360 PLAY IN STEVENAGE

A friend of ours recommended 360 soft play in Stevenage to us. She warned that it is expensive to get in, but 100% worth it. We decided to give it a go and judge for ourselves. On arrival there was ample free parking, which is always nice. No one likes the stress of finding a parking space when the little ones are raring to go! I have to say I was quite shocked when we arrived and had to pay £5 to become a member followed by £3.50 per adult and £7.50 for our 2 year old. Never have I had to pay adult entry to a soft play and at a total of £19.50 for entry I could see where my friend was coming from with her expensive entry comment! It is worth noting though that next time we wouldn't need to pay the £5 membership fee so entry would only be £14.50. This being said I could tell as soon as we got inside that it was going to be worth the entry fee. 

This is the ultimate soft play centre! The place has everything; an imaginative play village called, ‘360 street’ which includes a vet, supermarket and fire station to name a few, a Lego zone, music area, dance stage, rock climbing wall, go karts, carousel and a messy play room as well as the actually soft play areas themselves of which there are two; a toddler section (under four’s) and the main area, which is 3 storeys tall. There is also an outdoor play area which has a sand pit and play houses, but I can’t comment on that section as we didn't venture outside with our trip being in November. All of this is included in your entry fee which I was quite impressed with as we have come to find that places usually charge extra for things like carousel rides and go karts. The only children's activities we saw requiring an additional fee was the face painting and the pottery painting both of which were £2.75 and located at the messy play room. If you are traveling to 360 with the intention of using the messy play room then I would check the website or call the centre to find out there session times as this wasn't open first thing in the morning when we visited. 

There is ample seating and tables for the grown-ups and to sit and have something to eat and drink and the cafe has quite an extensive menu at pretty standard prices. You really could spend all day here if you and your children have the stamina! We had lasted 3 hours before our little one ran out of steam! I was impressed with the cleanliness of the whole place and the laid-back feel. With it being so large it didn't feel overly crowded (we arrived first thing and left around lunchtime so can’t comment farther than that.) and there were signs on the walls prompting you to relax and let your little ones move the props around which is a good job really as our daughter (And all the other children!) had supermarket food in the vets, pizzas in the fire station and puppies in the mechanics, but she had so much fun doing it and it is great for their imaginations to run free. It must take them forever to put everything back in the correct place at the end of each day, but everything was in its correct place when we arrived first thing. 

My tips when visiting: 

1. Arrive early! It opens at 9.30am, and we arrived at 9.40am, and had the place practically to ourselves for a good hour. This gave us plenty of time to have a good explore of all the areas before the crowds started to arrive. 
2. If you have little ones like us, then try to do the large soft play area first, this area became the busiest so we were glad we did that first and then retreated to the play village and toddler soft play once it had gotten busier. 
3. There was a constant queue at the cafe so keep that in mind and start queuing before you actually need that coffee! You aren't allowed to bring in your own food or drink so bare that in mind. 
4. The place is designed for adults to be able to join the children on the play areas, so you can cash in on the fun too! It’s a good workout! 
5. They offer a service by which you pay £15 a month by direct debit, and this gets you unlimited access for one adult and one child. This seems great value to me and if we lived a little closer I would defiantly be considering signing up. 

What did my 2 year old think?

Mummy: What was your favourite part of today?

E: Fixing the doggy (the vet practice on 360 street) and the big slide. 

Mummy: Would you like to come back one day?

E: YES (A very firm yes!) 

All in all it has to get a 5/5 from me. It’s defiantly worth the entrance fee so don't let that put you off visiting. 

All thoughts, opinions and photographs are my own. This is not a sponsored post. Prices, times etc are correct at the time of publishing this post and are subject to change.