middle of the road for us. If you live super close, this may be a good option because you can hopefully bypass the bathroom situation and it would be easier to show up on time. They also sell play passes that make the price per play cheaper, so that would also make this place more appealing. read more