hop! skip! jump! Indoor Play Space Halifax — Attraction in Halifax

A Terrible Experience at Hop! Skip! Jump!

As someone who's lived in Halifax for three years, I've always found the city friendly and inclusive. However, today’s experience at Hop! Skip! Jump! made me feel unfairly singled out—perhaps even discriminated against. Most issues involved a female staff member at the front desk.

Ticket Pricing: After renovations, every adult now pays an extra fee, whereas previously one adult could enter free. We found this unreasonable, as I couldn't leave my two-and-a-half-year-old alone. While deciding, the front desk staff was impatient and unfriendly.

Photography: Inside, I recorded a short 4-second video of my friend’s child on a slide. Immediately, the same staff member sternly forbade me from filming, citing privacy concerns. I stopped immediately, I immediately expressed my understanding and assured her that I had only recorded my friend and her child. I did not continue filming after that However, I soon noticed that many other parents were taking pictures of their children throughout the playground, yet none of them were stopped by the staff. Moreover, Hop! Skip! Jump!'s online reviews contain numerous customer-uploaded photos and videos. In the past, when I visited this location before the renovations, I also saw parents taking photos without any staff intervention. There were no visible signs prohibiting photography, nor was this policy mentioned when purchasing tickets. This selective enforcement made me feel targeted and unfairly treated.

Foam Ball Incident: In the toddler area, my daughter was playing on a trampoline while my friend collected several foam balls scattered by other children. After cleaning up, we were heading to return the balls when we briefly paused at another activity.

At that moment, the same staff member from the front desk approached us again, this time in an extremely stern manner. She directly accused me of "holding onto the balls without returning them" and demanded that I "immediately" put them back in the designated area.

I explained that we had just picked up these balls from the trampoline and were on our way to return them, but she continued speaking to me in an unreasonably harsh tone. If she had simply said, "I can take the balls and put them back for you," the situation could have been handled much more professionally and politely. Instead, she seemed intent on finding fault. Did she expect me to abandon my two-year-old child just to return the balls immediately?

This repeated targeting made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I cannot help but suspect that because we hesitated before purchasing tickets, she formed a negative opinion about us and deliberately singled us out throughout our visit.

Finally, This entire experience at Hop! Skip! Jump! was deeply unpleasant. The attitude of this particular front desk staff member made me feel disrespected, and at times, even discriminated against. As a paying customer, I followed all the rules, yet I was repeatedly singled out and...

It's really nice, laid out very thoughtfully; You only pay for children over 2 years old. We were a family with 6 adults and 4 children, two of the children were just over the age of 2, and I believe taxes included it was $13 and change per child. No payment for adults or children under 2. They have comfortable adult chairs at the front of the play centre to be able to carefully watch the younger ones. (The front portion is for children 4 years and younger - to primary or school aged children allowed). This is nice because my 7 month old niece and my 4 and a half month old niece could crawl around and play freely without worry of older kids bumping into them or knocking them older. In behind the baby/toddler area there is a much higher play/climbing area (everything is netted in for safety on both sides. The older kids side has higher, longer slider, longer tunnels to crawl through, as well as some kind of nerf ball laser tag. They have a very small cafe area mainly for adults - with the exception of perhaps milk/juice/bottled water. Along with coffee and coffee adjacent drinks, they serve light fare such as sandwiches, veggies etc.. Bring small snacks your children are accustomed to having. However note that outside food is not allowed - so don't pick up a fast food kids meal or pizza or something similar, you can't bring it inside. We stayed for about 2-2 and half hours, and of course the children didn't want to leave. We went on a Monday DURING normal school hours so none of the children there were over 4 years old, and it was so much quieter and relaxed than it would be if older kids were there. There are of course bathrooms onsite with baby change tables. Side note - You must have socks on. No shoes are allowed in the play area, and no bare feet are allowed. There is a box where you can borrow (or "rent" socks for that visit only. No thanks) I had my own socks with me. Since I brought my own socks, I confess I don't know how the sock exchange works. Bottom line - just bring your own; if you don't have any for you or the children ~ Walmart is less than 5 minutes away. I will definitely return to Hop! Skip! Jump! With family or children of friends. But will make sure it on a school day. There could be some improvements to the café and what they serve, I'm not suggesting they add junk food, but not everyone wants a tomato cheese and cucumber sandwich. My only safety concern that I noticed is with the four steps going down to the toddler play area, it does have multiple handrails across the length of the steps, but it's adult height. I'd recommend and hope that they put more support rails inbetween so no toddlers fall under it, and get hurt, but also so they have something more suited to their height/needs to keep them safe. For the time being, I'll still give 5 stars, and hope and remind management and staff of these issues and...

Through the years myself and my wife have enjoyed coming to hop skip jump as a refuge for our child, whom like every other child on a weekend with bad weather has excess energy to expend. Even as parents we have had many positive memories and have even had fun ourselves. We live in an economically inflationary climate, nowadays, we all know why. We as parents struggle to make ends meet, to pay bills, buy groceries - every penny counts! Today my family went to hop skip jump, and like every other visit I expected another enjoyable time. That expectation was dashed by learning parents are expected to now pay $3.00 (per parent) to simply gain entry - $3! 90% of the time parents are standing, watching their children play, or, if they’re lucky, sitting for that well deserved respite from a busy work week.This is shameless gauging. I spoke with a supervisor who was obviously feeding me some management-fed explanation as to why this was being done. I was told “everyone else was doing it”, which is untrue. The owners simply want to charge more money. The reasons are irrelevant (e.g. recent Reno’s) - you made a choice to complete renovations as a company and also made the choice to try to have the public absorb your costs.It’s appalling that parents are being charged so that their children can enjoy this type of service. On principle my family will not be returning to this establishment. It’s just too much! Too much gauging, too much being taken advantage of as consumers. Every time we turn on the news we hear about prices going up, property taxes, groceries (going up even more), etc etc etc. political “leaders” threatening tariffs that will impact our bottom line. We need to live and deal with all this. What we should not be dealing with is an erroneous $3 charge per parent to walk in a building to simple stand and watch our children play. I intend to post this review on Facebook and tag every one of our friends who have informally been reporting the same way....