Crayola Experience Mall of America — Attraction in Bloomington

About 6 months ago I visited Crayola experience to get more information about what “the experience” was. A gentlemen gave me tons of information and even said they offer military and first responders free entry to include nurses. I never asked for this information, it was offered up to me but I thought this was a great perk and a huge thanks to nurses!

A couple months later I took my toddler to the Crayola experience. We were allowed in with my nursing badge, this was also a different staff member than before, who gave me the information and they did not question me so I did not think much of it. We had an amazing time. She loved rolling her own crayons and playing with the melted crayon spin art!

We had so much fun we came back a couple weeks later! When we came back and were at the ticket/ sales desk, I told the front desk representative that I was a nurse and showed her my badge. She looked at me confused by this information and I said I was told by other staff members nurses are considered first responders and can get in by showing their badge along with military members. She looked at me and said “nurses are not first responders, I have been here for 5 years and they are not”. I said that comment is rude and offensive to the cashier. By definition a “first responder” is “someone designated or trained to respond to an emergency” so by definition a nurse can be defined as a first responder. I said okay well military members are okay right? Her response was “yes” never saying only the active military member not families. I showed her my spouse ID and her response was “oh you’re just a spouse that doesn’t count”. This comment just oozes ignorance “just a spouse”. In less than a three minute conversation, the Crayola experience employee had offended ALL nurses and ALL military families.

I told the cashier I needed to speak to a manager and that now she had offended me not once but twice. She did not seem regretful or even apologetic for her comments but seemed more annoyed she had to get a manager, which infuriated me even more. The manager I spoke with was very kind and apologized about the whole situation and gave clear guidelines of what they consider for each free entrance. I appreciated him speaking to me about the situation.

I had no problem buying a pass or ticket for entrance but the comments and remarks from the employee who enjoyed reminding me she has been with the company for 5 years, were so offense that I would expect more from someone with that much “training”. Even though the manager did diffuse the situation, I’m not sure if I would be able to promote the Crayola experience to other nurse friends/ co-workers or other military families. This was the absolute worst interaction I have had with a cashier ever and very disheartening since the whole experience is meant for kids...

We are annual members and have gone a couple times this winter when we renewed our passes. My toddler loves almost all areas but could care less about the areas with computerized activities. I'm not mad though, it's for all ages and I could spend hours doing crafts and letting her play in toddler town. Well worth our money. Today I had an amazing experience. I was walking about the cafe and there was a show starting. I watched as the man in the white jacket talked to young kids about silly putty. His name is Jason. The kids were a little naughty and wouldn't listen to him but Jason kept his cool and didn't scold them or get angry. You could tell he was a bit new to the process of his show but he did amazing. He kept me entertained and I actually learned some info on silly putty that day. I want to applaud him as I had to found out that day that was indeed still in training! Hes got that down good. I also wanted to mention another employee named Jamar. He was in the drip art and molding stations. As my husband made art with our daughter, I people watched for a bit. Jamar caught my attention. A couple times the machines acted up and started to become wonky, Jamar was right there as soon as the machine made a noise and fixed it promptly. He was very engaging with the guests, which is something I don't really see that often and I don't know why... If you work at a kids factory with machines, you need to be engaging with families and Jamar is that definition. He checked on every family and I even caught him cleaning messes, which is again something I haven't seen any employee do except stand around in one spot and stare at you unless you approach them. Thank you to Jason and Jamar. I plan to return on Mondays now since I know they will be there. Also, thanks to Car at the gift shop for going above and beyond to talk with me today and help me...

Crayola used to be a super fun place for kids and my boy used to love it as well. When we went there last Wednesday afternoon, there were barely any customers, and most of the workers were so mean and unfriendly as if they were getting fired tomorrow. I had to remind myself (maybe they were very unstable on their jobs) not to bring any complaints on their faces. However, I do not think their less enthusiasm should be expressed in such manners. Crayola was still a fun place, but I came out with an extremely uncomfortable feeling and will not return ever again (even with the free pass I purchased already)

We were at the scribble scrubbies section and wondered around (of course there was nobody to help us). 4-5 people were chatting at the corner, and one of them got to us with a super annoying face. He threw two hamsters scrubbies on us and said, “I can’t replace it with others since I already took these out’ and he walked back to his chatting group at the corner. It would have been very nice if he asked us what we would like at first. I had to remind myself (maybe he was losing his job soon).

We were at the design section where you color things and they would be on the big screen. We wandered around again, and one of the chatting group people came to us with an extremely annoying face and threw one paper at us and got back to the chatting group. She did not ask if we knew what to do in there and did not even ask what theme we wanted. She randomly grabbed one for us without a word and hurried herself back to the group. I had to remind myself again (maybe she was losing her job soon).

Almost every section we went through, our experience was similar. Either nobody was there, or they hated to be bothered. I hope their business gets better, but it does not seem...