Soft play £35 for 40 minutes for 2 kids

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

Most of the local soft plays are still closed, preparing to reopen shortly, and the only one open is part of a farm park. There's a soft play inside and outside you can feed and stroke animals and usually do things like crazy golf, quad bikes, tractor rides, zip wire etc. Right now due to COVID the outdoor activities are off, and the only animals you can see now are the horses but not to touch or feed. The soft play is limited to 40 minutes per family.

They've actually raised admission prices (which were extortionate anyway BUT on a normal day you can stay 10am-5pm and get your money's worth). They charge for adults too, so for the 2 kids to play in soft play and then for us to go and stare at horses will be £35. Then you have to take into account drinks, money for the little arcade cars (the kind you get in supermarkets) etc.

AIBU to think this is daylight robbery? I know they will have taken a hit due to COVID but I think this is actually taking the loss. Almost £1 a minute to enjoy the soft play!

YABU to want to go to soft play at the moment regardless of the price. Softplays in general are hotbeds of germs at the best of times. I used to go with my two, gave up after a while as they prefer the park anyway & always came down with some vile bug afterwards.

YANBU re: the price. I would never pay that for 40 mins, you could buy so much food for that. They’re clearly capitalising on the gap in provision.

That’s terrible! Our local soft play reopened yesterday...£4.50 to get in then it cost £6 odd for lunch for both of us because they are doing the 50% off!

We've paid a fortune for soft play, farms, sea life centres, zoos, Disney, etc over the years. DS is 18 now - whenever we talk about his childhood, all he remembers are the simple things like crabbing or paddling on our local beach, walking/cycling/feeding ducks on the canal. It's as if he wasn't with us for all the expensive attractions - he can't remember them at all! The one thing he constantly talks about and tells people is falling in the canal when he was feeding some ducks. I often wonder why we bothered with the attractions - starting to think it was more for us than for him!

During lockdown we went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks every day. Christ, it was boring.

@Waytoomuch82

What is this place btw?

Are they honestly only offering soft play and to stare and horses?

I don't wanna name them I don't think it's fair.

But yes. The soft play is huge and can easily have parents socially distance, I guess. And apparently it's only horses as other animals may carry COVID 🤷‍♀️

YABU. Less children allowed in a session equals higher prices to cover the shortfall. Just something we are all going to have to get used to. Eating out is being kept artificially low by government schemes and VAT cut but when these are stopped prices will rise too.

Ori not sure what kind of establishments you’ve been frequenting! Ours is lovely and clean and no ball pit. Now they are doing 2 hour sessions which must be booked, and closing in between the sessions to clean.

During lockdown we went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks every day. Christ, it was boring

Half the reason I enjoy taking them to soft play is that they're old enough to now take themselves off for several hours and I can relax with a book. Something I don't get to do at home when they're in. Don't get to do that on a nature walk!

They don't charge for parks yet, do they? The countryside is still free. When did it become necessary to spend lots of money for children to play?

🙄 Most parents I know take their kids to parks and into the countryside. But they still use soft play and other attractions that cost money. Kids like a variety and it’s nice for them to experience different things. I’m not sure why anyone would be ‘beyond astonished’ at that.

@Idontbelieveit12

The wrong ones clearly! The soft play near me is grotty TBH so I don’t really have anything else to measure it by. But it’s also really expensive & I just can’t be arsed to pay too much money for the kids to get ill. I’d rather cut my losses & go look at a duck

I've got to leap about with them whilst simultaneously trying not to piss myself
Oh OP this made me laugh out loud! Unfortunately totally relatable :)

YANBU about the cost to get in. I paid £38 to go to a London based adventure playground which has animals, sandpits, zip wire etc. That was for one adult and one child for 5 hours.

It was a treat for my DD and I advised her we would only be going once over the summer holidays otherwise Mummy would have to change her name to Roxanne and start putting the red light out.

"I just don't know why anyone would want to pay for things when the countryside is free, Tarquinius and Ptolemy prefer nature anyway."

🤣 I‘ve met a few of these types. It usually goes hand in hand with, ‘they don’t like sweets or fizzy pop, they prefer snacking on raw carrot and water”. Yeah right! 🙄

YABU
£35 for a day out at a farm type place for 3 people sounds fairly standard to me.

@Nosuchluck

For 40 mins? Not a full day - 40 clucking mins!

During lockdown we went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks every day. Christ, it was boring.

For who? You or your children?

@Racoonworld

YABU. Less children allowed in a session equals higher prices to cover the shortfall. Just something we are all going to have to get used to. Eating out is being kept artificially low by government schemes and VAT cut but when these are stopped prices will rise too.

Exactly. Prices are inevitably going to rise in the future when we can do longer do the "pile 'em in" to charge less pricing model. Same overheads, same profit requirement means higher prices if there are fewer people. Simple Maths. Time to get used to it!

The smug of Moondust001 is overpowering!

How is it robbery if its entirely voluntary?

Are you not a native English speaker @Lockheart? “(Daylight) Robbery” is an expression used when high prices are charged.

If the businesses were truly being shortsighted then they wouldn't change their prices and in a couple of months they will no longer be in existence.

Practically every response here is that the OP shouldn’t go and that the price is way too high. If extortion is the only way a business can succeed at this point, they are going to go under whatever because people won’t pay too high a price.

Lots of places have increased pricing round me.
I haven’t gone. I’m not anti supporting small business at all but sadly Covid also struck our family in a financially hard way meaning dh didn’t get paid for 3 months as he was one (of thousands) who got left behind by fabulous Rishi and not given a any help from the government.
So while I agree that we should be doing what we can, I’m not up for paying twice the price to go and show my support because we were totally shafted and still recovering!
We have done things and made good use of the eat out to help out scheme, I’ve done things and activities with the children where the prices have stayed the same but I refuse to pay more than before ‘because they’re trying to recoup their losses’ - so are we!

YANBU at all!

We've paid a fortune for soft play, farms, sea life centres, zoos, Disney, etc over the years. DS is 18 now - whenever we talk about his childhood, all he remembers are the simple things like crabbing or paddling on our local beach, walking/cycling/feeding ducks on the canal.

Your son has no memory of a Disney trip? I find that hard to believe.

We’ve done an equal measure of free and expensive trips. DD has fond memories from most of them, I’d find it really worrying if she was unable to remember something just because it cost more money.

I'm avoiding these places at the moment.
I've saved a fortune this summer!

@Badbadbunny

During lockdown we went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks every day. Christ, it was boring.

For who? You or your children?

Probably more so for me, though I think DS was also pretty sick of it by the end - he's too little to be able to chat about it but his enthusiasm for going out on these walks definitely diminished. I remember taking him in the car to go further afield for the first time after restrictions eased a bit and we weren't just supposed to be going out to 'exercise' and he was shouting in excitement at every single thing we saw, so I think he was also pretty sick of seeing the same few places on loop.

They are pretty clear on what's open and what's not. So just for soft play it's expensive, but for a farm for an adult with 2 children, it's quite standard price. You have a choice not to go if you think it doesn't worth paying the money. Title is wrong though. £24 for 2 kids, not £35 and it's a farm, not soft play.

@Badbadbunny

During lockdown we went on a walk in the park and fed the ducks every day. Christ, it was boring.

For who? You or your children?

Oh yes I forgot the enjoyment of mothers doesn't matter. As long as the darlings are happy, your feelings are completely irrelevant, you should be happy because they are happy