{Review} Play Time at Gymobree Southlake

This morning Eva and I went and did a free trial class at the Gymboree in Southlake. I had gotten the coupon from a magazine and figured it would be fun to get out and try it. Years ago when I was a nanny for a 2 year old girl she was enrolled in Gymboree classes so I had a little bit of an idea of what it would be like.

Let me tell you, it was so. much. fun. The whole room is set up as a padded play area with lots of steps and slides and tunnels and balls and things to bounce on or crawl under. It is pretty awesome. The class we did had an instructor there to give us an idea of how to do each baby obstacle course and she also led some fun song and dance time.

With toddlers I didn't expect it to be super structured and I'd say it was just right. I really liked that it was totally okay if she suddenly decided to run off from the song time. When she does that at the library it's more awkward since a public library is not designed to be a playground. When it came to climbing and sliding she was pretty okay with it, although she needed some encouragement to tell her that she could actually do most of it by herself. She loved the bubble time and all the fun bouncy balls they had. She did not want to go inside any tunnel. Not under any circumstance. ME: Eva, don't you want to crawl through this fun, brightly colored tunnel???? Oooh!!! Eva: shakes head. runs away. repeat multiple times at multiple tunnels. Not a big deal but I was surprised that she was so skeptical because normally she's pretty fearless. I don't have any photos of Eva from today but I found this one online so you can see kind of what it looks like. This isn't from the location we went to but it did look similar (also I would say this photo only shows a small part of what the room looked like).

{Photo Link} 

When I read up on the reviews of Gymboree one of them mentioned that it wasn't always so sanitary. I don't know which location this was talking about (they have locations nationwide) but this was absolutely not true about the Southlake location. They had hand sanitizer to use before you entered the play area. Everybody takes their shoes off so you aren't tracking in extra dirt and germs. They announced a couple of times not to bring kids when they are sick. And at the end of the time when all the kids were doing the parachute songs and games a staff member was walking around a bottle of spray cleaner, wiping down everything. For a place where there are lots of kids and possible germs I felt like it was as safe and clean as you could expect (I mean, we play at the park and I guarantee you that nobody sanitizes that every hour).

The only bummer for the whole experience is that we really can't afford to pay for Eva to go there. I don't think their prices are crazy for what you get (especially if you go during their open play times too) but it's just not in our budget right now. I was a little worried that with their free class offer they would be pushy about registering but thankfully they were not. The sales lady printed off a list of classes and prices to hand to me on our way out but wasn't pushy. Obviously they want you to sign up for their classes so I didn't mind the print off.

So, that is my review of Gymboree. I loved it. I'd go back again with another coupon!  And they are not paying me anything for this favorable review :)