Soft Play Review (Jumppin Jacks - Mildenhall)

Was torn between walking Devil's Dyke today or trying out a new soft play centre, but as you can probably guess from the title, the soft play won. We all had a great time, especially as our soon to be one year old currently gets in free (bonus!). Jumppin Jacks Funhouse is a purpose built unit on an industrial estate in Mildenhall. You can see a lot of thought has been put into the layout and design and on first entering we both remarked how much it looked like 'Fun House'. The under 3's section was small with just a ball pit and some large soft shapes. There didn't seem to be any staff supervising, and consequently lots of older children kept coming it, and a clever-clogs type dad thought it would be fun to empty his daughter out of the ball pit and then not replace the balls - hmmmmmm.

Despite this, the pickle loved exploring the under 3's area and especially enjoyed being carried around the older children's section. He even had a couple of trips down the slide with both mummy and daddy - so wish I had remembered my camera. I'm sure that Pickle will adore coming here when he's older, but I would say that for 1-2 year olds there isn't an awful lot to do, and new walkers would struggle to dodge the older children running around. We did however go at a weekend when its bound to be at is busiest.

For mums and dads, there's a cafe where you could get drinks and lights snacks (jacket spuds, toasted sandwiches, hotdogs) and a large selection of magazines. You can also purchase lunch boxes for children too. Overall a great experience, but I would be reluctant to bring the pickle here again at a weekend until he was a confident walker.

The rules of 'soft play'

Having just experienced my second bout of 'soft play' with the pickle, it seems that not everyone follows the rules...

#1 - No eating or drinking. My friend Clare was highly miffed that children were running around dropping food, which her son was promptly picking up and eating. To be honest I don't blame her, and probably would have felt the same if pickle had scoffed a soggy half-eaten rice cake.

#2 - Share and share alike - the number of older children that were allowed to wrestle toys of the younger babies was unbelievable. Not that I'm saying you can always stop them, but one little girl was just running from one toy to the next, prising them away from the smaller babas. Definitely not fair play!

#3. Children should be accompanied at all times. Again, I'm not claiming to be perfect, but accompanying children should really mean watching them a little bit, right? Half of the people at this place were just there for a natter and didn't have a clue what their children were doing, hence breach of rules 1 and 2.

So, while pickle had a great time, it definitely could have been better if everyone had been playing ball. Lol, see what I did there?