Kids Empire Bloomington — Attraction in Bloomington

I am giving a low rating based on the experience we had last night.

There were only two staff working, and with the amount of people bringing their children in it was simply not enough. It was the first day of Spring Break and EID. Management needs to plan better staffing-wise around school breaks and holidays.

A little while into our visit, the male staff found two young kids but could not find their adult. He carried them both around, trying to find their adult. There has to be a better way for staff to locate parents than this. With how chaotic it was, he could have easily tripped while carrying both of these kids and they all would have gotten hurt. Mom was eventually found, and all seemed well.

A little boy hurt himself pretty badly (gash on his head, absolutely needed stitches). Thankfully, I had napkins at my table and was able to apply pressure while my husband told the staff to get the first aid kit, and the child's parents were found. About 30 minutes after the family had left, there was still blood on the floor next to my table. I walked to the counter (noticed a bloody gauze pad on the floor on the way) to let the female employee know about the blood on the floor and the gauze pad, and her response was less than desired. She cut me off before I could even tell her where the blood was by saying 'We are working on it." I tried to tell her that I understood they were working on it but I wanted to let her know the location, and she cut me off AGAIN with, 'We know, we are working on it.' (I never was able to tell her about the bloody gauze pad or the location of blood by my table)

About 15 minutes later, the male staff member was walking around the sitting area with paper towels and a bottle of cleaner, not wearing gloves. I am not sure if he was looking for blood spots or was just doing some regular cleaning.

We left at 7:30, and the blood was still on the floor near my table.

We have been to this location before and had a great time. It was clean and the staff were friendly. Last night, they needed a minimum of two more staff members working for them to...

My family and I have been to Kids Empire now quite a few times since they have opened. When it first opened it was nice. The place is big, with plenty of options for kids. My son had a blast with the big slides, the play motorcycles and ball pit. Yes, it’s spendy, and we thought with the rules and the entry fee being so much, it would be worth it. We also were under the assumption that the employees would enforce the rules. However, the past three times we have been there it’s evident that this place is going downhill quick. The staff, who are grossly understaffed and overwhelmed, do not enforce any of the rules. We were there Saturday evening, 4/22, and it was a disaster. Kids running through the play areas with food and drink, people bringing in outside food and drink and not cleaning up after themselves. Kids running around with their socks off and climbing up the slide. There was a full on soccer game with adults in the play area and they were knocking kids over and made it dangerous for little ones to be there. We had put our belongings on a table to go play with our son and when we came back to our table, another family was sitting at the table, talking over our bins full of our stuff. Complete lack of respect or accountability. The staff just walked through and seemed uninterested or unable to say anything to anyone. They looked absolutely defeated. There was spilled food and drink all over the floor and no one was doing anything about it. It’s rather sad, this place is getting trashed due to negligence and it was pretty awesome. Oh well... My family and I won’t be back anytime soon. We will drive to the Shoreview community center or Eagles Nest where it seems the rules are enforced and people are held accountable. Something needs to be done before they have to start closing for repairs and lose out on...

The kids had fun. I did not.

My daughter asked for her birthday party here. For nearly $50/kid (inexplicably double the normal entry rate), you get gummy bears, balloons, a few kart rides, and take home bags with the usual dollar store stuff.

Even though there is supposed to be a party room included in the fee, this location did not have one. I didn't give it much thought until the party started. Unattended kids frequently came up to our table and took bites from our cupcakes, snatched handfuls of gummy bears, and drank from our cups, and even swiped some of the dollar store items (not that I was that attached to those).

When the time came for a dance with the mascot, my daughter lit up... only for other kids (and their parents taking photos) to steal the show. I didn't even get a decent picture. If the dance room would have been temporarily blocked off for the party, it would have been a big hit.

Then there's the go karts. There is no staff monitoring the track, and since it's located under the play area, parents don't know their kids are running onto the track. The (pay to use) karts get stuck on virtually anything, so I got to run around pushing and lifting karts. More than once I had to lunge in and pluck a random toddler from being run over. The karts obviously don't go very fast, but definitely fast enough to injure a toddler. Random kids also kept trying to take the karts from my group too, so I got to be the bad guy. This is all work that should have been directed by the understaffed crew.

In all, the kids did have a lot of fun, but it was a very stressful experience for me. One of the reasons to have parties at these places is to NOT have oversee the details. The (limited) staff was friendly. The equipment was fun. But at twice the cost of competitors and half the assistance, I wouldn't...