A Day Out at Kidspace Romford

[Ad- gifted experience] Now that soft play is back open, the children have been absolutely pumped about the idea of going into all sorts of soft play areas, exploring around and climbing through the various areas that always seem to be within them. When we heard about Kidspace, I was pretty excited and convinced that the children would be quite happy exploring. The place has a massive soft play area, a few climbing walls, a sky way, go-karts, an interactive room and so much more. We all geared up to go to Kidspace, excited to see what would be there!

When we first arrived, we went into the soft play right away. This soft play is big enough for adults – everything there is actually – and we were able to chase the kids around a bit. The soft play has one main bit, and then two side bits that have tunnels into other areas of the room. This main bit has a massive opening, which is where people play with balls, push balls up pipes to the floors above, and use cannons to blast light up targets that are hanging from the roof. This is a pretty fun area to be in and where the kids often where when we went looking for them! The inside of the play frame itself was over a few areas, with plenty of straight and swirly slides to get down and out on. Having this interactive middle bit was really fun, especially with the amount of buttons – and there were some cannons on the top floor as well that can be blasted into the central area. The main area added so much more to the soft play then traditional frames, with cannons on the upper levels feeding down into it as well.

When it comes to the other areas of Kidspace, you get one go per extra. That means you get one go on the climbing walls, one go on the sky walk and one go on go-karting. There were four different climbing walls off to one side of the entrance. They had various timers on them, and one of them looked a lot like a bunch of vines. These reminded us a lot of Clip’n’Climb. They had a giant vine-looking wall as well as a few other colorful walls, We didn’t end up spending our time going on the climbing walls, as there are big lines and with a limit of just two hours in the place, it doesn’t make sense to really use your time on big walls that the kids weren’t too interested in.

We did go on the go-karts, which were in a small circle. The children really like go-karting and bumper cars, and the line itself wasn’t very long (due to the turn around time) so they all enjoyed go-karting together. Dann went with Robin who was super happy to tag along with him and race around the track. The other extra we wanted to go to was the sky walk. Above the cafe area in Kidspace, you can look up and see a sky walk, complete with ropes to cross, bridges, and a rock wall. The line for this was always long – which was the first real issue there. Kai and Amelia waited in line for the sky walk for about half an hour of their time, when they got to the front of the line, the person working the sky walk announced they couldn’t go on because our two hours were almost up (we had half an hour left). The children then went off to play and I went to the front desk. There, I asked if we could go on the sky walk as the children really wanted to go. That person asked us to go back and wait in the line – which was now longer than before – and as a result we waited another 45 minutes before getting onto the sky walk – going over our two hours by quite a bit by the time both children were done walking around.

Robin, who was not tall enough for the sky walk, really enjoyed her extra time in the soft play, however, I do not think that the sky walk was really worth the wait and massive take from our time there – and I do feel that the first person working there telling the children they couldn’t go on, after they had waited so long, was very annoying when it came to the time limit in the venue. If we had a day pass, and there fore didn’t have a strict time limit, it might have been different – but we still really don’t know why the kids were told by that person that they couldn’t go on at first. Kai really enjoyed the sky walk – zooming through the entire thing and conquering all of the tasks with ease, where as Amelia did lock up in some areas – but they had a staff member that can walk around the sky walk and talk children through it. It’s just a shame that the lines are so long and the staff felt the need to deny entry.

There is one add on event in Kidspace – and interactive digital aquarium, which you can pay one pound per person to enter. This is a 15 minute long experience that happens at specific times throughout the day. I went along with all three of the children – where we were taken to a side white room full of projectors, rocks with tablets and pillow rocks. All around us is the ocean – fish moving, plants moving, glitter sparkling. You can touch the walls and floor, making glitter and petting fish. The tablets within the rocks allow you to make your own fish and then follow them around. After a while, we were all asked to side down (some of us sat on the soft rocks) and a video of the ocean started playing. We were taken, as if we were swimming, through the ocean, following fish and creatures as they swam. Because this was projected on all of the walls of the area, it became a very immersive experience. We all really enjoyed watching the movie develop, following the sea creatures, and it was pretty nice to have a bit of a break from running around in the soft play!

Kidspace at Romford also has food – and this menu is more complex, with more options, then previous kids place places we have went too. They still have staples like pizza and mac n cheese, but they also have curries, chorizo added to their mac n cheese to make more adult options, and more. We had eaten before we arrived, so none of us ended up ordering food, but it was nice to see such a big menu of that variety. The kids did all get slushies – they had four flavors including one called “unicorn” and they had a bit of each. The entire area also has Wifi – so if you were looking to work from a softplay place, you can totally do so at Kidspace.

We did have a lot of fun during our time at Kidspace, and the children didn’t miss not going on the climbing walls. I do think that the lines for these areas, compiled with the limited time, is quite a shame (as is the attitude of some of the staff when it comes to actually waiting in line) but we would go back again – without the expectation of doing anything other than soft play.

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