Funtopia Prospect — Attraction in Adelaide

We hosted my sons 4th birthday party here and the whole experience from pre-booking, party day to post booking has been incredibly disappointing. If you are considering a party here I would seriously reconsider especially if you have children of the younger age group.

We were not told ahead of the party that only 11 people could be in the room at once, whilst we completely understand that with COVID and the restrictions they have placed on them this is a completely reasonable request however if we had been told ahead we would have cancelled the booking as the children in the party totalled 11 ranging between 1 and 4 years old. Expecting 11 children alone in a room with the party host is unacceptable. The children needed help with their drinks, with food, their dietary requirements etc and naturally parents would gravitate to help. The area they were expected parents to wait was a walkway with high traffic of people, the chairs directly outside were not reserved for the party. The whole experience was uncomfortable.

Other areas of concerns were: The security getting in and out is a concern, all our party members had to say was they were here for a party and were allowed in, the exit is not manned. The party host only had 8 wristbands when there was meant to be 11 (plus 3 we booked extra into the playground)). We had to wait whilst this was resolved and the children were not allowed into the play area until then meaning very grumpy children. They just take payment for the party and don’t offer you any breakdown of what you are charged (which I still have not received despite requesting). Drinks were not offered to the children until over an hour into the party. There was no explanation to the group at the beginning of the party to explain to kids who the host was, where to go if they get lost, the fact the room could only host 11 people. It was only during the event when a staff member would stand on a chair yelling at people to get out. If we had known prior to party and wanted to go ahead we would have made sure it was organised properly between us. You struggle to get a straight answer about anything, in Facebook messenger you are told that all parents need to buy an $16 playground pass in order to enter / supervise your child but yet on the day the party host had never heard of this nor was anyone outside the party booking charged for this additional cost

Since contacting the venue to provide my feedback they concentrated only on the COVID, and explained that they had sent me my party booking terms at the time of booking that hadn’t reached me. They had not checked their mailbox properly and the booking term they said they sent were completely different to the version I actually received and they could provide no evidence that an update was ever sent to cover these new terms. These updated terms were without a doubt never sent and never communicated to me.

I feel that the venue should have explicitly contacted me prior to the party communicating the COVID restrictions, and also made a judgement call that a 4 year olds party doesn’t fit their expectations (their new booking terms advise all children to be dropped by their parents and left!)

Their offer of a one-off free play pass has not felt enough, as we feel like we have been mis sold a service and of what should have been a great memory for us and our son has been instead left felt very unfair. It has been 9 days since they have had an opporunitiy to respond to my email to which I have received nothing back.

Personally I would reconsider a party or attending in general. The organisation seems...

Extremely disappointed in fact horrified! We came here with our two small children very excited to have their first play at Funtopia. I understand school holidays are busy, but there was easily 100 plus children in this centre Not including the adult accompanies. I get it school holidays. It was very busy so we gave this place. The benefit of the doubt we sat a dirty table and got somebody to assist us with cleaning. That was easy. The kids were playing on the playground and the falling tower having a really good time using the skill testers and other token operated activities in the center. We spent quite a bit of money All was seemingly well!

Until my three-year-old son came to me that he had swallowed some orbeez/water beads from a toy in the skill tester and i immediately took the toy there was hundreds of these little balls on the floor and in the play center I picked up as many as I could but they were everywhere they were by the falling tower the volcano slide and even inside the soft playground! My heart sank. I was mortified. I knew that this wasn’t good. I immediately run up to the staff and let them know. I spoke to her young guy called Mitchell. He told me that he had never had anything like this happened before and rang the skill testing company to check what ingredients were in those choice as there was no warning label or packaging on them, he came back to me and said I’ve spoken to the guy who runs the skill testing machines and he has a short us that everything is non-toxic. Not once did anybody go out into the playground to check for these little balls? Not once did anybody go out and supervise any of those play equipment areas where I had reported the spill? I expressed to Mitchell if anything came of this that I would seek legal action. Sure enough within a couple of hours we were in emergency with our sick little boy all night who swallowed the toy beads at this center! Not once was any assistance offered! No one bothered to ask for our number to check up on us. I am Absolutely appalled at the quality of service and supervision for such a high number of children being in the facility. This could’ve been a very different outcome. The doctors told us That he was lucky to be alive! Really, really disturbed by the whole experience and the fact that I still haven’t had anybody reach out! Very...

While the female staff were all lovely, our 5 year old attended a birthday party here today and did the rock climbing with his friends but became distressed when he got higher, so I checked the signs for all of the rules to enter and went to help my child, because the instructor (black curly hair) was busy rock climbing himself, as you do when a group of 5 year olds need your supervision. After a few minutes he stormed up to me and yelled at me that I had no right to be there and needed to leave, instead of professionally and courteously asking me if we needed any help, which would have been fairly obvious. I explained my son was scared and needed help and instead of apologizing for goofing off instead of actually doing his job he told me to leave without my child and aggressively slammed and locked the gate. The other parents saw it all and were absolutely disgusted, with two of the dads commenting that he would never have behaved that way if I were male. He seemed strangely energetic for 9am and the level of aggression he exhibited towards me for helping my own child lead us to make a few obvious assumptions, based on his behaviour. We had just been talking about having our kids parties there but after that we all decided Funtopia is not suitable at all. We have been visiting for years and I have always been able to help my children when needed. There are also no rules communicated to parents at any point, or any signage stating parents are not permitted to help their children. Perhaps some training on how to treat women and paying customers would be a good idea...