Castaway Play — Local services in Newbold Astbury

If I could give Castaway Play 6 stars I would. It's probably the best soft play I've been to. For a start it's bigger than most other soft plays: it has four distinct areas, all with their own theme, so it's bound to engage a whole range of young minds. Each area is about the size of your usual soft play place, so it's kind of like four-in-one. The play equipment and structures are all imaginative, fun and safe. They are all covered from the elements, but one area in particular lets a great amount of light in and is a great remedy for the usual warehouse syndrome, and the rest of the spaces are all very well decorated, especially the dinosaur one.

Particular attention has been paid to the placing of benches neatly around the play areas so tired parents can sit down and watch their children comfortably (this is sometimes overlooked in places where the position of play areas in relation to sitting space makes it hard for parents to track their child - not so here). There are a couple of places to get food from near the seating and a dedicated café area, and their selection is honestly excellent: when I went we ordered a lovely lemon drizzle, queen vic sponge, an "ultimate" carrot cake (which genuinely lived up to the name) and a lovely cupcake and ginger bread man. You can spend just as much at other places and get food not as good as this. It looks and tastes either on-site fresh or locally made.

For such a large place, CP is really well maintained and was very clean throughout. Toilet facilities are very good and have a single-cubicle unisex structure: very useful if you have children who are not as confident to go by themselves. And they're well signposted, as is everything else.

A couple of things to note: CP uses a session structure so check the times before you go (I turned up with zero prior planning, but staff were very clear and helpful in giving us maximum value for our session). Parking is solid as the overflow is expansive enough, but at a busier time it's worth getting there just ahead of your session. Also, CP is nearly twice the price you pay for entry to other soft plays but, in this reviewer's eyes, it's more than twice as good as most. You get every penny of what you pay for.

I rarely give low review scores tbh (largely because I don't go to places which I think will be awful). But in this instance I really do wish I could score CP higher. A truly...

We have visited three times, and for the past two, the children loved it and it was a really nice experience. Unfortunately the third wasn't great. We rang in advance to ask if you were busy and you said no, so we travelled over 40 minutes to get to you. When we arrived, the car park was completely full, and we couldn't park for about 15 minutes. When we did eventually park, we got in to find out there were school trips attending and it was absolute mayhem. We avoided to outdoor area to start with, as you couldn't even see the floor for children. We headed straight through to find it bursting inside also, so we headed straight to the back area and settled there for 10 - 15 minutes before being crowded with so many screaming children from the school trips that my two children (3 years old) were getting shoved and knocked over. My daughter hit her head on one of the benches from being shoved past by the crowds of children screaming and running up and down the stairs and everywhere else. No teachers were actually watching them, and there were no staff from castaway overlooking to ensure safety measures were being met. The bouncy castle turned into a riot and you couldn't even see it under the mound of kids. Kids were going left, right and centre. My daughters shoes were lobbed across the room from where we left them at the bouncy castle and she had her juice bottle pinched. We decided to head out of that area and get a drink, the ladies serving were awfully miserable, and missed food from an order I'd made and paid for, so I went back and she just chucked it on my tray and didn't say anything. The past two times we have been, the premises have been lovely and clean, unfortunately this time it was dirty and there was rubbish left around the play areas. So to say we were disappointed would be an understatement. We pay to take our children places to enjoy themselves, but this wasn't the case after the school trips were there and it was just too manic to safely enjoy. The staff are so miserable and short with you, it wouldn't hurt to crack a smile. Also, in the outdoor area at the top right corner is a boat that has a plank of wood sticking out of it (Just the right high for toddlers to hit their heads on) as a toddler who was there showed us, and his dad was baffled that you would have something so daft sticking...

Not visited Castaway’s for a number of years but visited this half term with my almost 5 year old twins and 8 month old. There was plenty for them to play on and the children enjoyed it but from a parents point of view I was a little disappointed by a number of things. It was pretty difficult to navigate a pram around while following the older children and wouldn’t say it was the most accessible for anyone in a wheelchair as I struggled with a pram. There also was definitely not enough seating during the half term. Took over 30mins in a que to get food, the children chose the “kids meal deal” which states it includes crisps and a drink, was disappointed when my friend got it back to the table to discover the drink was only water, which normally in places it would include a fruit shoot or carton of fresh apple or orange which I think it should of stated water and not “drink” so that I could of purchased them an additional drink instead but it was to late after already queuing for over 30 mins. The children were then also disappointed when the “crisps” were peppa pig lentil puffs and not even a bag of Quavers, again like most other children’s play areas would. I think the menu should of been more clear and considering you can only eat food purchased on site I think abit more effort could of been put into these and not done on the cheapest of budgets as this has definitely put me off, they also wouldn’t allow us to purchase just a portion of chips on its own although they serve chips with their other children’s meals? Again where doesn’t serve chips? We ended up managing to get a bench near the outdoor sand area and it just stank like Sewerage the whole time we were sat there, which wasn’t the greatest. There is a baby sensory room but we weren’t able to use it during our booking. Lots of the “under 2s” areas where filled with older children and on several occasions had to pick my little girl up and take her out of these areas due to the volume of older children taking them over making it unsafe for little ones to sit/crawl safely. Unfortunately I can’t say we will be rushing back. £36.00 on admission and £20 on lunch was definitely a lot of money for some sand pits and some slides, definitely better value for money days out at other local attractions...