Kidspace Croydon — Attraction in London

Beautiful venue, the setting itself would have 5 stars, I will update this review if myself feedback is taken on board!

On my visit, I came with my twins and three year old. On arrival to the desk, I was not acknowledged and was actually ignored - I say “hi” repeatedly, and eventually got served. There wasn’t any reason for this. The team member who served me was not doing anything at all, she just simply didn’t respond to serve me.

When I was served, I showed my ticket/booking information. The person serving me refused to look at it and instead insisted on me spelling out my name my surname which isn’t the easiest, my booking time and pretty much all of the ticket information - what is the point in having QR codes on tickets and a booking info receipt if it isn’t actually used to make things faster. Even after this, I was counted as two kids rather than the three which I paid for, which I had to raise again. This is happening under a backdrop of the space being incredibly busy inside.

When we go into the toddler village for the 3.30 session, it was extremely overcrowded. There were not only no tables, parents were sitting on kids equipment because there were no seats, it wasn’t safe, crowded around the ball pit to watch their children. What is the capacity, because it didn’t seem right.

Obviously because it was so crowded it meant that there was rubbish on the floor everywhere, dirty tables and not enough people to look after the area.

When I did order my food I ordered two portions of chips, one of them had extra chilli sauce, cheese and garlic. One arrived with only the garlic, so I had to leave my table (fortunately I had another adult with me on this occasion or this wouldn’t have been possible) and go to the counter to query where the other sauces were. I was also missing the other portion of chips. Later, the sauces and cheese arrived on my chips but I then had to request the other portion of chips again.

The counter staff were helpful, and the person serving, but working in hospitality and having been to kidspace before where my chips were missing all the dips apart from one that time too, I was wondering whether something has gone wrong on the POS backend with modifiers.

At the end of my booking slot I was very surprised there was no clean regiment of any kind between sessions, given COVID.

Lastly, the menu reductions. It is a very poor choice at the moment for food, and the quality compared to my last visit was poor. When I selected “chilli” sauce for the chips, I did not expect sweet chilli, this seems a bizarre idea for chips, but should be clarified on the menu. The garlic sauce was inedible.

I also had the Middle Eastern wrap, which was bearable, but compared to my last visit and my partner who had the chicken wrap, it just wasn’t good enough, the cheese in the chicken wrap was also horrid.

Lastly, your survey after your visit - the answers should just be a scale rather than “ are you actually paying these people” as suggestions for your answers - it’s a non funny, casual presumptuous and doesn’t actually give good enough feedback for improvement. I know the people who served me are all paid, but why aren’t they happy? The food side of things was better service but the FOH as you come in, needs radical improvement. Little things like I had a double buggy, and three team members were not doing anything, and I still had to ask to be buzzed in (after being checked in!) and then didn’t help open the gate. Im disappointed I’ve even had to write this, because my girls love the space but it just was unacceptable as...

This venue in Romford was chosen by our son for his 6th birthday party which he was very much looking forward to. Notwithstanding how crazy busy it was, the children seemed to have a great time.... until the time that we needed to bring the cake out.

Following the blowing of candles and wishing happy birthday to our boy, -our "party hostess" literally dropped the cake straight onto the floor, face down, managing to almost completely destroy it. The whole scene was witnessed by most of the kids which all started shouting and screaming about it (the parents were at first unaware that anything happened but quickly picked up on the fact that our cake was dropped on the floor).

Instead of one of their staff members telling me about it, they proceeded with hiding in the venue's kitchen with the damaged cake. I actually had to make my way in there myself (despite them trying to tell me that this area "was not allowed to the public") to see the extent of the damage. They claimed that a kid outside our party group ran into the hostess and caused the accident but were not particularly apologetic about it- they simply proceeded to try and cover it up by cutting pieces of the completely mangled cake, which had already touched the floor.

What ensued was complete chaos which totally ruined the birthday experience for our son and his guests: the "hostess" took twice as long to cut the destroyed cake into pieces and put the mangled chunks in the goody bags, by which point the kids were getting restless, the parents realized what happened and started asking us whether it would be "safe to eat the cake from the floor"- completely justified.

Needless to say that we are sure that everyone probably threw the cake pieces out instead of allowing their kids to have it. Our son was devastated to see his birthday cake with his chosen decorations go to such waste, he didn't even get a chance to have a slice himself.

Eventually some members of staff came out of the kitchen 20' late with some half melted ice cream pots (which should have been brought out right after the cake was taken in) and the goody bags, by which point most of the kids had been scattered out of the "party room".

Total and utter shambles. For a venue that charges £17/£20 per child for a party, their way of dealing with it was completely appalling. They not only did not offer to reimburse us for the cost of the cake or to offer some form of compensation for the fact that our son's 6th birthday party was completely ruined, but they also refused to put us through to the manager on the day and only gave us her email address. Needless to say we have emailed Claire (the manager) and have heard absolutely nothing since. The least they could have done is offer a free pass to our child- which would have cost them nothing.

All the parents were notified of the incident and needless to say, they will not be bringing their kids back there.

Terribly unprofessional and downright awful service and customer support, left everyone shocked by what happened. Shame on them for ruining a child's party- and charging us through the nose in the...

We've been members for over 5 years. A place that is great for the kids to spend their energy. Popular venue for holding birthday parties. It is not cheap. On busy days (peak times) you can end up queuing for up to and sometimes over an hour. That also NOW includes members. I can honestly say, that on busy days as members we have been left waiting, and take second place to cash paying customers! I have cut down on the number of visits I make there because I have received some appalling service. The management have on a couple of occasions been very blasė with me. The general feeling of not really liking their job. That would seem to be a reoccurring theme among a fair portion of their teen/very early 20s staff. Manners and a code of conduct and personal presentation on how to behave around customers would not go amiss. Nothing worse than having your first contact on entering the premises is a girl chewing gum, feet on counter, tattoos and piercings all over the place, can't even respond to a basic greeting like hello or good morning, just... how many children?, how many adults?... abrupt. Non smiling. Horrible. Now... lets talk about the food. I have posed questions to the management on this topic. (Its out of their hands) is the normal response. The food / cafe counter is not cheap. The coffee is terrible. Its cheap and nasty and you pay full coffee shop prices. Cakes are mass produced at inflated prices. Pizza has been given to me on a few occasions almost cremated or cold. The nachos were microwaved so hard that when the cheese cooled down it was like concrete. I now only order tea. Do not order the large one as you will pay too much for an extra 2x sips. Cleanliness... in general the tables are kept tidy, the method is questionable. But this is not really an area of worry. The climbing frame has not been cleaned for years!!! The top has a thick layer of dust. It is filthy on top. It has not been maintained. So if your little Johnny has an asthma attack, don't be surprised, you know why... I had offered to give a constructive appraisal to the management or owners, but I was treated like a kid, dismissed like I had not got a clue. (Business owner with 31 years customer service in catering) I was happy to send to the owner, but was told by the manager that it was sent to this premises and that she normally dealt with the mail... not...