Castle Royale — Attraction in West Vancouver

My 4-year-old daughter was at a birthday party there a few years ago. There were no bathrooms in the facility at the time (I don't know if there are any there now) and I needed to use the toilet. I left my daughter at the party, supervised, I thought, by the parents hosting the event and the "capable" staff at the facility, for a couple of minutes to use the restroom.

When I returned, I did a general "check-in", a sweep over the place to make sure my daughter was there and safe. I didn't spot her initially but wasn't overly worried as I thought she was probably playing somewhere deep in the play area with friends. After all, where could she go? There was a monitored, electronic gate at the front, and kids weren't allowed to exit unsupervised, right?

About five minutes later, I received a call on my cell phone from a woman, asking my child's name and where I was... It turns out...my four-year-old, as soon as I had left the premises, also needed to use the toilet. When she couldn't find me, she was permitted to to walk straight through the front doors of Castle Royale, unattended and unsupervised, out the mall doors and into the cold and wintry parking lot at Park Royal on a busy Saturday in November (it was actually Black Friday weekend, so it was very cold and the mall parking lot was PACKED with traffic). She had no shoes on, no jacket on, and was all alone. The only reason this lovely stranger even knew who or what number to call was that my daughter had a wristband with my phone number on her little hand.

I freaked out, ran out to the parking lot to collect her, so thankful to this kind stranger for calling me and bringing my daughter to me. I was an absolute mess, faced with the thought that my daughter could have easily been either mowed down by a car in the busy lot, abducted by a stranger or frozen to death in the parking lot if not for the kindness of this stranger! My daughter was terrified and in tears...

I swept my daughter up in my arms (she had wet her pants in the meantime by the way) so she was cold AND wet. I took her inside and approached the front attendant at Castle Royale to ask how this could possibly have happened. The woman at the front, (who honestly seemed to be not much more than 16 or 17 years old) had the audacity to tell me that the host of the party was responsible for supervising the children, and that they, the staff at Castle Royale, were not responsible if children got through the front gate.

I was floored. Why had she buzzed an unsupervised, shoeless four-year-old out of the play area? And how could the hosts of the party be responsible for supervising ALL of the children in the facility when Castle Royale famously has a "drop and shop" babysitting service. Who supervises the children then?

I was so upset, too upset to even bother with exploring the situation at the time. I packed our things up and went home. When I arrived, I told my horrified husband what had happened. He was mortified, as was I, still, when what happened really started to sink in. My daughter, not to mention, was also traumatized by the events of the day as well and had trouble sleeping that night.

My husband was so angry, he thought of calling the police and pressing charges for negligence and child endangerment, he thought of writing to the local paper to let the public know, calling the evening news, but, cooler heads prevailed. After we both calmed down, we decided to write a letter to Castle Royale themselves, to tell them of our ordeal.

We waited, days, weeks, months for a response...They never responded.

I wrote and sent the same letter to Park Royal. They, also, never responded.

I have never been back. And I never will return. So...

Poorly managed, unsafe capacity of kids and parents. Some kids not supervised. Had a very bad experience here. We paid over $30 for 1 adult and 1 child, they also wanted to charge $25 for a baby to be with me also, a baby that was in a baby carrier that is! Which is crazy, so I told them he’s too young to even crawl he won’t be using anything in the play area. Reluctantly they allowed me to bring him in with me no charge but advise next time I don’t have him… No sooner had we got inside my daughter was punched by another child as she bumped into her by accident, my daughter is only 3, no idea who the parent was of the child as it was complete chaos inside, there were far too many people on the premises it was a little concerning to be honest. My daughter, after being punched, decided she didn’t want to go inside the play area at all so I turned to the attendant who I had just paid and said, she’s not going to go inside now, my daughter visibly upset still with her shoes on, the attendant she said “oh, you want a refund”. I said yes please. Her college came over and started looking through the system, to what I presumed was to issue a refund, after 5 mins she tells me, oh I can’t find your card number in the system, yet no one else had entered the play area after me at that point. So it was a little strange, she tried to keep looking but then said, oh it’s fine let me do it anyway and proceed to write a postit note for “credit”. When I told her we lived out of town and won’t be back she said oh well sorry about that and threw away the postit. I asked her for a refund and she said no we don’t do that. That was the end of the conversation. So they happily went ahead and kept my $30 No where was there a “no refund policy” stated anywhere on the waiver I signed. She just then looked at me blankly and said that she couldn’t...

My 5 year old son and I visited this place on a weekday during spring break. We had a good time there. There were approx 20 kids and 10 parents inside and it felt clean and spacious. A couple of parents were working on their laptops at the eating area while their kids played, which in hindsight was a smart idea for cheap “babysitting” if you have no other options to entertain your kid while you work.

The $20 per kids entry fee does seem pricy for the medium sized play area and $3 adult entry fee is annoying. I've been to another indoor playground where they would waive this fee if you don't go inside the play area.

I did not find the lack of washroom to be that bad because the food court washroom was literally a minute away, around the corner. I guess if you had to use the washroom then you must take your kid with you, which I can see would be inconvenient.

Room to improve: While in general the facility felt well maintained and clean, most of the portable play stools and play items were worn down with the inside foam exposed. If they can spend some money to update those items, it would really improve the play experience. I found this older boy was going around and pushing other kids and throwing foam balls at them. He even pushed a younger girl down the slide and made her cry. Since it is a drop and shop, it would help to have a staff supervising the kids inside the play area and enforcing the no kids under three rule at the infant area.

Overall, a good experience and I would go back, this time with my laptop or a good...