If you want to send your kids to a camp where they will spend their time watching feature length films (and be given options that are WILDLY inappropriate - for example, Guardians of the Galaxy for five-year-olds, with the alternative option being Thor: Ragnarok) this is the camp for you!
Children were brought to a splash pad without telling the parents these outings would occur. Let me be clear, I think splash pads are great, and I would have been happy to provide my kids with appropriate clothing, but I was never asked to do so. Instead, I found out my oldest child got their clothing wet and was expected to dry out in the sun before returning to an air-conditioned building, while my middle child told me they took a nap because they were so tired from the heat (because it was a heat wave and they'd walked 650m). This is also a park that I know has no bathrooms nearby, and its water fountain is broken.
I was told that my children missed their turns for an activity because the long and short of it appears that the staff would call children's names to do something, and then essentially not monitor where my children were; what they were doing; whether or not they were even doing the activity they've been called for. Leaving me to believe there was little to no follow up on the part of the counselors, as well as little to no supervision of my children.
The straw when my 5- and 8-year-olds came home having told me stories about watching Guardians of the Galaxy, a PG 13+ movie. She told me that she went and hid in a tent for most of the duration of the movie. As a parent, that's **exactly** what you want to hear about the type of day camp that you are sending your 5-year-old to. She spent that evening essentially crying on and off from dinner until she fell asleep because she was afraid of the "bad guys".
At that point I left not one but two messages with the camp saying I expected to speak to someone the next day. I wanted to give them plenty of warning that I would be coming so that they would be prepared to speak with me. Instead, the manager was dealing with an emergency and had not mentioned to them that there would be a parent coming to speak with him and one of the counselors said I could speak with her.
I have a hard time talking to counselors directly about mistakes they've made, because frankly that should be their supervisor's job. At any point, their supervisor should have stepped in and said, "How about instead of doing activities x, y, z - we do gymnastics - at our gymnastics camp."
I told the counselor my daughter was very upset about the movie the prior day due to its wildly inappropriate nature. As well, I inquired about their licensing to even show a movie - considering for school movie nights licenses are required. I was given an apology from her to me, and told they would not watch any more movies and would focus more on gymnastics.
I cannot tell you how upset I was on that same day when I picked my children up and found out they had started watching The Incredibles 2 during their snack, and watched the entire film which ended just in time for their lunch break.
All in all, my children spent 24 hours at this camp (we missed the first day and a half) and spent 4 hours watching movies.
As a stay-at-home mom, I don't actually NEED to send my kids to camp, I did it to make up for the fun times they missed when schools were closed. Instead, I feel like this camp just took up a week of our time, and that time could have been spent having fun elsewhere.
I have contacted the camp via email and was told by the manager that he had read it and would be happy to arrange a meeting between me and the owners, but that I would have to email again to arrange said meeting. I've emailed and am still waiting to hear back, although I have no idea what they could say at this point in time to make up for the time my kids have lost. read more
