Zoobilee
Recently, one of the people at story time was handing out fliers for a new kids play place called “Zoobilee” in Ypsilanti. I wanted to know more, so I went to the Web site and it looked like a fun place. Giant slides, tunnels to climb through, tasty looking food at a reasonable price — so I thought, ’sure, why not check it out?’
Since I was on Spring Break last week, I had lots of free time so the kids and I picked out a day and off we went. The experience that I was expecting from what I had heard and seen did not quite match up to what actually happened. When we got there, it was evident the business was brand new because the door was nothing more than a couple of pieces of wood with a banner hanging next to it saying “Yes, we ARE open!”
We did notice after we walked in that, yes, the slides in the photos were there and the climbing play structure looked like fun, but the whole thing had a kind of warehouse feel to it. The lighting back by the tables wasn’t that bright, except for the sun that shone through the front windows. There was no music or noise really at all except for my kids and a few others running around.
We really couldn’t see the kids when they ran around the front of the structure from where we were sitting at the tables, but that was okay because there was no way for Keegan to access the tunnels or slides without assistance. He was just too short to be able to climb up into it by himself. (True there was a “toddler area” but there was nothing to do in there besides climb on a few soft blocks or sit on a squishy rocking animal. Keegan quickly lost his interest in this area.)
Anyway, because he wanted to go down the slides, I had to climb up the levels with him, pushing him ahead of me as I went. Now let it be said that I have a quasi-fear of closed spaces, so this was NOT my idea of fun! Eventually, we had worked out a relay system so that I didn’t have to continually climb up the ledges. My mom would catch Keegan at the bottom of the slide and walk with him around the back of the structure. She would hand him to my sister Lauren, who was halfway up one of the ledges, and then Lauren would hand him to me. From there, he could just walk over to the slides by himself and zip on down to where mom would be waiting again. Caitlyn was running circles around us going here, there and everywhere, but eventually she got kinda bored with it, too.
The food wasn’t that bad — well, the adult menu was pretty good anyway. (I guess once you’ve eaten Chuck E. Cheese food multiple times, than you just get used to food at kid play places….). The kids food on the other hand was kinda dinky. I originally had thought that $2.99 was a fantastic price for a chicken tender kids meal — until it came out and it consisted of nothing more than THREE dinosaur nuggets and a couple of french fries. I could go to Meijer and buy a whole package of those for $1.99!! The drink was included in the price though, and a tony container of bubbles, so I guess that’s where the majority of the cost came from.
It cost $6 for Caitlyn and $3 for Keegan to get it, but we were only there for about 2 hours and there wasn’t that much to do. One other thing that bothered me was the lack of safety by the front counter. First off, there was no gate blocking access to get behind the counter. I lost count of the number of times Keegan ran around the front of the play structure and took a detour to run behind the counter and into the kitchen. Not good! That boy is way too fast and who knows what he could have gotten into!
On the other side of the counter is the door to enter and leave the building. There’s no one standing there making sure the kids leave with who they came with; the door is at kid level, and the handle is on the inside so any kid could just open it and walk on out if they wanted to. That made me a bit nervous, so I felt like I had to watch the kids like hawks the entire time we were there.
All in all, the kids had a pretty decent time, but I don’t know if it’s something we’re going to rush back to do.
Here are some pictures of the kids playing:
Caitlyn getting ready to climb into the play structure.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
My sister Lauren with Keegan and me with Caitlyn.
Keegan riding the dinosaur.
Caitlyn and Keegan just chillin’.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I would like to amend that after hearing from the owner the reason the door was merely a few pieces of wood was because the business had been broken into and robbed the night before. The thieves also apparently made off with the giant screen TV near the front of the play structure.