Kids Empire Ballwin — Attraction in Ballwin

Where do I begin? How many times does your child turn 3? How many birthdays do we get as parents of little ones before they’re too old and cool to appreciate anything you could plan?

I thought my wife and I planned something special by taking our daughter here for her birthday. We invited her friends and our family’s hoping memories would be made. The same type of memories we made when we see those old faded Polaroids in our mothers photo albums. (I’d burn these photos)

Let’s talk about understaffing.

This entire place had 4 people working the day we went. We waited 45 minutes in line just to pay and get in after filling out our waivers because there just weren’t enough people working. Once we finally paid, we were told that the toddler area was unavailable due to an “accident” and it needed to be cleaned. I asked if it would be reopened and was never given a straight answer. We decided to ask for a refund due to half the kids unable to play in the big section but was told I’d have to email support if I’d want a refund….we couldn’t leave, stuck somewhere we couldn’t enjoy and already aggravated that it took forever just to get in.

I digress, let’s not be a Karen and deal right. We make the best of it and we hope that eventually things will reopen and be cleaned ( we were there for 3 1/2 hours and it never was reopened ). I have 1 year old twins so that really sucked. It was a complete waste of money. If you’ve been there, you might understand.

Every single one of our guest, were stuck waiting 30-45 minutes to pay as they arrived. I also want to be very clear here, I’m not exaggerating.

Once the kids played for a little, I decided whatever, it is what it is. I went out to the car to get a small pack of cupcakes so we could sing happy birthday to my daughter. They have a no outside food policy so I kept the cupcakes in our car. When I brought them in, I kept the package sealed. We didn’t open nor eat the cupcakes, only to present them to my daughter so we could sing happy birthday to a 3 year old.

I was swarmed by their employees, who all of a sudden have time to harass my family even tho they can’t even assist people coming in the door. I tried to explain to them that I’m not opening the cakes, I’m only singing happy birthday to my daughter because that’s why I’m here. She ran and got her manager who tried coming over and saying the same thing. The entire time Im trying to explain I’m not opening the cupcakes, I want to sing happy birthday to my daughter.

The manager then said her main manager is the one saying I have to take the cupcakes out, and luckily this is the manager I previously emailed about a refund and had yet to get a response from. I told the young woman that I’d actually be thrilled to speak to them.

I’m now on one of their cellphones speaking to the district manager, while their place is being overran due to understaffing simply because I’m trying to show my daughter her birthday cupcakes and sing to her on her birthday. (AGAIN, UNOPENED AND HALF MELTED FROM ALREADY BEING LEFT IN THE CAR BECAUSE WE FOLLOWED THEIR POLICY.)

I explained our entire experience to the district manager and here’s the point.

Even tho I brought a ton of people in for my daughters birthday, we can’t actually celebrate her birthday because we didn’t pay a premium birthday package. ”We have people pay way more.” He apologized about the staffs treatment and areas being closed. That’s all fine. The employee apologized and even let my daughter enjoy a cupcake in the end.

I took the rest of the cupcakes out, and right outside the door down the sidewalk we pass employees of this place (again half staffed and already overwhelmed) outside smoking a little weed. My mother, who’s laid back as can get said “I don’t see how you could work here and not smoke.” The employee laughed and jokingly responded “shh don’t tell no one.”

I laugh to myself as I carry melted cupcakes to my car.

Parent to Parent…..there’s a million other places to celebrate your kids birthday party, go pick...

I don't even know where to begin. I booked this party over a month ago for a dual birthday party for a 10-year-old and a four year old. I had issues with their website and the website kept erroring and booking us under the wrong package, so I called the store and let them know what I was experiencing and they assured me they would handle it. A week goes by and I call them to confirm that the package had been moved to the correct package. They let me know that it had not been moved yet so I asked them what the holdup was and they told me they would have to get their manager or district manager to contact me to see if we can get the package moved to the correct one. I never received that phone call. A couple of days go by and I reach out to make sure that we have the right package but still it is not fixed so they advised me they had to reach out to their IT department to physically go in and move the package. Three days after that I finally got confirmation that it was fixed. Jump to today our entire party made it to the site and we had to wait 20 to 30 minutes in line because they had booked so many parties at the exact same time that the line was out of the door and they were so short staffed that they couldn't handle the crowd. We finally got seated at our table 25 minutes late into our package play time. We received our pizzas an hour and 30 minutes later because we have the meal package booked and it had looked like it was dropped (by the way the pizzas or outsourced through Marcos, and there were slices stuck to the lid) We were supposed to get unlimited, gummy bears, and not one single person in our party ever received one. We were supposed to get one token for the birthday kids to take a ride on the go carts and the go carts were broken and they never got their ride. Close to the end of the party. We had an employee come and tell us that we had to move and that's where we started getting upset. They took so long for our party to get signed in that now we were having to pay the price and move our party before we were ready to leave to the other tables. My advice to the owners of this site. HIRE MORE STAFF!!!! I will be reaching out to the district manager to let them know exactly how bad our experience was today. We were testing out the site because my youngest daughter has a birthday coming up to see if we would be coming back to book another party with them, and we will not...

The good thing about this place is that that kids love it. The infant and toddler section is perfect and I'm glad they have that separate from the bigger kids. From an adult perspective, my experience was horrible. The Party planner Daisy has no idea what she's talking about. She will call you a week before the party to go over the details. One of the things we went over was the option to bring our own ice cream being that they sell ice cream double the price. We asked if we could bring a cooler to store our own ice cream and she said "No it's a slip risk" which is understandable with kids running everywhere. So I asked if they can keep the cooler in the back with the cake and bring it out when they bring the cake out on the cart. She said yes that's fine. I also mentioned that kids have 2 parents, 1 adult is free and the other adult has to pay, she said it's an extra $5 for additional adults. Perfect! great so I thought. We arrived at the facility for the party with our cooler and we are stopped at the door because we cannot bring a cooler in and when I went over the conversation I had with Daisy, they said they will go over the rules with her because they don't allow ice cream in the facility. Party must go on right, so no ice cream let's move on. When we arrived there weren't any decorations set up, we had to ask for them to put balloons and other decor out. When it was time to pay the remaining balance the bill was much higher than we calculated because additional adults were $15 instead of $5 like Daisy told us. When we brought this to their attention the only thing they could say was Daisy is still new and learning the rules. She's been there since October. I think it's ridiculous they charge adults $15 if they are with a party to come in just to watch their child play. The package we purchased included a birthday cake because they haven't found a vendor to get their cake from, they take $30 off the bill, that never happened, our receipt doesn't reflect that. This is my first and last time ever having a party here. Completely unorganized and...