“Kids Party Place” Search Tips and Review of Creative Play Indoor Playground in Ajax
As a father of 2 toddlers, I have now become an (unexpected) quasi-expert on Play Places in the GTA.
Whether you’re there to let your kid blow off some energy, or hosting a party at one, here’s my review of a recent trip to Creative Play Indoor Playground & Party Centre in Ajax and some other resources for you parents out there who are looking for a place to host a party in the east end of the GTA!
First off, there are numerous places that summarize the party places available in the GTA already. The most comprehensive one I’ve found to date (to save you the trouble of trying to check all 707,000 pages that come up on Google when you search “Party Place GTA”) is below. There are tons of others so if the one below doesn’t work, just Google away!
Toronto 4 Kids – a pretty good summary of what’s out there to host kids parties. Best aspect is that the places are sorted by location.
Second, you need to figure out a theme. This is the easy part as all you have to do is ask your child and VOILA!, you have a theme. What to do with that theme is a whole other matter… Most party places can help you with the theme including games, special guests i.e. actors to dress up as (insert your child’s favourite character here), decorations and even loot bags! Unfortunately, it all comes at a cost so if you’re too lazy/not inventive enough/have no time to do something yourself, be prepared. If you do have the time, to paraphrase Hannibal from The A-Team, “you’ll love it when your plan comes together” as it can be extremely rewarding to see your child’s face light up as your custom made games/ideas bring their theme to life! If there’s enough interest, perhaps we’ll start posting cheat sheets on different party themes that Dad’s can use/have used in the past to help each other out!
Which brings us to our most recent party place experience - Creative Play in Ajax. Here’s our experience:
Details: Creative Play Indoor Playground and Party Centre, 539 Westney Rd. S., Ajax ON, 905-231-1900, www.creativeplay.ca.
Ambience: Pretty standard across most party places where you have some separate rooms to host different-sized parties and a large play area with the big gym/playset for all to use and Creative Play follows the same model. Creative Play’s space seemed to be on the larger side versus many other play places we’ve been to which is always good when there are lots of kids. For our recent spooky party, they were able to provide some Halloween decorations which were a nice touch.
Kids Stuff: Aside from the standard play gym/riding toys/toddler section, Creative Play had a unique area to host 2 on 2 hockey or basketball playing for younger kids; this section was always in use at our party. They also had a painting station which you don’t see in most play places.
Kids Food: We brought our own food to the party. When we attended another party here for one of Book Boy’s friend’s, they had DIY (do it yourself) pizzas which Book Boy seemed to enjoy. The staff were very helpful in supplying some things we forgot at home (cake knife, lighter for candles, etc.)
Coolest Thing About Play Place: Book Boy’s friends really liked the hockey section. Incredible Dad liked the availability of a back entrance to load the loot … I mean to pack the presents into the van easily.
Worst Thing About Play Place: The party right before us were a bit tardy in getting out and with only 30 minutes between parties, there was a bit of a mess left by the last party. But this was a minor point as we ourselves stayed a bit later and the owner (Christine) was totally understanding.
Tips to consider: Ensure you arrive about 30 minutes before your scheduled time to setup without a panic. We only booked 2 hours for our party so getting there early allowed us to setup then just enjoy our time with family and friends.
Overall Experience: Creative Play is a welcome addition to the Durham party place landscape. Lots of space, good gym/toys/hockey space and friendly staff make this a place where Ballet Girl is now considering to have her party! You can’t get a much better recommendation than that!
Nov/09 Update
We recently had a second party at Creative Play and had another great experience. Both Jan and Christine were helpful and were always ready to make sure everything in the party was going well. We had Ariel there and were relatively happy with the experience (but Ballet Girl was ecstatic!).
Also took some pics to include so enjoy and comment below about your experiences as well! ID
Welcome desk.
Play and craft area.
Jungle gym and play area.
Other Posts That Might Interest You:
We provide Busy Dads like you with the best tips in order to help you have more fun and be more successful as a father!
I noticed you have a review of creative play, but I wanted to suggest you check out Tumbles N Toys as well. We just had a party there and were SUPER impressed:) http://www.tumblesntoys.com
I think we’ve actually been there for some other parties. Will check it out next time we’re in the area. Thanks!
Creative Play has added a jumping castle! As of September 1st, 2010 our jumping castle will be available for your jumping pleasure. All parties and daily play kids will have access and can jump to their little heart’s content. Adding the jumping castle to our already large selection of play items in our centre is our way of adding value to your play or party experience here at Creative Play. Jump up and celebrate with us!
I have been to Creative Play and find it very dirty and the staff doesn’t pay any attention to the kids around. Creative Play only put a jumping castle because Jumperoos across the street has two BIG commercial ones that all the kids love. I find that Creative Play trys to copy all the other playgrounds around but they can’t beat any of them. They also advertise that they are the biggest playground in DUrham but everyone knows thats a lie because there is a playground in Whitby called kids zone that is the oldest and biggest playgorund in Durham. Maybe if Creative Play would get their own ideas and not copy other playgrounds people would go their more. The price also went down to $5 because they were loosing business. Creative Play is in an industrial location and I find it to be really dark inside.
A friend of mine had a birthday party at creative play and they said that they will never go back again. The owners are rude.
I had my child’s birthday at Jumperoos and I had great service and the owner was very helpful to the children/adults and to my grandma that uses a cane. You should look them up on google at jumperoos.com best place in durhm and they have arcade games, jumping castles and snacks. THey are really clean and pay attention to all the kids and adults that walk in.
Creative Play already copyed them with the jumping castles what will they copy with next? Sometimes I wonder why they run a playground if they are liers and can’t get their own ideas? THis ad was probably payed to post or by a family member. I don’t think it was written by a walk in dad that just posted it because he wanted too.
Wow Jen, that’s quite the comment…
A couple of points of reply from me:
-We’ve had several parties at Creative Play and haven’t found it dirty at all; in fact, they’ve been more than helpful in making sure things worked out well.
-Dark inside? Hmmm, with the lights on, it was just fine for us… Except when we asked for dimmed lights during a Halloween Birthday party we held there.
-I find your comment that you think I’m a family member or was paid to post my review of Creative Play mildly insulting (even though I’m kind of thinking the same thing about you and Jumperoos) … but to clear the air, I am not related to nor was I paid by Creative Play for any of my comments. This should be self evident by the number of good (and not so good) reviews I’ve already done for places all over Durham Region.
-To end, the freedom of the Internet allows all points of view to be heard so for taking the time to post a comment, whatever your intentions may be, I thank you and wish you all the best!
ID
Thank You! We have just received word that Creative Play has been voted the #1 Best Indoor Playground for 2010 by Durham Region parents. This is the second year in a row; as many years as we have been in business! Thank you so much to those who voted for us. We truly value your opinion and trust in our centre. We promise to continue to deliver the best possible birthday parties, daily play and kids’ events in Durham Region.
Hope to see your smiling faces soon!
Sincerely,
Christine
Creative Play
Oh my Gosh people seriously, it seems all anyone is concerned about especially at creative play is how many awards they are winning which is evident by all the post on her website, I mean is this why she opened the business, to count awards, seriously who is voting and how many votes are we talking realistically, if noone else cares to enter this contest who are you competing against, there are hundreds of negative comments against this playground I hear it constantly, from how dirty it is, the rudeness of the staff etc, etc so how she is winning is beyond me, I took my child their for play once and she is 4 and she complained how dirty and dark it is even with the lights on, one jumping castle so what, if you are looking for a spectacular playground to visit that delivers in spades and then some look no further than ‘Tumbles ” N” Toys, if you’ve never gone you are missing out, they don’t need to toot their own horns it’s evident by the number of people their everyday, and the number of parties they have every weekend, I called to book a party for November and coudn’t get a spot and by the way Tumbles ‘N’ Toys has the best website in all of durham, it’s clean, current, original and not loaded with unnessary information. Bottom line if you care about giving people good service everything else will come later. And why haven’t you reviewed Tumbles ‘N” Toys, Jumperoos, Mega Fun 4 Kids, Enchanted Castle, Kids Zone, Airzone, seems you are always defending Creative play there are other play places out there, try them you might be surprised.
[...] Girl just had her birthday party at Creative Play (great job again Christine and Jan!) and I was chatting with Eye-Doctor [...]
i went to this place recently and it seemed okay… at first. the facility itself seemed limited as there was not an area for dress up, or house. jus a slide and a bouncing castle. the party was a DIY pizza making for the kids. which was fine. there were about 22 doughs for the expected amount of kids. although only half showed up, we were interested in using the remainder of the pizza’s doughs, (as the parents was paying alot of money) the own told her they didnt want to waste anything (which is understandable)… but all the kids were putting thier hands in the bowl to get a dough… so dont you through it out after? She seemed to be implying that they dont like to waste anything. But if you have left overs of what kids have been putting their hands all over, dont u through at away anyhow? that part worried me. The thought of eating left-over pizza doughs from a previous party? We had asked them to bake the remaining pizza doughs (as they were paid for) and they made them for us. When they were done, the dough was basically raw. If a child had eaten it, they could have possible been food poisoned. What kind of customer service is that?
All i know, is im not going back to that place.