The Forge Adventure Park & Ziplines — Attraction in Lemont Township

We got gift certificates for Explorer Day Passes during an off-season sale, with the intention to use them come warmer weather. It was a good deal for 4 tickets, almost half price. We only had basic tickets, no zipline so these comments are only about the East side of the park. Overall, it's a good low-key type place where you won't bake in the sun or be overwhelmed with crowds.

Pros: Located in a former quarry that is now a natural area along the Des Plains River. Setting is wooded, lots of shade, very pleasant! Not a "big amusement park" feel at all. Love this. No parking or admission fees to the Heritage Quarries area. Anyone can walk, put in a kayak. I was able to chaperone 4 children who had passes, but as an observer I did not need a pass. Activities are low key, low stakes and fun. No long lines on a perfect Sunday in June! Laser tag is in the woods! No one is trying to sell you anything! No kiosks of junk, barkers with crappy inflatable toys, no cotton candy towers, no unexpected additions for the kids to beg for. Plenty to do! We went for about 6 hours and still didn't get to the bounce houses, or axe throwing. Plenty of nice shady spots to sit and have a picnic lunch. We chose to eat at some tables next to the river by Parking Lot 1 but there's lots of tables in the park area too. Staff was very friendly and outgoing, everyone we met was cool and chill! There's water stations around the park for refilling water bottles for free which is AMAZING. Really appreciate not having to purchase over priced waters. The place is cashless, which was great.

Tips/Cons: Season calendar wasn't posted until May. Made it hard to plan ahead after buying tickets off season. Would have liked an email or notice of the 2024 season hours a little ahead of time. The very young people working the activities were obviously very strained. One person was managing the DinoCarts checking people in, verifying their reservations, accepting collateral for the cart, unlocking the carts doing a brief safety demo etc. This was similar on the archery courses where the 3 areas for archery, archery battle and axe throwing were managed by one very young person, who at one point was stretched so thin I stepped in to manage the line of people shooting arrows so no one would get shot while staff were helping at axe throwing. The Forge could do to better staff these busy areas. Archery range equipment was borderline dangerous. Bows stung improperly, arrows dangerously worn out with broken parts that could cause an arrow to fall off and a bow to "dry fire" which can hurt the archer and damage the bow more. Basic archery safety training and equipment knowledge could make the experience much safer and enjoyable. Definitely be hyper observant and aware in these areas. They are still fun as long as you don't get shot. Pack a lunch - The Creamery is super expensive. The smallest Italian ice or a single scoop cone is $6. It was definitely sticker shock when it cost $40 for 4 kids to get an ice cream. Next time we get one $10 ice cream cookie sandwich and split it. (We didn't eat at the larger restaurant, but the menu is basic fried foods and hot dogs. We brought a picnic instead) The parking lots filled up FAST. There's a larger lot (1) and a smaller lot (2) and by 10:30 (park opens at 10am) they were really full. So, arrive before 10am to get a better parking spot. Lot 1 is a fair walk from the park entrance and there were...

Worst Birthday Party Ever - Do not book group event for climbing or zipline. We booked a birthday party for my son - with 10 climbers age 10-14 and 3 adults (which we paid $65 per person). Other adults were on the group supervising. I will start by saying - as a family, we are overly deferential to staff in support/service industries (its hard - we get it) and expect that our kids behave well in public settings. I generally let bad service go and believe a bad review is a last resort. With that backdrop and having slept on the experience, I need to share how horribly we were treated yesterday at this location. I would strongly encourage anyone considering booking a climbing or zipline experience for a group or birthday party to save their money.

Here is summary of some of our experience: Despite website and booking information - there was no dedicated person to help with party- no help with check-in, no one to direct people to party, no one to help group get oriented to activities. They were not staffed for a large group - Our group was left for 20+ minutes after watching safety video, then only one staff person helped put gear on everyone. One person putting gear on one kid at a time - took almost an hour. And the staff got frustrated that a bunch of tweens and teenagers were restless. They wouldn't let anyone in our group go until entire group was ready. -The staff (all very young folks in their teens and early 20's it appeared) seemed to see the group as a nuisance and were just flat rude to kids and parents. There was not enough staff on tower to help. Parents were berated by staff when kids were too slow or didn't know what to do on climbing tower. Multiple staff members told us that it was not their job to help anyone. We were told to do cake before zip line but then had staff member berate my husband and the children (and I mean yell out loudly and rudely) for eating with harness on (despite them telling us to do so). -There were so many other instances of the staff being rude, impatient and unkind. In fact, multiple other guest that were not part of our group commented on how horrible the staff treated us.

On a positive note, we did have one kid that did not weigh enough to climb and the manger was nice enough to let a few of us do another activity so he wasn't left out. However, the girl at check-in was so rude that I had ask to speak to the manger to get this option and then, after manager left, the girl seemed pissy that we were even accommodated (that is - group allowed to do archery golf, much cheaper, rather than climb).

I really wish I would have had a phone to record the way multiple staff members spoke to me, my husband and the group. It was shocking. I would highly encourage anyone that is considering booking a party of group event here...

The Forge was entertaining however, not efficient. I will say, we went towards the end of the season, it is late October however the wait times were similar to what I would expect at a water park for slides. Getting on the hexagons was quick, maybe 5 minute wait but getting down from the top was a 30-40 minute wait. The issue was understaffing I would say- maybe during high season they have better staffing. At the top of a hexagon I would be waiting to cross and before I could another climber who was not waiting at all would jump in front of all the people waiting simply because their particular Avenue was clear to the auto belay. On top of that, the staff member doing the auto belay had to instruct each person each time they came up on what to do which made the process very slow. It would really help out if the staff members could take more leadership when up there and identify the people wanting to go down the auto belays. Say… ok who wants to go down raise your hands. Ok you number 1 you 2 you three. That way nobody is cutting in line. Once you get those 5 people you know want to go down, speak up and brief them all as a group rotating yourself to be sure they can see. That was you get them all down efficiently. Only one rock wall was open when three other rock walls were being unused (yes probably staffing issues) so we skipped the rock wall after wait a while since each climber was about 8 minutes each with 10 in line. 80 minute wait..nah. The big zip line was cool, the wait for it was long though about 40 minutes standing around, but at least nobody could cut on that one so it was fair. The way they briefed the people in line for the zip line though was not very efficient. They had a line of 5 in front and a line of 5 in back. Everybody was in ear shot for the briefing, however once the back 5 people moved up the front row they sat through a second briefing. Why not start the briefing again after those 10 people went down. Overall it was fun, however it was also irritating to be witness to the inefficiencies. With the price paid (by the way, search google for a promo code, I happened upon one for 25 percent off) with the price paid, I would have preferred doing the other package they offered which was mountain biking etc. with adequate staffing and more staff training to increase efficiency I feel that this place would be more enjoyable. Safety though, was good. I never felt unsafe, the staff did handle...