When i first applied to be a Macaroni KID publisher I was asked to provide a writing sample about a recent outing with my kids. Here’s what I submitted:
“I’m sipping my lukewarm coffee, succeeding for a brief moment to capture that elusive feeling of pre-kid calm and contentment that coffee promises, and occasionally delivers. I’m jolted from my reverie by a kick in the head from my toddler who has clumsily somersaulted off the couch before diving onto his sister, and they are wrestling on the carpet while calling each other a “cushion-head”.
This is the time to try our monthly pass to Where the Wild Things Play in Hummelstown, I realize. I priced the monthly pass and with unlimited visits and a free coffee at each visit, the math definitely mathed for the pass over a single visit admission.
A quick 20 minutes later my kids are screeching down the long hallway into the main play area. It is somehow warm, cozy, bright, playful, and surgically clean all at the same time. My kids coo over the welcoming bearded dragon Bruno as we get checked in, then run off to the collection of play vignettes where they become an animal rescuer, grocery store clerk, baker, and construction worker as I brew my complimentary coffee. It is hot and delicious, and I sink into a comfy armchair and pull out my cross stitch. Such bliss…my kids are busy playing and making a mess somewhere other than my house, my coffee is hot, and I’m having some time to enjoy a little something for me. This pass will get a lot of use, I can already tell.”
After that first visit we did in fact get a lot of use out of our monthly pass, and I eventually did get this dream gig. I had a character limit on the sample I provided so I couldn’t give much detail but now that I can write a blog post as long as the hour before bedtime, here I go.
There’s a lot to love about Where the Wild Things Play. The staff is friendly but unassuming, and (my favorite part) they quietly walk around cleaning up after the kids and sanitizing everything. This isn’t just about me and my dream of doing nothing (kidding…sorta), it’s that I’m constantly cleaning up after my kids and having somewhere to take them where they can play freely and it’s not all on me to deal with the mess is majorly worth it. There are tables to sit and eat a snack, and I saw many families bring lunch bags and make a day of it with lunches from home. If you forget food and hangriness sets in, they have snacks and drinks for purchase. The play set ups are really cute and there’s enough variety to keep everyone engaged for a good while. My daughter’s favorite thing to do is play “animal rescuer” or “vet” or “kitty mom” and she engaged in all three with gusto in the clubhouse area by combining toys from several of the play centers.
There’s also a large selection of cuddly animal stuffies (Beanie Babies-like, but kinda different and IMO cuter) and educational toys to buy if your kids successfully wear you down like mine did. We have at least six more stuffed kitties now than we did before we were members. The space is smallish in comparison to other indoor play spaces but I appreciated that I could keep an eye on everything without having to move from my cross-stitching armchair. We went during the week days and they were never busy which was great for my kids since they act like I just told them Santa isn’t real when they have to share anything with another kid. I imagine they’re pretty busy on the weekend though.
I did have a few minor complaints. The first was that on more than one occasion we arrived and found that they had closed early, even though I had verified they were open online. This was inconvenient as I now had excited kids to whom I had to be the bearer of bad news that we wouldn’t be playing after all. However, as a small business, it does make sense to me that the economics of staying open an hour or two when there aren’t any guests may not make sense. Unless you’re going right when they open I’d recommend calling to confirm they’ll be open their normal business hours.
It also annoyed me that they charge admission for adults. I’m definitely not going there for myself and the idea of paying admission to a place I’m only going so my kids will make magic with their imaginations and leave me alone for a spell was irksome. That said, the monthly pass gets around this nicely. The admission for a single visit seemed high to me, especially since I had to pay for me too, but the monthly pass worked out to a comfortable price point since we used it quite often the month we had it.
Finally, while this wasn’t a problem for my kids, I’ve heard from another mom that this play space didn’t really hold her kids’ interest for long. If you have kiddos who have been there and done that over and over and are used to lots of events and stimulation in a day perhaps you’d have a similar experience. I’d also think older kids might not get as much out of it as younger ones would.
All in all I plan to get a monthly membership again, probably in the summer as we did this time. If you’ve got wild things at home and a few quiet moments to drink your coffee hot means anything to you, Where the Wild Things Play might just be your new favorite escape. And don’t forget to bring your cross stitch. Or your knitting. Or whatever abandoned hobby you've been dreaming of picking back up since you became a parent!
