ZavaZone Sterling — Attraction in Sterling

We’ve been to the Rockville Zava Zone several times & have always enjoyed ourselves. Unfortunately, the Sterling location was a big, fat letdown compared to what we’ve grown accustomed to when we’ve visited Rockville. My girls look forward to our ZZ trips SO much & it’s a bit of a special treat considering we have to travel approximately an hour each way to get there. I noticed the Sterling location had the “Cloud Coaster”, something not offered at the Rockville location & thought it might be an exciting change, especially considering Sterling was only an additional fifteen or so minutes away for us. BIG MISTAKE! Immediately after checking in we head straight to the “Cloud Coaster” only to discover it is not in operation. Pretty disappointing, especially considering the only reason we chose this location was specifically to try this attraction. That being said, I also completely understand that things happen & taking it out on the staff would not only be unfair but do absolutely nothing to improve the situation. I mean, we all work somewhere & no one wants to be yelled at, especially for issues they have zero control over. Anyway, I check with the desk just to see if they expect for it to be out of commission the entire day or if there was a chance it might be up & running before the end of the day. I’m told it’s down indefinitely & that they’re actually waiting on a technician to fly in to work on it. Officially bummed now, as I had a tiny bit of hope that maybe whoever was running it that day was simply on their lunch break or something but I roll with it, as I said, no sense in getting angry over it. But THEN, we go back downstairs only to discover that the “Giant Slide”, a favorite of my girls is ALSO not in service. I wave down an employee who just happens to be walking by & he informs me that, “Yeah, that things BEEN broken for a while now”. Again, not the employee’s fault & I tell him as much. Discovering that two of ZZ’s MAIN attractions are both out of operation, one of them “for a while” now has me a bit frustrated considering the long drive to get there not to mention the expense. I purchased four unlimited tickets online but due to traffic had maybe 2.5 hours to play before closing time. Totally my own fault but when you shell out $200 for a little over 2hours you hope it’s worth it. Ultimately though, what pretty much pooped on the whole experience was the general attitude of 90% of the employees. You could tell on every one of their faces that they HATED every second of being there. They would harness & unharness you most times without uttering a single word & paid zero attention to anyone using an attraction. And you could forget about anyone assisting you in any capacity. Myself & the other adult with me were fine but my 7 & 8 year old definitely required a bit of assistance on occasion- it wasn’t happening, not that day. Again, an issue we’ve NEVER experienced at the Rockville location. I’ve always been super impressed with all of the staff at Rockville, every single time. I mean, I get it, it was during holiday break, the day before New Year’s Eve & those kids clearly wanted to be anywhere BUT at work, as evidenced not only by their attitudes but by the fact that they’re using lint rollers & vacuums on the play areas a full hour before closing making us feel like we were in their way if we wanted to use the equipment around where they were cleaning. However, when your own kids look forward to visiting Zava Zone, so much so that they can’t even get the words out because they’re “So gasp excit gasp ed!” & they’re met with nothing but sheer annoyance from the very people who’s sole job is to ensure their safety (& hopefully fun) it really throws a big ‘ol wet blanket on the whole day. Maybe it was an off day but I won’t take the chance on Sterling again & just stick with going to Rockville where I’m not made to feel like an intrusion on...

It was our first time at ZavaZone Sterling and booking b-day party at such place, and we had great experience! Most of the guests are impressed and also want to celebrate their kids b-days there.

It was our son B-day and it was terrific.

1- Great friendly staff that takes care of you each minute. They even helped me to fill the invitations! 2- There is very clean, not too hot, not too cold. Even if you are in the masks you will feel comfortable during activity. Sanitizers are everywhere, restrooms are clean!

3- Food is DELICIOUS!!! Usually food in such places are disgusting (like in Chuk E Che*se), but in ZavaZone we ate one of the tastes pizzas ever! I wanted to recommend some one kind of pizza, but they were all super-duper delicious with no exceptions! Pizza similar as in Vapiano, big pizza, thiny crust, a lot of filling. You can build your own pizza, that’s great!

Fruit and vegetable plates are also fresh. Juices that you order are 250-300 ml ( big bottles ) that surprised me, because I thought that it’s gonna be small juices as “Honest kids” 177ml.. Soda just for 3$.

Total we ordered for 30 people - Fruit and vegetable trays and juice for each kid. + 2 soda, water. 7 pizzas for 8 families (from 3 to 5 ppl each including kids) and we have left extra 3 pizzas. Everyone was full and happy. Also they allow to bring your own deserts like b-day cakes etc.

4- Kids from 2y to adults have a blast. There is a lot of activities for any ages and physical level.

5- we will definitely come back there) and if someone reads this review, you will not regret about booking parties there for your kids and even adults.

Wish we would had more time. Definitely recommend this place.

PS. Some recommendations for administration/owners: 1 Try to review ZavaZone webapp and fix it, because it’s hard to use, there is too much missunderstandings. Ask your workers family members to test it manually and give some feedback. Also there is to small space around popup windows ( the frame, free area around active functionality ) When you try to fill input boxes, it’s pretty easy to run away of popup window, and it gonna be close without saving the inputs. Any app must be easy for use.

2 add some fixed tip choices for customers, to make easy to tip workers. Like 10% 15% 20% 25% etc.. because when you get bill at the end you should count buy your self how much you should tip, and some of the people specially with kids can be busy and can make some mistakes, tip too low. ( tip based on the second...

I took my three kids here on a Saturday because we were looking for an indoor place for them to get their wiggles out. It was $34 per kids for only 2 hours, not exactly cheap but I thought it might be worth it. Don’t forget though, that they charge several dollars more per kid to purchase their mandatory socks. Cons: Several of the activities were broken or closed, and some of the ones that were open there weren’t enough staff to operate them so they were effectively closed anyway. There are honestly only a few places to sit down. There are, however, a number of massage chairs strategically placed, but they all cost money and actually beep loudly at you if you should have the audacity to want to sit on one of them for a minute or two without you paying several dollars for the ‘privilege’ of using it. I’m sorry, but $100 for two hours, and you can’t give me a place to sit? I took my kids here to get them tired, not make me tired too. After waiting in line for a couple minutes at one activity, a woman rudely confronted my little boy and told him that they had reserved it for a birthday party so he couldn’t use it, my kid ran to me in tears. There wasn’t any sign or anything. So I paid how much to not even be able to use all of the activities? Quite a few of the activities require a certain height or weight, which makes sense for safety reasons, but of my 3 kids ages 10 and under, there were several activities not one of them could use, and a number that 2 of them couldn’t use. My kids are frankly on the small side but I wish that would have been advertised better. It was so crowded. It was a Saturday, but they really need to limit how many people they let in. I didn’t feel safe letting my kids jump much of the time because there were so many kids running everywhere. The staff didn’t seem to be able/willing to enforce any of the rules. They are almost all young kids and they seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the mass of people there.

Pros The AC was on and it was cool inside. They do have a number of activities. They have a drinking fountain, although it is almost as far away as possible from the play area as possible.

All and all, this could be a great place if it was managed better. With the high entry fee, it would be nice if there were a higher quality...