Jump, Cardiff Review
Ever since I discovered Jump existed I’ve been taking our twins on a regular basis. For those who don’t know, Jump, is a soft play type centre, situated in a warehouse in the Llanishen suburb of Cardiff.
They’ve recently made a few changes due to the expansion of the adjoining nursery which has taken over more space inside. This has meant that the popular enclosed toddler area is no more.
Something I was a bit sad about as our twins would have easily spent an hour in this area. In place of the toddler area is a long bouncy castle that was previously on the other side of the building. It’s a nice bouncy castle, the kids can go in at one end, climb up one side and slide down the other of it, but
R and M quickly bored of it and moved on to the trampoline.
The old trampoline was pretty big, so again I was sad to see it had been replaced with a smaller one, but I’m glad that there is still a trampoline there. However, the girls bored of this quickly too.
Despite this there is a new ‘faraway island’ section on the other side of the building behind the football court. It’s an enclosed area aimed at babies and toddlers. Inside there is seating and what appeared to be baby food warming stations.
There’s a small wooden boat which is great, but I was disappointed to find a TV mounted on the wall in front of the boat with Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom on repeat. I just don’t understand why you’d have a TV in a baby/toddler area of a soft play centre. Surely the whole idea of visiting these types of places is to get away from the TV?
Anyway, the girls enjoyed playing in the wooden boat and pretending to steer it! We also found some puppets which was pretty impressive. A parrot one was a favourite!
There was also a small ball pit, which the girls weren’t interested in at all and I can’t blame them as it was really small. More for babies than toddlers. The previous ball pit before the changes were made was a good size and more appealing in my opinion.
The slide from the old toddler area was in this new enclosure so that was nice to see, although again our girls didn’t show any interest in having a go. Maybe because the part where you climb up the stairs is pushed right up against a wall?
Another new addition is a tent which has some dressing up costumes in, as well as some puppet toys. There’s also a small beach hut style house along with some beach chairs.
There are some wooden ride-on bikes which are enclosed within a small area. I like that there are still some ride on toys for the children, but feel it’s shame that they’re enclosed within such a small area.
Without a doubt the girls favourite thing was the sandpit. It’s a pretty good size so quite a few children can all go in at once and there was a good range of buckets, spades etc for kids to play with.
I do feel that it’s a shame that the original toddler area has gone because as previously mentioned we’d usually spend the duration of our stay, around an hour, in that area. The girls probably spent around 5-10 minutes with the bouncy castle and trampoline, followed by 10 minutes in the faraway island section before they got bored and we moved onto the larger soft play areas.
They did however, enjoy going on the rides before we left.
Although I did prefer the pervious toddler area, there are some of elements of the new faraway island that I do like. The sandpit, I think is brilliant, as are the facilities available to parents in this area.
I feel as though Jump is good for babies and older children who can go around the bigger soft play areas by themselves, but there doesn’t appear to be much for toddlers, around two to five years old.
I’ll probably visit again on a rainy day though, but probably not as often as I have previously done.
2 Comments
Awaken-Beauty
February 27, 2016 at 7:13 am
Snap! Josh used to love the baby toddler area before and I was excited to see the new added bits as there was such a big fuss over it. Josh wasn't interested at all and got so bored. They had a bouncy castle/slide in the new bit that lasted a few days as it kept deflating with all the kids inside!! Josh was petrified! xxxx
Laura Side Street
February 28, 2016 at 2:50 pm
We have been here a few times as well – usually on a rainy day or with friends as personally I am not a huge fan of soft plays especially ones that lack natural light but my son does have fun here and that's what is important. It's a shame they have made the "toddler" section smaller yet the price is the same and pretty expensive – in fact it's probably one of the most expensive places in Cardiff – I don't know how I feel about it all but we have been opting for places like Parc Play which allow picnics and is a bit cheaper, although we have a car which helps with our options.
Laura x