Hulabaloos, Wymondham opened their doors for the first time on Monday the 6th of February 2012. Catering for children aged 0 to 12 Hulabaloos provide an indoor play frame and will be opening up an outdoor play area in the near future (this has now opened since our visit.)

NorfolkPlaces paid an early visit to Hulabaloos to give this indoor soft play area a thorough test with 3 active boys (between 4 and 7 yrs) and a little toddler to review the play equipment.

Parent’s View
As veterans of hundreds (we’re not kidding) of trips to indoor soft play areas we’re always keen to take the kids along to a new one. Indeed, like many people in South Norfolk we were pleased to see one open to fill the void left by Funtime Factory, Wymondham, which was closed in October 2010.

In the last few years there have been some play areas with modern equipment, such as the thrilling slides at Dynomite at Dinosaur Adventure, Farmer Fred’s or the fun softplay cannons at Africa Alive, so it was interesting to see a newly opened place going with the older style of play equipment (the sort normally seen in early indoor play areas, and can still be seen in family pubs). That is probably because a lot of equipment was inherited from the Funtime Factory.

From a parental point of view, the equipment positioning allowed parents to have a quite good view of most of the play equipment. On the subject of positioning -they may need to re-adjust the location of a fire exit sign because I saw several kids (not mine, I hasten to add!) reaching through the netting to grab it! On a serious note, hopefully this will be sorted out because it could be dangerous.

As our visit was in their first few days of operation we would like to revisit again. Not least because the outdoor play area has opened since we visited.

Kid’s Views
7 year old – It was okay because I had my cousin to chase, and we ran around hiding from my brother. That was funny and stopped me getting bored (he’s getting a bit old for these places)

4 year old – It was nice because I had my brother and cousin to play with. I found this many (holding up two fingers!) broken balls in the ball pit and Mum said one of them was Pac-man!

The hot chocolate tastes like cardboard – we visited in the first week so hopefully this is just an early teething issue.

Adults – If you visit in winter time wear thermal socks! They do have heaters dangling from the ceiling but these only heat the top of you, so your toes/legs will still feel chilly.

Make sure kids wear long sleeve tops, and trousers are probably a good idea too (should really wear these at all indoor soft play areas). This will reduce friction burns although it won’t stop it completely – our boys were wearing these but seemed to get more grazes and bruises than they do normally!

When we visited we noted that the party room wasn’t enclosed  and we’re not sure it would be big enough for a large group. So visiting Hulabaloos and having a look first would be advised.

Duration of visit: 2 hours