Having moved from the Denver area, we loved having a plethora of indoor play areas for the kiddos when the weather was too crummy to enjoy and cabin fever took over. After being disappointed with the quality/cleanliness of available indoor play areas in the Providence area especially for preschoolers, we were excited to try Play Date as it seemed to offer everything we'd missed. Unfortunately, on each of the 4 or 5 visits we've made thus far, we've been disappointed.
To be fair, Play Date is decent, well-conceptualized and pretty. It has everything a parent could want-- a clean indoor play space for a young crowd (perfect for the under 4 set), an affordable self-serve caffeine counter, a convenient location and a nice aesthetic. It is nice to bring your kids to a play area that looks and smells clean, and that offers ways for your children to actually play vs. be mindlessly entertained.
However, it also has things that I didn't want-- high prices, a lack of maintained organization (after the first hour or so, the entire space is littered with toys, trails of sand are all over the floor, and it becomes difficult to even tell what the designated play areas were originally purposed for), disappointing customer service and frustrating experiences with the owner and one of her children.
On most of the visits we'd made, we have experienced or witnessed issues related to the owner's unsupervised children. One of the children, a 3 or 4 year old girl, continually took toys away from other children, hit another child with a broom, threw sand, and would bossily tell other children that they couldn't play with certain things because she wanted to. We felt like as though we were unwelcome and uninvited guests in her home, not paying customers.
During our last visit, the owner's children were supervised by an adult but not closely enough-- the 3 or 4 year old rammed one of the tricycles into an 11-month old pre-walker, knocking him down. The supervising adult was too busy sitting on the couch to even realize what had happened, and the child ran away laughing, leaving behind a crying kiddo with a very upset parent.
It doesn't make sense to me that while adults do not have to pay for admission, you are required to pay admission for older children who are not playing. My older child had a day off of school and just wanted to sit on the couch and read while my youngest played. Upon checking in, the employee rudely told us, "10 year old kids are too big to play, but if you insist on bringing him, you have to pay for his seat on the couch." I begrudgingly paid for his admission so he could sit on the couch and read his book, but after we left, he told me that he felt unwelcome. This was our last visit. We won't be coming back, now that my daughter is 4 and has bored of their offerings and I have tired of the poor daily management of this promising business. read more