The 3 stars is solely based on my toddler's experience here. He's 4, and would likely rate this…read moreplace 11/10, but all the negatives I observed will drag the 5/5 down to a 2/5.
We recently attended a birthday party here on a Saturday at 4pm. The hosts had 2 party rooms booked. First, none of the tablets at the front were working properly to sign the waivers, and the staff won't let you through the locked door to the main space until the waiver is done for each adult and child entering. I went to an employee, and later to a manager, and they both eventually shrugged their shoulders and said they didn't know what was going on and walked away without resolving the issue. Eventually, a 3rd person came to assist, but the damage was already done. I was overheated and my kid was screaming and crying his head off while I tried to wrangle him with 1 hand, confused as to why we were inside the door, but not allowed into the play area.
Second, the heat. THE HEAT. It was a 90+ degree day outside and no exaggeration, it had to have been in the 80s throughout this entire place. I understand the machines keeping the inflatables inflated are probably leaking lukewarm air everywhere. However, this is a no brainer at an enclosed bounce house park, so why the AC wasn't cranked down to 60, I don't know. I think the insane amount of neon lights they have everywhere in this place was adding to the heat, too. They ended up giving my GF a partial refund on her party because it was so miserably hot the entire time.
Third, the place isn't setup safely for younger kids whatsoever, which basically forces you as parents to get into the bounce house to watch over your kids. In theory, the setup is wise because there's a front door, then locked lower doors separating the entrance to the play space, then the limited seating they have available is right after that, so if your kid tried to sneak out the front, it would be really hard not to see that because he/she would have to pass by the tables of parents and somehow be let out of the locked mini doors that only employees can open. However, what made no sense to me is the number of exit routes all over the bounce house structure. I counted at least 3, only blocked off by a plastic curtain that I saw multiple kids run out of. Those curtains are supposed to be for employees only, but what kid will that stop to see that signage? Very few. To make matters worse, the bounce house is way too big for the suite it's in, so where the curtain doors let out are extremely narrow hallway-like spaces that are dimly lit and mostly dump out into the back of the suite where there are exit doors and employees-only real doors. You could easily lose your kid in this mess, and it quite literally wouldn't be hard for your kid to be snatched and taken out a back door and you'd never see that from the front of the suite.
Fourth, the entire place is not clean. I get this is the culture of a place like this, so when I give this spot this label, you know there's a reason. I watched 2 teenage employees "clean" a pile of fresh puke up inside one of the high traffic areas of the bounce house with a single paper towel and a small spritz of cleaner. They then walked away, not effectively ever cleaning the mess, putting up signage, or doing anything at all. I wanted to barf, as the barf spot they "cleaned" was right on a seam of the bounce house, so all that barf just remained there in those crevices that 100 more kids probably walked on all day.
Last, the party system here is as greedy as they come. We also hosted our kid's birthday party at a place like this (Kids Empire in Monrovia), so I'm very aware of how the pricing and packages of this place compare to other indoor play places because I did a lot of research on these places before I booked the place we chose. This place was a lot more expensive than other similar options and getting to observe the system they had in place just made me sad. The party rooms are in the very back, all crammed together and virtually just the size of public bathrooms. It's dimly lit back there and very dungeon-ish. The capacity marked on the individual rooms was 50-60, which is insane to imagine because our 2 rooms with maybe 20-25 adults and kids in them at a time were SO packed. We were right next to the employee room, and I could see the full white board of the parties scheduled for the day - they literally schedule parties on top of one another. You'll hear an announcement in the main space when your party's wristband color is up, meaning the party limit (I think it was 2-3 hours) is done, so you need to head back to your party room and get your things. The announcements were right on the hour, yet when we exited promptly to our party room, they had already ripped down over half of my GF's stuff and had another kid's party setup! Scheduling parties literally on top of one another at this price point is just absurd.
