The Little Towns Children's Museum — Local services in North Bethesda

I just had my son's 3 years old birthday party at the museum and this is not the first time we are hosting a birthday party at the same venue (we had one last year for his 2 years old as well), and given that we have been a long-term loyal customers, I wanted to say my husband and I are extremely disappointed with the staffs this year of how they have unprofessionally handle and service this year birthday party. I couldn't even wanting to provide any star given that the event was far from satisfactory, and our friends and family were extremely disappointed with the services provided.

First, we were given only 30 mins tops to serve/eat the foods and cake time, without even any directional guidances of what should happen for the time being. Once the 30 mins is over, the guests and anyone in the party room has to leave immediately as they will need to start cleaning up the room, note that our guests and the kids are still enjoying their foods. We have asked if the guests can use the shared kitchen area to continue enjoy their foods and cake, but the manager, Angel, has said because this is not a "private party" no one is allowed to eat at the shared area, hence my guests will have to throw away the pizzas/sandwiches/donuts/cakes, otherwise the only option is to hold their foods while watching their kids playing and eat outside of the venue.

Second, the behavior of the staffs were appalling. One of the workers were rude and disrespectful, where he would just start cleaning while the kids are playing and slam a toy cart infront of the child (the excuse that the manager, Angel, gave was they consistently cleanup the area while the kids are playing), which is understandable but all times we felt like we were rushed forcibly to get out the venue as soon as possible.

Third, we were rushed to make a payment for the additional kids that attend the party in the middle of enjoying the event, which i would suggest to let us know ahead of time via email prior to the event so this does not need to happen at the day of (very disorganized). The manager even told my wife while she was in the middle of chatting with my son's classmate families if we don't make the payment, the kids who is leaving will not receive the goodie bags. This was not only unprofessional but also completely ruined what should have been a joyful moment.

A birthday party supposed to be happy and enjoyable but it's been a disaster overall and the manager, Angel, shows no respect but super confident that the event is all time treated, which I strongly disagreed given we had our blast for our son's 2 years old birthday party last...

Update - I went back and adjusted my rating to the lowest possible, based on the response from this place. Clearly it’s run by amateurs who haven’t heard about customer service.. While I do have more to share, I won’t engage with you guys since you obviously are not interested in ensuring customers’ satisfaction and hearing constructive feedback.

Sadly, we had a poor experience at Little Towns. My toddler was really looking forward to a friend’s birthday celebration, but the party was poorly managed.

The concept and the venue itself are quite cool, although a bit rundown and in need of occasional deep cleaning. Parents — make sure to bring grippy socks for your kids (and some for yourselves too), as the mats in a few rooms are quite slippery. We both fell more than once in the Georgetown Cupcake room, where the floors/mats were especially slippery.

Regarding the party itself — while I respect that parties have specific start and end times, the venue’s policies aren’t very customer-friendly. If your party is scheduled for 2:30 PM, you will not be allowed in a minute earlier. For a large group, just unloading, taking off shoes, and settling in takes time. Add bad weather or a baby in tow, and it becomes genuinely inconvenient.

The lack of customer service continued throughout the event. There was minimal communication from the staff, and the kids were largely left to roam without guidance. While free play can be great, in a party setting it becomes chaotic. Unlike other play venues we’ve attended, there was no structured transition to group activities — for example, when it was time to sing Happy Birthday, the children were scattered all over, and no real effort was made to gather them in an engaging way. Access to the party room was restricted, which made things confusing and frustrating for the kids — a few even had full meltdowns because they didn’t understand why they couldn’t enter certain areas.

With better communication, supervision, and a little maintenance, Little Towns could really live up to its potential as an educational and fun space. As it stands, though, it felt more like a rundown playroom in need...

Do not book a private party here you will basically only have the private room for 30 minutes. But they advertise like you have the full two hours to use the room. I had my one year old birthday party here and one of the workers her name was Jay she was very rude. She kept coming in the room in front of my guests saying to pack up and the kids had not eaten yet. The kids were still trying to eat and she said to give them five minutes and then hurry up and sing happy birthday. She literally came in the room and interrupted the party every five minutes. This was so embarrassing. She should be ashamed of herself to have crashed a one year old party. I’m not sure of how they treat others, but from the very beginning, it’s like they wanted to discourage me from booking the party not sure if it was because I was African American But it definitely felt that they were discriminating against me when I came there with the party. The lady Jay should shamed of herself for crashing a one year old party, and supposed to be one of the staff. We continued the party at another private facility when we left here. And in addition, there were no party bags for my kids or guest that I payed for. I will be seeking a refund for that as well.

New Response To Owners Comment: You were not even there when I arrived ON TIME at 5:00pm. (check your parking lot cameras), so how dare you lie on me to save face. I also asked if I could come earlier than 5pm to assist with set up and you stated that I could not.

Secondly no one would steal anything how low down of you to make these false accusations to save face for your unprofessionalism. Your communication throughout this whole event was misleading but I gave you the benefit of the doubt to do the RIGHT THING! I guess the $15 Per kid your making is not paying your lease/bills so you have to do huge expensive parties like mine the make up the $$$. I GET IT, but next time take advantage of someone else. NOT Me and My Kid. I HOPE YOU LEARNED A LESSON FROM THIS EXPERIENCE, IN ADDITION PLEASE BE LOOKING OUT FOR PAPERWORK FROM...