Pump It Up Oakland Kids Birthdays and More — Attraction in Oakland

This place is so poorly managed that it creates a huge risks for the (young) kids - hence that long waiver that you are required to sign before even walking into the space.

With the bad air quality, every parent scrambled to get their kids entertained. My friend and I brought our 3-yr olds to the open hour play, with a reservation. Our thinking was that this place requires advanced reservation and hopefully they would be sensible about the capacity limit and how to manage the crowd. We were SO wrong.

They open both sides (usually they open one side for an hour, then switch to the other side for the second hour). And ALL kids of ALL ages were free to roam around - walking toddlers to running young teens. Can you see the chaos? The big kids totally dominated the space. My son was so intimidated that he would not go into any of the structures, nor would I want him to. My friend's daughter was getting trampled going up the steps for slide, and there was a staff who was supposedly monitoring, she paid no attention to it and did not intervene. My friend ended up having to run up to save her little girl. Please note I am not being dramatic - it all happened.

I went to the front desk to complain to the supposedly supervisor, and suggested they could easily separate the two rooms by age groups, so the smaller kids can have a protected safe space to play. She gave me a very corporate-scripted response "we are open to the public, kids of all ages..." Well, excuse me, my suggestion and her response are not mutually exclusive. You can be open to the public and welcome all age groups WHILE being organized and considerate of different group's needs. But that takes a little caring, and it seems like they dont.

I tried to ask for someone higher up to relay my concerns, but apparently the hierarchy goes from that front desk supervisor straight to the owner. I did get the owner's contact (please contact me privately if you want to make a similar suggestion). I will definitely follow up and express my concerns with the owner of this place.

I will not go back until they address this situation, if ever, and i will make sure every parent in my...

Pros: --Great place to have a party for kids in the 4-8 year old range. --This place greatly simplifies the process of planning a party for your young kid. You can book on the website, estimate how much food/drinks you need (the bundles are a fairly good deal). --They also provide as part of the package: napkins, utensils, cups, plates, cake cutting and serving. --If you've set it up as a pizza party (which I recommend), you walk into the last part of your party to a table for the kids, already set up with plates and drink boxes, and they serve a pizza piece to each kid. Then the adults (if you are feeding adults), can grab their own food from a separate table and just sit around and chat. We did the adult 15-person bundle, the 15-kid bundle, ordered a salad and a fruit plate, and it was more than enough for that number of people. --You just have to bring your cake and party favors (or you can order their party favors). If you have table top decor they will put it on the tables for you. They set out your favors for you. It looked really nice. --It creates a tight 2-hour party where the kids have a great time, the adults get to mingle because no one is running around setting up tables, picking up pizzas, or cleaning up. And then the party is over and you can go about your day, as can the parents of the other kids!

Cons: --The location is a little out of the way for a lot of people. Not a big deal. --There were some snags with some of our purchased food barely arriving on time (we had an early slot, so that might have been part of it). Hopefully that's rare, and it didn't ended up affecting us. --Cost ... but it was worth it for me! You could probably do a similar party, at a park, with a rented inflatable. But then you'd be doing all the leg-work yourself, have only 1 inflatable, it would be outdoors, and you'd do all the clean up. I would say it's about 1.3-1.5X the cost of doing it yourself. For me it was worth it to have so...

Update

I am responding to the business owner whom left the reply. Responding 6 days later after the review gives the impression that your staff member still did not communicate my concerns and you are only learning about my experience from my below review. Please no need to make contact as the proposed event date has already passed and nothing can suffice for atrocious behavior from your staff member named below. I am leaving a one star review because you can’t leave no stars. I have been consistently calling this location for 3 weeks asking to speak to a manager. LaTye keeps taking my messages and not relaying them to anyone. In June a called in and asked if I could take my own food to the location I was told yes and I paid a deposit for my event on Dec 9, 2023. I started checking in November to finalize and was told the policy had changed and the could no longer take my own food but, I needed to order from their caterers. I stated that I would like a refund as well they changed the terms of the contract. LaTye has been the only person I have spoken and she has not communicated to the manager my concerns but letting me know if cannot get a refund even though they changed the terms of the contract. LaTye called today with a condescending tone letting me know she sees where I spoke to the manager and confirmed the event which I did not do. I asked for the number tot he corporate she stated I don’t keep that on hand and I don’t have that is there anything else you need. Worst customer service...