Today me and Spud was invited to Monkey Mates Indoor & Outdoor Play Centre by my sister who was going there with two close friends, I accepted the invite and went along too. I've only ever been to Monkey Mates twice before, it's located in Wokingham, and as I don't drive it's not my first choice for one of these play centres. The first time we went was when Spud was invited to my little cousin's Birthday party, my auntie hired the whole place out (after usual business hours), and the second time we went along with my Mum and little sister.
We arrived later then we expected, my sister took a wrong turning and we ended up on a 15-minute detour to be taken back to the same main road we come off, we finally made it in the end, thanks to a very small signpost that was hardly visible. Monkey Mates is an old farm barn that's been converted, it is rather small then the other play centre's in and around Reading, although Monkey Mates does have a medium-sized outdoor play area so really that makes up for the smaller indoor size.
As soon as you park your car in the free car park located on the site grounds, you can see animal's, all sorts of jungle animal's, my sisters eldest son, who is 3 has Aspergers, and he's obsessed with animal's, so as you can imagine he was straight over to the large animal's located just inside the entrance, he could of stayed there all day playing with them by the looks of his little face, Spud also pulled himself up onto one of the animal's, his favourite being a Giraffe, here is a picture of him, he wouldn't look at the camera as he was talking to one of his little friend's.
We paid the entrance fee, £3.50 for children under the age of 3, and £4.25 for children above the age of 3, and that's it, the children had their shoe's off and were inside before you could say go banana's.
Monkey mates have a number of facilities, a little mini shop which is very cheap, and great for party bag filling items, sweets start from 5p and mini toys from 10p, they even sell sock's for £1 both children and adults in case you forget them, it has a cafe that does both hot and cold food and drinks, high chairs are available from reception, both male and female toilet's including disabled and baby change. Whilst the children were off playing, us mummies had a look at the menu to choose what to buy the kiddies for lunch, we all had something different and none of us complained, prices were cheap as well which was great.
We let the children eat their lunch and then they went off to have another hour or so's play, there is a lot for children to do inside the soft play, it's great for stimulation and role play, it's quite an adventure as well trying to find your way to certain area's, for example trying to find the big slide feel's like your in a maze, it made me more determined to find it though. I miss being a child sometimes, when I was a child I would dream of having a soft play centre built in my home, how amazing would that be? Back to reality I go.
A quick trip to the toilets and on your way you pass this picture painted on the wall of animal's, it looked as though it's only just been painted the way it still remains clean and shiny. I just had to take a picture of it. I do get quite snap happy when I'm out and about I like to take picture's of places and thing's to post in Spud's journal.
My
Mum had earlier on called me to see if myself and spud wanted to go to her's for a roast pork dinner, even if it was only bean's on toast I
would have said yes, I love and miss my Mum's cooking so much. I decided as my little sister is too old for Monkey Mates, hence why we couldn't invite her, I would spend a little amount in the shop and get her a number of small items to take with us when we go there later for dinner. The shop is great and I think for Spud's next Birthday party I will be getting the party bag fillers from here, they have so many little toys and sweet's from as little as 5p, for just £1 you could quite easily get a lot. In the picture is just a fraction of what they sell, all the item's in the picture are 10p each, perfect for little treats.All the kids had a great time whilst the adults had a natter. If you're around the Reading/Wokingham area I would recommend this if you like quieter/smaller places. None of the children went outside today they had so much to do indoors they didn't get around to adventuring to the outdoor section. Monkey Mates also do birthday party's, they do birthday parties within usual opening hour's or you can hire the whole thing out after usual opening hour's just for you and your guest to enjoy.
Dinner at Mums was perfect as always, I said to her today this is food I would pay top nosh for. We then watched Shrek and was dropped back home. All that playing and running around made my little Spud tired, so after a bath, a story, a cuddle and a kiss from Mummy, he was asleep within minutes.
Until next time,
Jade x
Disclosure - I was not asked to do this review nor was I compensated or paid in any way. We paid for the children from our own pockets and all comments or views are of my own/Spud's.
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