Inflata Nation Inflatable Theme Park Manchester — Attraction in Trafford

Where do i start..... I booked myself and my 4 yr old son in for an hour yesterday and was gobsmacked at charging £9.95 for both adult and child each. My son was a good boy all week and so he wanted to go and play so i chose this place, id expect the price for a child to be slightly less than adult price or vice versa, but anyway, we went! I hit unforeseen football traffic and was ten minutes late to arrive for the appointed time slot, on entering, i waited in line only to be told i have to fill out a form which i did and waited in line again, i was now 15 minutes eating into my time slot. Eventually got served and got our blue wristband, i had my car keys and wallet that i wanted to lock away for safe keeping, the lockers were £2 for an hour and a half which i thought was a bit steep and also the card reader wasnt working so i had to go to the cafe to try and get change. Only one member of staff serving a busy, compact area and eventually i had to jump ahead when he opened the cash drawer just to get come change. I put my things in the locker and that was now 20 minutes into my time slot, my son was already in the zone and bouncing, he loved every minute of it which is what counts but the staff werent budging on re-booking it for the 3pm slot so we could get a full hour of play! To be honest, kids would love it, it does get a little too croded with other more grown up kids and you have to be careful if you have delicate children as some of the other kids were understandably very hyper. After 40 minutes of bouncing with my boy i was eager to leave, i think he was too, its very limited for size and once youve been down the slide or through the other areas, it soon gets a bit tedious as its not as big as youd think. I left to put our shoes on and use the toilets before we had a long journey home, usually my son isnt fussy when it comes to peeing, but the mens toilets were vile, even my son didnt want to use them, they stunk, no soap in the sink and only one urinal, now for such a busy place thats child orientated, id expect the level of hygiene to be up to standard, it really wasnt and thats why i decided that the whole experience for me was just poorly executed. The car parking was tiny, as there was football on that day, everywhere was full of cars and only one space (Disabled) at the front of the venue. This meant parking and walking a distance away from the place, again this ate into my time slot. There was no real customer service, just this fake smile and a poor attempt of a 'Sorry' for not being able to re-appoint the time slot to 3pm. Now if the price was a little less expensive for adult or child, i could have been happy, but to charge the same price is just penny pinching! Overall, i was very deflated ( excuse the pun ) at the whole experience, ive been taking my son to soft play venues since he was just a baby and ive seen far better standards of operation in other venues. My son enjoyed himself, thats what counts, but as a parent with ever vigilant eyes and not too high standards, well this place overall was way below par and i wont be going again. There are far better places, that offer far better experiences for far less cost and good hygiene, its where kids are playing and eating a using the loo, i dont think these people can cope with the busy days when kids are off, that was more than apparant with the low cleanliness and shoddy customer service. I dont usually complain this much, but as a parent, i like to know that the place im going to has a basic satisfactory level of practise, this fell very short of that and after not even an hour of being in the place, both my son and myself wanted out of there. Way overpriced and ill take my business...

Not a great experience with other kids! If your child has autism I'd advise caution when coming here.

I took my son here twice in one week because he loved it the first time. The first time was one hour. He played with other kids and with some staff members. It was a lovely experience and he was itching to go back. So we went for 2 hours the next day the first hour he asked another kid to play and they played happily together, no problems but they left then and my son was wanting someone to play with. He asked the staff today if he could play with them (like he did with the two the day before, in the main area where they were stood. It just involved them talking to him a bit and throwing the balls to each other.) They said no, they have to keep an eye on the area. Which fine. Wished the staff from the previous day were there again but nevermind.

So the staff members suggested he ask the other kids there to play (there were only 3 other kids in the place) The other kids were around 13. He doesn't normally approach teens because he's had a bad experience with that age group before with them not being understanding or friendly because of his learning disabilities when he is just wanting to be friends with them.

But he did as the staff member asked and asked if they'd like to play. They said "we will if you throw a ball through this hoop. He tried and managed to do it after a couple of tries. But then they refused to play with him and started throwing balls at him hard in his face. He was crying and asking them to stop but they continued and were laughing at him. He ran away and told the staff member. She got him cleaned up and brought him to me. He told me all about it and I said I'm going to come into the play place then to sit and watch him because he didn't feel safe anymore. The staff said I can't but got the manager for me. The manager was friendly and understanding. She had me sign a waver and gave me a wrist band for the time he had remaining in the place.

I'm not rating the place down for what those teens did because it isn't Inflata Nation's fault but maybe the staff could be placed at different areas to have a better view of the place rather than just in the main ball pit area.

My advice though is to maybe bring a friend for your child to play with or pay to go in with them because some kids in there are rough and just want to hurt and upset younger children. He has only ever had this problem happen once before at Total Ninja and when it did the staff told the teen to apologise and they gave us an option to have them kicked out or to have a staff member follow them around and watch them.

My son doesn't want to return here now incase they will be there. Shame because before this we were happy to take him there often and he was talking about having a birthday party there...

My kids love the play area here, but I want to share my experience of an Inflata Nation party.

The party started at 12pm but we were told to ask guests to arrive 30 minutes early. Turns out this was far too much. Everyone completed the waivers in less than a minute and then we were left twiddling our thumbs, embarrassed, apologizing to the other parents who were trying to occupy their restless kids.

The lady assigned to our party showed us into a party room to wait, one which had not yet been cleaned from the previous party. There were dirty plates, cups and napkins everywhere that we ended up clearing aside ourselves. We wanted to open a tab in the cafe for the adults to get a drink but, unfortunately, they wouldn't let us do this.

When the kids finally began playing, the adults were shown to a balcony viewing area. However, several parents pointed out that there was no one stopping young children from walking off the inflatables and straight out the front door. We complained and the staff looked at us like we were crazy for being concerned until eventually they posted someone by the exit to the play equipment.

After the play time was over, we were shown back to the (now clean) party room. The max no. of kids for parties is 20 and we had 17 and they could barely fit around the table. The kids were between the ages of 4 and 6 and all rubbing elbows with each other. The only food option was cheese pizza and no one bothered to refill the juice jugs when we ran out.

Unlike any other children's party venue I have been to, we were forced to cut and wrap our own cake. The lady seemed nonplussed when we requested a knife to do so.

The play area here is fantastic and so much fun for kids, but they have no idea how to host a kid's party. It's a real shame as you would think a venue like this would be the perfect place for youngsters to celebrate. They need better organization, better options for food, and a security gate stopping kids from...