Jump Maniax — Attraction in Preston

I wanted to enjoy this place, I really did, but it feels like an accident waiting to happen. I’ve been to Total Ninja in Manchester, but it’s further away and a little bit more expensive, so I was hoping that a local venue for the same thing would be ideal. Unfortunately it really doesn’t stack up. I get the feeling that somebody went to Total Ninja and decided that they could do it, but at a significantly reduced price, a hazy memory of the obstacles, and without the skill behind the fabrication for it.

The location itself was pretty dark. Some coloured/ambient lighting would go a long way, but this wasn’t really used here. Furniture was still being assembled when we were there, and the music that was playing isn’t the sort of thing you want to hear when you’re trying to get in the zone to tackle an obstacle. Hearing something like Ed Sheeran instead of prodigy really isn’t ideal. But I could look past that if the obstacles themselves were set up well. The staff, whilst friendly, weren’t the quickest to attend to us despite the area being empty. They were repairing the children’s assault course without safety equipment, and the gates on children’s carabiners weren’t secured correctly. Speaking of which, whilst not directly a fault of the venue, young children were free to run around obstacles, getting in the way and there was more than one occasion where somebody in our group had to avoid colliding with a child. It would have been good if the staff were more vigilant and at the very least spoke to the parents about keeping their children under control.

There wasn’t much variation between the different course, with some of the obstacles being repeated multiple times across all of the courses. All of them were fairly challenging, but not in a good way. With some of them the equipment used was poorly constructed, with others things were not thought out thoroughly. Rings used on some of the obstacles being welded crudely and not coated, so it was just metal on metal. Carabiners were used to connect platforms with chains supporting them, but they were used incorrectly applying the force to the outside of the carabiner squeezing it inwards, instead of acting on the inside of it . This may not fail, but it certainly doesn’t seem like it is using the best equipment for the job. With a wall that you had to run up, there wasn’t a staircase to climb down, just a thin rope net around a 10ft drop onto a crash mat. The platforms that you stand on to reach each obstacle were not secured properly, so it was easy to tip them over if you weren’t careful, and the crashmats were arranged poorly, with small bits of foam filling in gaps.

I’m surprised that it passed a health and safety inspection, there are numerous edges that you could seriously injure yourself on. The lack of deburring around the edges of holes on has left lots of sharp edges, as well as sharp metal corners on the support structures being at head height and also uncovered.

With one obstacle where you have to slide across two metal poles holding onto a ring on each side, there was no stick for you to push the poles back to the start so instead you had to jump and bat at them to push them back. This was the same for another obstacle where you have to traverse pegs in an upside down V shape using more metal rings, however if you fall off at the top, you need somebody to try and climb it again to retrieve the rings and reset it. Overall each course didn’t feel like it was put together with any continuity. At Total Ninja you are able to run a course as one smooth flow, easily transitioning from one obstacle to the next, with Ninja Adventure it felt clunky and there’s no way of having a race as each lane on a course is different. .

It was a great idea and it had the potential to be brilliant, but the execution and the small details lacked finesse. Hopefully this is rectified over time, but I’m...

Friday 26th September - booked tickets to go at 5pm. Arrived and it was shut. Rang office they said theyd get back to me, they didnt. So my husband rang and apparently the one member of staff who was onsite was taken to hospital. That is unfortunate but why was there only one member of staff working? How is that in line with health and safety? What if the staff member had to get up and leave the reception area? Anyone could've walked in. Also, I have two autistic children so you can imagine how that went when we realised it was shut.

Saturday 27th September rang to get a refund. They took my details and said I would receive it by end of day and if not to call on Thursday because they are closed Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday. The refund never came.

Thursday 2nd October I rang again to advise not received refund. They said it would be with me by the end of the day. It wasnt.

Friday 3rd October I rang for a 3rd time to get my refund and told the person I may have to seek advice if this carries on, to which he replied "its only £20" which is beyond rude to say to a customer. He then assured me it would be with me by the end of the day. It wasnt.

Saturday 4th October I had drive to and go in to jump maniax to get my refund. The manager wasnt available (what a surprise!) so I got given the money in cash. The staff were really helpful and friendly so I had no issue with them. But the management there are rude and unorganised. I will never...

We booked a session from 4 until 5pm. The briefing was supposed to commence at 3.55pm but they strict want to start it until they'd booked some late arrivals in. 4.10pm and we still hadn't been briefed. Some of the kids there were very excited and shouted very loudly over the member of staff whose response was "the more you shout the less time you'll have to play". Fair enough but my daughter was patiently waiting and we had a long journey home after the session. The brief has started but then stopped by another member of staff who said more customers had arrived and to wait.

After asking if she could just go through the brief for us explaining the distance we had to travel and how we had other commitments that evening she thankfully agreed.

We were informed there's plenty of staff in there to help and show the kids what to do. Three members of staff were by the till, you had to hunt for other staff who were working on the floor though.

The equipment was quite basic compared to other businesses, some of hand held pegs were missing, there was no pole to move the rings and no steps to stand on for smaller children or those who can't jump.

A place we won't personally visit again but you may like it if you've never taken your kids to other...