The Big Box - Family Entertainment Hub — Attraction in Calgary

Firstly, if your kids are older, this place looks absolutely amazing. I couldn't believe everything that was there and even I wanted to play.

However, my child isn't older and my experience left me in a sour mood.

I came here as I had heard there was a toddler area that was separated from the rest of the establishment, that it was close to the washrooms and nursing room. As I couldn't find pictures, in my mind, I imagined it would have to be in it's own closed off area right? Away from the older kids right? No. Not really.

The toddler area is a small enclosure sitting right in the middle of the whole kids play area, between the bouncy castles and the kids jungle gym. It was closer to bathrooms and such, but there was an entire building block area in front of them where kids played. The toddler area in the bouncy castles was near the entrance.

The toddler play area was cute and had padded walls. It had balls they could play with, a little house to play in and a small jungle gym with two sizes of slides. The experience there at first was quite pleasant. However, it got chaotic fast.

There is absolutely no staff supervising the toddler area at all and parents are very clearly tuned out. Older kids were jumping over or climbing the walls, throwing balls, walking on top of the little jungle gym hexagons, which aren't secured to each other, jumping off of them into the toddler area and running around recklessly. Some kids, where the building blocks were, were building them On the wall where it could have toppled over onto the younger ones or throwing the bricks at the outside of the toddler area walls at the windows of the walls. These walls aren't very high, comes up a little above my waist, if that.

The toddler bouncy castle area was also left unsupervised, there was an older kid somehow sitting on top of one of the arcs in the toddler area. He didn't come out, so I assume he jumped onto the wall to go into the other area. Other older kids were running through there often. Otherwise, when it was empty, briefly, it was fun.

Overall, my experience with my kid makes me want to rate it even less as I was constantly worried about him getting injured by some other kids. But I am aware that the place would be really fun for kids that aren't toddlers. It is amazing in there and apparently little to no consequences for them too since none of the staff really pays attention to what's going on. Not that they could, big place and there aren't many of them.

There is a chance that it was just bad because it was the weekend, as I went on a Sunday, but I find that unlikely.

So... long story short, if you have a toddler, go somewhere else. Too many risk of injury due to older kids and parents/staff not...

Not even 1 star. 0 star!!! I had horrible experiences "Big Box '' indoor playgrounds and never gonna come back there. EVER! We went to the big box on Aug 28, Saturday at 10:30am. Since my kids were hungry, we ordered 12" Pizza, poutine and chicken tenders. 3 piece chicken tenders which I paid $5.99 without French fries. All foods were a bit pricey and they were so dry and warm, not too hot. but no choice since they don't accept outside food. My daughter came and asked me to buy ice cream and this happened. I ordered 3 bubble gum flavored ice creams ( $4.50 each ) and 1 snow cone ice cream for my daughter. My daughter opened up the ice cream covers and realized this is not the snow cone ice cream she ordered. I brought the wrong ice cream back to them and explained that the ice cream was not what I ordered. She looked at me like a crazy person and my daughter,  grabbed the ice cream from my hand and threw it in the garbage bin roughly. Then, asked me what ice cream she ordered. Again, she grabbed a snow cone and threw it at my daughter. I was very frustrated, very upset that they treated me as a crazy complaining person even though they gave me the wrong order!!! Don't they need to apologize to me first and change them in a good manner? I was going to complain to that person, but since 4 kids were there with me, I didn't want to make trouble and ruin their playdate so I was being patient until I left. I paid quite a lot of money to buy some coffee, pizza, dry chicken tenders and 4 ice creams and pops for kid's playdate with an expensive admission fee with the ultimate box deal $49.99/each for the play date. 3 for over 10 years old and 1 for little 5 years old for the play n' fly package. Since nobody explained the play n' fly has an age restriction, I bought a package deal that paid $29.99 for my 5 years boy and tried to refund this since we noticed he can't ride. Can they explain if they have an age restriction from the reception area before we buy a pass? A lady told me there would be no refund and let him try and kept asking me how tall he is. I had to spend more than 15-20 min to get a full refund back. Since I am a customer , they should provide the better services no matter what. All the staff were very rude, not not knowledgeable. I will not go back there and tell all my friends what experiences I had. You can't not treat the customers...

It was my son z birthday and we booked a party place yday. It was actually nice until the GM approached us stating one of the guests took a picture of a kid/girl in washroom. I was quite shocked but still listened to her request patiently and asked that particular party guest to hand over her phone for inspection. We went through pics with GM and she was satisfied there was no such pic.

But after that the GM started hounding us and made at least 2 more rounds about the same issue asking it needs to be escalated and she still needs to report it to her boss. It was very insulting and embarrassing especially for the guest because she was under the scanner for simply taking a selfie in washroom. And despite detailed phone check, they were insisting at a report for nothing.

And it was not even the issue itself, it was the way she talked to us in front of all guests. My 7 yr party boy got scared and clung to me saying Mommy whats going on? Why is the lady talking to us like that? Mommy I am scared. I had to calm him down and had to ask the GM to go talk to the other family and explain there are no pics instead of harassing us and our guests like this. At this point, my siblings were infuriated because they felt it was like racism as we were non whites. I am not sure what it was but it was so so sooo distressing and the party fun was completely ruined. The kids became upset with the whole scene and finally I had to tell the GM lady that we want to call cops. At that point, she said she is going to try to de-escalate it. Should she not have done that before?

It was a very very BAD experience for the guests and kids. All my guests left with a bad taste in their mouth about the place. We obviously had to wrap up in 20 mins of that disrespectful scene and everyone simply vowed to never hold a party there. What I felt was the worst part is - She checked phone and verified there is no issue and still kept repeating the same thing to the point of BULLYING behaviour mannerism which even kids felt.

PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF EMBARRASSMENT and do not hold your child s party here. I am still reeling from the aweful night we had but luckily the party later at home was the saving grace.

The way this GM at Deerfoot Big Box handled the matter was so UNPROFESSIONAL, RUDE, CONDESCENDING & UNFAIR.

Never would I recommend it in a...