Notasium: Cary Music Lessons and Play Space — Attraction in Cary

Update: We received a personal call from the manager (and my son's teacher) apologizing for the confusion and wanting to make things right. Because we signed up a week into the class, we didn't get the email correspondence. Aaron was apologetic and easy to communicate with. Thank you for reaching out! We appreciate everything!

We ADORE Notasium. We recently visited for a birthday party and used the opportunity to inquire about music classes for our 4 year old. He's in the Jr. Notemakers class and he loves his teacher, Mr. Aaron. He's amazing with the students and keeps them engaged for the full 45 minutes. My son has already learned about rhythm and instruments that he shares with us at home and his appreciation for music is already growing.

The play area is so engaging for her and our 8 year old. They love playing hide and seek throughout the play area, sliding down the big slide, and playing songs on all of the interactive instruments. They have yet to tire of the options. It's clean and I can even get work done while the play! #mombonus

If that were it, I'd have left a 5 star review, but our recent visit was disappointing. According to the website and all of the email correspondence, we were under the impression that students could play for free on the day of their class, and siblings can play for $5. This is straight from the website AND the email: "Students get to play for free on the day of class! Siblings play for just $5." On Saturdays specifically (which is our class day), "students and siblings get to play in the play space before class but not after class; siblings can play during class." Heard...and I thought we were following those rules.

We arrived at 11:20 to play before our 12:30 class and were told that we could only have 30 minutes before class to play. When I disputed it with what was on the website and our email, I was told that this rule only applied to the 12:30 Saturday class because of birthdays. This isn't stated anywhere and the employee didn't budge on this fact despite the fact that it wasn't ever communicated (and hasn't been enforced) until that moment. Apparently she did us a favor to let us in early.

My question is this...We signed up and paid for the music class knowing what was posted online when we signed up and even now. This was a giant benefit of signing up for a Saturday as it would allow kids ample time to play. I'm a teacher and it would do us no good to sign up on a weekday when we can't make the most of this benefit. But now I'm being told that the benefit doesn't even really apply to us. It's disappointing.

If the employee is correct, this should have been communicated both on the website so that parents can consider that when signing up for the class, and in the email correspondence. I will know from now on, but please do better to communicate or remind employee of official rules if this is not accurate.

*In addition, when the class for my 4 year old started, my 8 year old was the only one playing the play area and she was questioned (by the SAME employee) as to who she belonged to because she had no reason to be in the play area. I reminded the employee that she was a sibling and her response was, "Ok, but you shouldn't have your water here." My daughter had just grabbed it and walked away to come to me because she was just told she couldn't be there. What was she supposed to...

Our family absolutely loves Notasium. Our first experience was years ago at their Durham location. I was so thrilled when they announced that they were opening a branch in Cary.

The play space is huge, clean, and fun. They have bounce houses, a giant guitar slide, and a lot of other music related activities. They have karaoke and a percussion room where kids can bang on pots and pans and make a lot of noise.

The employees are super friendly and inviting (I'm looking at you, Jenna!), and really make you feel at home. They do a great job of keeping rowdy kids in check and enforcing rules, but not in an overbearing, critical way.

My eldest (age 11) has been taking piano, voice, and violin from Robin for a while now and absolutely loves it. Robin is patient and isn't too chastising when my daughter doesn't practice as she should. We've seen great progress, and my daughter looks forward to her lessons. She's participated in two recitals and looks forward to performing.

My second eldest (age 7) decided he wanted to play trumpet. He's been working with Aaron for a few months now and is always super excited and motivated to attend his lessons. I love that all of the instructors are laid back and meet the kids where they are. They teach at an appropriate level and are super encouraging.

Notasium is cool because there are discounts for siblings and play, so when our big kids are taking lessons, our little kids can play in the play space. Our whole family enjoys music lesson nights!

Now, in the days of isolation and quarantines, they've started conducting their lessons online, and that works incredibly well. The lessons are well thought out and go off without a hitch every week. The lessons are definitely a welcome break in some of the monotony.

We've done birthday parties at Notasium as well, and like everything else, they're wonderful.

We can't wait until the world is back to normal so we can get back to playing at Notasium, and until then, we'll enjoy our virtual time with their fantastic...

Visited for the first time today with my almost one year old granddaughter, based on an article that I read which mentioned fun for 1- and 2-year olds, and info on the Notasium web site that said non-walkers are $5 and specified that $10 was for ages 1+. I will say that the facility was VERY clean, and their set up is indeed great for parents that can keep an eye on the kids while utilizing the seating around the play area. However, even though I shared that my granddaughter was only able to take a few steps independently and still preferring crawling, and was only 11 months old, they charged me full price. (*Quick update that management noticed my review mentioning the full price charge, and refunded me to reflect the correct $5 price, so customer service seems to be good.)

We arrived around 11:30, and were the only patrons there, so it was nice that I didn't have to worry about her being overwhelmed by larger kids. However, there was not much for a toddler this size to do. There is a small slide, but the back side of it is like a climbing wall, not stairs, there was a little soft xylophone "stool" to pat, and some large soft drums, which were neat because when you tapped them they played more drum sounds. Other than that, the only thing she could do is touch the music around the world wall, and beat the pots and pans in the little house.

This might be a fun spot for kids starting around 2 1/2 or 3, especially on bad weather days, even if only for the indoor bouncers. But for now we'll be sticking with another play space like Little Doodles (which, consequently, didn't even charge me for my grandbaby since...