St. Louis Carousel — Attraction in Chesterfield

My name is Ann. As an employee of the St. Louis Carousel, I am very saddened to read the review written by a visitor who recently had a birthday party for their one year old daughter at the Carousel. I remember this encounter very well & wish to defend my actions by saying I take my responsibilities very seriously. When operating the carousel it is my job to make sure the riders are safe, maintain order & most of all provide a fun & enjoyable experience for our patrons. We do have many parents & grandparents who bring small children to the carousel & when a child is under the age of 2 years, I will many times suggest the adult ride on the horse with the child. It has been my experience over the past 4 years that it isn't uncommon to see a child leaning over & reaching for their parent, grabbing at them & some crying because they do not want to sit on the horse. In this case, that was what I observed & I went to the parents & suggested that one of them try getting on the horse & having the child sit in front of them. In my experience, this really does create a safe & secure seating arrangement for both the child & the adult & the best part of it all is they both end up enjoying the ride. Unfortunately, my intensions & suggestion did not sit well with the child's mother & is was obvious that what I said & how said it upset her. I do remember saying that as a nurse, I didn't want to be held responsible if the very upset, agitated child fell & cracked her head. The mom said she was a nurse as well & the child would be just fine which she was once the ride got underway. I think that at the end of the ride I even mentioned (much to my relief) that the baby ended up doing just fine. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing that the child would calm when the ride began. Lastly, I apologize for speaking loud. Unfortunately, I am hearing impaired & I do have a tendency of talking loud & quite honestly didn't realize I was actually talking into a live microphone. I also apologize that I made the mother feel singled out & possibly embarrassed. I certainly will be much more aware of my situation in the future & I will also think twice about mentioning to parents that the child more often than not does very well when sitting in the arms of the parent. As for the mentioning the need to have the room cleaned & cleared out quickly because we had another party booked for 1:00 pm, I personally don't remember repeating multiple times that they needed to hurry up & get cleared out for the next group. We almost always have 2 parties on the weekends & are accustom to jumping in & helping clean up the room. I would like to note here that I did make a suggestion a couple of months ago that we start the morning party a half an hour earlier so we can have an hour between the morning & afternoon parties instead of the current half-hour. This suggestion was accepted & in January of 2026 the change will be implemented & we won't have to rush like crazy to be ready for the afternoon party. Lastly, I love my job at the carousel. It is a very fun & happy place to work. I get great joy out of seeing the happy, excited faces on the kids when they walk through the door & as I tell our older riders (& we have many), everyone who walks through the door is......a kid. I hope this review will not prevent anyone from coming to enjoy a wonderful piece of St. Louis history & it really is a great place to have a party. Best...

This was the worst experience I’ve ever had!! I paid $250 to rent the room for my daughters 1st Birthday party and we didn’t have enough time to even cut the cake! The employees were beyond RUDE and disrespectful! When we arrived, the chairs were supposed to be white and they were asking people to get out of their chairs to change them out and acted annoyed that they had to change the chairs. They only give you 15 mins to decorate and set up and then they take your time to clean up and tear down out of the 2 hour party time from 1:30-3:30!! We had to be set up, tore down and cleaned up by 3:30. If we were not out by 3:30, then they were going to charge me $60 per every 15 minutes over. We were rushed to eat, rushed to ride carousel, and then were told that the kids could only ride the carousel 🎠 one time!!! I paid $250 basically to use 5 tables and the room for 2 hours of pure anxiety and hell. I was told when I rented the room that white table clothes and chairs would be included. Then when I called the day before to make sure everything was going to be ready, they told me I had to rent my own table clothes! I was also told nothing could be hung on the walls or touching the walls! Basically they want you to pay $250 to sit in their room and stare at each other. The kids were very upset that they only got to ride carousel one time for 5 minutes and then some had to miss my daughter’s happy birthday song and smash cake to ride the carousel because they didn’t allow enough time! I spent over $2000 on my daughters birthday planning and decorations just to be told that they don’t allow anything and that most people just have a simple party without decorating!! Why wasn’t I told any of these things prior to renting the space! I rented the space to decorate and have my daughters 1st Birthday be the best experience and it was a NIGHTMARE! I left in tears and sick to my stomach! I had to apologize to my guests for such a rushed and terrible experience!!! If I wanted a simple party without decorations, I would have stayed home and had cake in my home!! I’m beyond upset and hope this review helps prevent others from having the same experience I had! Save your money and go somewhere else!!! I can’t get my daughters 1st Birthday back and experience...

It was the perfect spot to have my daughter’s first birthday party, or which I thought. Everyone had fun, laughing, riding the carousel over and over again- Until the last 15 minutes. We were basically kicked out. The male worker, Scott, started coming in the room and cleaning stuff up., moving tables, etc. mind you, we still had 15 mins left of our party. As he was moving tables and rushing us out, my 1 year old who wasn’t walking yet, was sitting on the floor. SCOTT ran her over with a big table, knocking her head on the hard concrete. She was screaming hysterically in pain. When a family member commented on knocking the baby over, he told her to “chill out!” Who says that to someone after they just hurt a baby?!? Instead of apologizing, offering ice, etc, he ran into the back of the room and hid until we left. 😠 she developed a huge goose egg on her head within the next hour. We were all so upset, we finished packing up the room and left. I figured I’d contact the director, TONYA O’CONNELL at a later time after I cooled off about the incident that happened. A few days later I email her the story and she got back with me right away. She wanted to make it right for me, since he kicked us out of the room before the party was over and hurting my baby. We decide she would reimburse me for partial rental fee and give my family passes to come back. Weeks later, I’m still waiting for my money and passes. She emailed me saying she was out of town and she will check on the status, I heard nothing back. A few weeks later i call and email again, no response. This whole time she was just feeding me lies after lies. I still never received it from her, but that’s another story for a different time.

I definitely don’t recommend this place for a party with little kids. None of the workers present at the party were so called “kid friendly” and they really seemed to dislike their job. I guess that’s the reason why SCOTT rushed us out and hurt my child in the process, he wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. Which I still never got an apology from him. Don’t spend your $300 for a kid party, go somewhere else. Now that both SCOTT and TONYA are gone, I hope it’s more enjoyable...