On August 13th, I was looking for something fun and indoors to do with my son. We had been going to the farmers market each weekend and that was starting to grow tiresome. It was still too warm for most outside activities, so I started looking for indoor playground.
When looking at the Gymboree website, it was advertising for their National Day of Play event, which happened to be on Saturday, August 13th! You had to pre-purchase on the website, fill out a waiver and select a time to attend.
(image sourced from Gymboree site)
Based on my son’s nap schedule, I signed up for the 9:45-10:30am class. It was $15, and super easy to create an account. The National Day of Play class was open to anyone under 5, but this session seemed to mostly consist of kiddos 2 and under, which was great.
It was a very large room, with excellent line of sight no matter where your child was. It had a number of wooden play structures, soft play areas, balls, ramps and exersaucers. The facility was very clean (with a faint aroma of bleach spray in the air), and very well maintained.
Due to the National Day of Play event, they also had juice boxes and snacks for the little ones - such a nice touch!
Adults had to wear socks, and the babies could go without, which was nice because it allowed them to get some traction on some of the more advanced play structures. The entire room had thick padding, and any cabinetry storing things had the appropriate safety mechanisms to keep little ones out.
The bathrooms were readily accessible and very clean, and there were plenty of cubbies to store your belongings.
My son had a wonderful time, and didn’t want to leave. He could’ve spent many more hours playing with all of the toys and the other kids.
I asked the employee as I was leaving if this type of event is frequent and she advised it was only once a year, and gave me the schedule of classes they typically have.
To say I was taken aback by the cost of the classes at Gymboree would be an understatement. They have different types of classes available, and for non-members they have drop in passes for purchase.
As of September 2022, pricing is as follows:
- School Skills $185/month - one class per week and unlimited access to “open play” sessions
- Music $95/month - one class per week, any music class anytime, and unlimited access to “open gym” sessions
- Preschool Steps $135/month - one class per week, any preschool steps class anytime, and unlimited access to “open gym” sessions
- Art $105/month - one class per week, any art class anytime, and unlimited access to “open gym” sessions
- One play class per week $95/month - one class per week, and unlimited access to “open gym” sessions
The drop in class prices for non-members are $29. They also have special events and play passes available where you can buy a bundle of class passes.
Highlights
- Great staff, clean and well maintained facility
- Pricey
Final Verdict
If this was a lower cost, I would likely come back more often. The facility itself and the staff were great. Unfortunately they are not open on the weekends, so since I work full time, their class availability doesn’t work very well for me. I believe all of their classes are 9-4 Monday through Friday.
The session we attended was the “open gym” style, and I would be very interested to see a music or art class guided by the staff, because I saw rave reviews about how wonderful the staff were with the children. I will very likely be back for one of those, but have a number of other businesses I plan to check out in the interim that are more accommodating to my schedule.
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