The Sarasota Children's Garden — Attraction in Sarasota

The staff was kind & welcoming, my review is certainly no reflection of them.

I was looking forward to this place, as a parent it’s great to give little ones a space to roam free especially when it’s child oriented. However, I can’t even say this was even a safe play place. It was like bringing my daughter to a run down what used to be kids center. We drove 25 min & stayed under an hour. The dress up area is dark/dingy. Are the costumes washed regularly, who knows. The front entrance was cute & I was so excited going into the garden. It was disappointing. The rain forest was just muddy and gross while it was a good idea & smelled. The kids houses are old/dirty. The place needs updating & maintenance to run as a (business), I’m shocked only one other recent review points this out. Later I saw other parents feel this way when I clicked on lowest reviews. It’s a beautiful concept but what happened? By pictures I thought the octopus area was a sandbox. In person, it’s huge tentacles that are easy for a baby or toddler to trip over and theirs no sand. It’s crushed jagged shells. I climbed up a ladder that my baby couldn’t do on her own to get into a treehouse. The bridge is missing a step right as it starts and her leg slid right through, I carried us over & to get down there was a slide that’s ducked tape at top? I wasn’t willing to try it out with her so I took us both down ladder. Theirs a swing underneath tied with rope right by face so that wasn’t comfortable either. We found small pieces of trash around that a baby could easily pickup and put in mouth. Too many of the things they had were scorching hot to touch, how are kids supposed to play on them? There was so many hard, sharp, hot, uneven things. Maybe if your child is between 4-6 it’s more age appropriate but with a couple adults and kids you could easily pay $50+ to play here and for what? I would love to see this place redeemed with better care if that’s possible. I wanted to share some of our experience because if your like us, planning to make a day here, have a backup in place. As someone who recently moved to FL a few years ago, it’s crazy to me how many nature spaces are capitalized and used for profit but simply tourist grabs. If you’re going to charge for people to hang out in your yard, at least...

As an out of town visitor, I had looked up recommended places/activities for kids in the Sarasota area, and the Children's Garden popped up on several lists and the photographs and descriptions made it seem cute. I was disappointed, as was the rest of my family, in what the place actually was. The area is rather small for a garden that they charge admission to ($10 per adult? Thank goodness I had a Groupon!), and garden seems to be a generous term, as things appeared very overgrown, almost nothing was flowering, and none of the plants were identified with markers. There was a cool pirate ship and some interesting sculptures (hence the 2-stars), but other than a slide, there was not much to the playground area; my 5 year old daughter even said she was bored after 20 or so minutes, and she's a kid who will happily stay on a playground for 2+ hours. It was extremely buggy, likely due to a small stagnant pond in the middle of the garden; within 10 minutes of our arrival, my mother had 8 bites on one leg, I had 3, and my husband had 5. A nice fellow visitor let us know there were bottles of bug spray near the entrance that we missed, which we went back to and made use of, but I wish the employee who took our admission had made us aware of them. There is a room full of dress up clothes that the children can use, which is a cute idea, but I'm not sure how often those garments are washed, and I'm surprised they have hats there as well, as it would seem to be a lice concern. It has the potential to be so much more, but needs more money and elbow grease invested in the property. If you're in the area and want your kids to have fun outdoors, I would recommend Urfer Family Park on Bee Ridge, which is large, clean, attractive, and free, as opposed to...

The Children's Garden is an elaborate playground that any kid will love. There are plenty of fun areas and nooks to explore, and much of the garden is shaded, so parents don't have to broil away under the hot sun. The garden is enclosed by a fence, so you can just let the kids run all over without having to monitor them much, and that's nice.

This is an excellent spot for children's birthday parties as there is an area with multiple picnic tables, and some other assorted tables and seating. While exploring, your kids will find a costume room, story room, hobbit huts, a pirate ship, a big sandy area ruled by an octopus, a little hedge maze, tire mountain with rope swing, etc. Small toddlers (like my two year old) need a little bit of watching, but nothing seems unsafe to me.

The only downside to this place is that parents have to pay ten dollars each to get in. My husband and I have never been here together, because we don't want to pay $25 to sit around gazing blankly off into space. It's just a big playground, and I prefer to let my little one engage in free play on her own rather than have me hovering around, so basically I'm sitting there doing nothing. It's nice to come here with other friends with kids, so that we can chat a little, but on the other hand we frequent other locations that are either free or offer a little more of interest to adults.

We have so many memberships around here (Mote, Ringling, Save Our Seabirds, Selby, South Florida Museum, Tampa Aquarium) that I'm currently debating whether one from The Children's Garden is worth adding...