Kids Empire Troy — Attraction in Troy

I went to Kids Empire yesterday and had a very bad experience. When I arrived, I saw a family walking out upset because their birthday party food hadn’t shown up on time. About 15 minutes later, I saw the pizza and cake arrive, but by then the family had already left. The staff was sure glad to eat their food and cake though. I watched their company stack up cups that were at the parties table and bring them into the back to reuse I assume. That is only my guess though. None of these are my concerns or why I’m writing in today.

I sat at one of the front tables while my child played. After some time, my child came walking by and slipped in a pile of poop—right in front of the food/snack counter where three employees were standing. Instead of taking it seriously, one employee looked like they were about to laugh.

I rushed my child to the bathroom to clean her up, then went to the front desk to ask for a refund. I was told they could only give me a gift card, but after everything I had seen—the party walking out, another child getting a black eye, and my own child covered in poop—I just wanted the money returned to my credit card The staff refused a refund and were visibly annoyed.

On the way home, my daughter cried in the car. This experience was unacceptable. I cannot recommend this place unless you want your child to end up disappointed, hurt, or worse.

Also, I noticed staff offering balloons to kids in exchange for five-star reviews, which explains why so many reviews appear misleading.

After going back and forth with upper management for two days, I was told my refund request was denied. Nowhere in the waiver does it state that if a child defecates in the lobby and staff neglects to clean it up, the business is absolved of responsibility.

I hope this company chooses to pay more attention to the cleanliness and safety of their facility instead of their phones and leftover food—food that another family had paid for, only to have their child’s birthday party ruined. I truly hope the staff enjoyed eating that cake, because the families left with nothing but...

Jhayla helped me today!

Third time I’ve been here. Overall very positive experiences. This is a very fun place for kids. The play structure is amazing! Two big slides, some kind of roller slide where you sit on a scooter, building blocks, lots of thing to climb up, over, and through, etc. Many fun things. My kids love it.

Safety: It’s all padded, with netting and foam. It would be difficult to seriously injure yourself, but I’m sure it happens. It’s very bright in here. It’s good for safety but it’s a lot of you aren’t into bright light. You must wear socks, which I like.

All-day fun: It’s helpful that you can exit and return without paying again. See the note about food.

WiFi: I see some working on laptops at times, which is nice if you can tune out the music and background roar of 20-40 kids. No idea about strength of WiFi.

Small kids: There is a smaller area for toddler and baby kids. It isn’t safe for babies in the big structure, but I think there are things young kids could do. When I’ve been here, kids are relatively well behaved and not knocking each other out of the way. They take turns on slides, etc. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I haven’t seen any times there are groups of “teenagers” or other rowdy kids causing big problems.

Unknown: This place is open until 10:00. Not sure whose kids are hanging out at a play place at 9:30 on a school night. Maybe that’s a bigger kid time? Or maybe it’s a great time to come because it’s almost empty?!

Downsides: only a few Food is very limited to snacks and canned or bottled beverages. Again, this is mitigated by the exit-and-return policy. It also seems obvious that people having parties either bring some food in or…??? There are not hot food items that I know of.

Music: Get ready for more Kidzbop and similar pop. No escape!

Limited use for cards: They have play cards useful on a few things but I’m not sure that’s worth it.

Tried to get a few photos without kids in them! They did some thing where the lights were turned off for a bit. Not sure what that was but the...

We were here today for a birthday party and I can't say I'll ever come back. The staff were ridiculously rude- only the manager trying at all. The party tables were reserved for 3 hours and about 2 and a half hours into the party staff started telling guests at the table they needed to move so they could clean up. When the birthday girls grandmother explained that we had the space for 30 more minutes they kept coming up with different reason why they were going to clean and just did it anyway. I don't mean just clear off tables either- literally throwing away peoples drinks and putting the benches on the table so people could no longer sit. They then brought out the gift bags for the kids which smelled horribly like kerosene or maybe gasoline and when we asked about them we were told "that's just how they smell". The final straw for me was when they brought out our bin of shoes and while we were putting them on as we were basically being pushed out before our time was done the same staff came and started yelling at the birthday kids grandma for putting them on saying we aren't allowed to have shoes on- even though they are the ones who gave us the shoes to put on. When we pointed that out and that they were literally pushing them and all their guests out early the staff started yelling loudly at her in front of all the guests and kids. Unbelievable to me. Personally I'll never be bringing my kid back to any of their locations after seeing all that. I hope they got money refunded or something for the 30 minutes of time the staff there took away from...