A Day Out at Jump Street Clip n’ Climb Chelmsford

The summer holidays is in full swing, so we have been looking to get our kids out and about to lots of fun activities, some of which actually involve moving around! Previously, Dann and I went to an adult hour at Clip n’ Climb Chelsea and had a lovely time. We had shown the pictures to Amelia, Kai and Robin who all were super interested. When out to Legoland, as the kids were climbing the rock wall by Lego Ninjago, we remember Clip n’ Climb and decided to book it up! Jump Street has a Clip n’ Climb section on their website, so we figured we’d take a look at theirs.

Jump Street has three areas, that all need to be booked separately. One is a soft play arena, another is a trampoline park similar to Jump In, and the third is a Clip n’ Climb area. Though this area was more compact than the one in Chelsea, as that one had the entire building, all of the familar walls and attractions where there! If you’ve not heard of Clip n’ Climb before, it’s a child and adult friendly wall climbing venue, with some really fun walls. Unlike the sides of mountains, some of these walls are designed with video games in mind, others with bright colors and some as challenge walls.

None of the children had been rock climbing before, beyond the little wall at Legoland, so we showed up early for the informational video, which explained how the harnesses worked. Even Robin could go, with a special all-body harness to keep her safe. Once the video is over, we entered the arena for our turn on the walls. In order to get on a wall, you needed to stand near one nobody was on, and raise your hand. A member of staff then hooked you up, and let you go! Once you are done, you can stand by the wall again and raise your hand to be unclipped. There was a very good number of staff around for the number of people in our session, which meant we weren’t waiting around too much.

The variety of the walls are a big part of why we like Clip n’ Climb. There are walls where you can use wooden poles, like ice picks, to scale up, or others where portions of the walls move. Dann has been properly rock climbing with a few of his friends on realistic walls, but they do not have the challenge and fun of these funky ones! One wall had giant turning aspects, and another was round, with three walls that you can spread yourself around. Each of these walls have a name, as well as a few challenges on them, that tell the person who wants to take on the challenge to do a specific task, like not use any of a specific color of foot hold, or to go a specific route. Some walls have timers or allow you to face another people you want to race, which is quite fun too.

Like other Clip n’ Climbs, there isn’t just the walls. There are also three different events; a Mario-styled pipe jump where you jump down the centre, a giant ramp that you hold onto a bar, go up, and then are dropped down, and a free jump to jump out into the middle of the arena. Depending on which wristband you get, you can use these different features as much as you want, which was different from Chelsea, which had a ticket per go, coming out more expensive. At first, we had gotten all three kids just the climbing bracelets, but both Amelia and Kai wanted to try out the Mario Pipes, so we upgraded when there after being in the session for a little bit, which was easy to do.

Dann and I actually had some fear about taking the kids rock climbing. Obviously, to get down, you need to jump off the wall. This is something that we found to be a little bit scary, so we assumed that maybe the kids would be frightened by it too. Kai, the eldest, didn’t seem phased in the slightest, and threw himself off of walls from the start. Robin, who never got that far up a wall anyway, seemed to like falling off the wall better than climbing it, and would fling herself off if you asked how she was doing. Amelia, the middle child, on the other hand took some getting use to it. She ended up watching Dann fall off the wall a few times, then was confident to let herself go. We also talked through walking down, in case she needed too, but after a good 20 minutes, she was jumping off the wall like everyone else.

We brought plenty of water to Clip n’ Climb as it’s a big sport, but there was a drinks machine and coffee machine in the little tabled area where you can set your stuff down or watch your children. This area is nice enough, but we found that we enjoy climbing with them more than anything. It was a really fun experience, to watch them cheer each other on, take on new challenges, and try to work their way to the top. Also, that evening, everyone went to bed promptly on time, without any real effort – which is always a big plus! An hour is plenty of time to really wear everyone out.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!