Great Kids Village / Great Kids Parties3526

I think it's a pretty big stretch to ever compare this place with Port Discovery even though PD actually has a cheaper admission price. The playspace is just adequate for children aged 1-5. I think that kids older than 5 will be quite bored. My toddler did enjoy himself for a couple of hours even though there was a large school group there of kids who were waaaay to old to be able to enjoy themselves with the toddler and preschool setup. The kids from the group entertained themselves by chucking footballs into the sandbox area hitting my child and several others. The employees didn't notice or care so I had to talk one of the chaperones myself (he was also throwing footballs). Note that no outside food is allowed, even for kids with many food allergies. The hot food from the cafe is microwaved and barely palatable and the sandwiches are nothing but a single slice of lunch meat shoved between two pieces of Wonder Bread. They will allow you to leave and eat your own food in your car if you want to (for this I paid $15 ??).

Our daughter had a super birthday party here - we could invite all her friends and the organizers did everything for us. And the space is like Disneyland or something, there is so much to do!

This is our fav play space in the DC area. It's the best and biggest - like a really awesome children's museum! Our kids can easily play here for hours.

dont waste your money or you time

Sounds lke a great idea, I went when it was playwise kids and thought I would try again under the new ownership. I doesn't look like anything has changed, there is a very odd "dusty/musty" smell that I don't like. The place just looks grungy. They do have hand sanitizers around which I like a lot. Most food is reasonabely priced and they do have some healthy options for snacks.

Be warned. Any good review about this pace, was done by friends or family of the owners.

This place is TERRIBLE!!! The workers do nothing. The management is bad. OVERPRICED. And I feel lied to in that the "new" owners have done basically NOTHING new--they had advertised all these changes. WAKE-UP Kids Village. You have A LOT of new competition in the area and YOU ARE NOT KEEPING up. You will fold SOON. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.

Way too expensive!! Not worth the price. We have been going here for years, before the name changed, and have never really cared for how chaotic it is there. But now I have to pay way too much for the chaos. They have no one enforcing any type of rule, no organization whatsoever, and charge way too much. The only good part about this place is the large sand box, never disappoints. But the toys meant for some areas are spread everywhere and no one seems to clean up until closing time. I understand kids are running around and playing, and suppose to be having fun, but there can be some semblance of rules and keeping things fun but still well kept. It's no fun playing in a store with no food or grocery carts because some other kid who's parents aren't watching them are racing around the place with them and don't know how to share. Just too much money for too much disorganization.

We decided to never come back when it was Play Wise Kids, but than, when I heard that the place is under the new management we thought that finally this place will get cleaned, updated and upgraded. Besides, their website mentioned that they no longer charging adults and only charge half-price for the second child. Well, it is somewhat true, except for they doubled the admission fee per child and for 3 kids I paid $32. Their website advertised a great cafeteria, and I did not bring any snacks with me, well there only was a selection of sweet snacks like puddings with artificial flavorings in them, some other junk, plus organic milk in chocolate and vanilla flavors. Same old toys, some are broken, very dirty plastic chairs, very old dirty carpet and old books all thrown on shelves like if 3 year old did it - a mess. I even Made some photos... One of the play sections has plastic dinosaurs to climb on and the floor lined with some old foam jigsaw puzzle type tile, which is so old - it lost it's colors and the printed sign says: please take of your shoes... they hurt our new foam floor.... Right, who cares about little girls wearing tights on slippery plastic climbing toys, there's a precious $20 foam used floor purchased from the craigslist that may be "hurt" by the kids shoes... Like other mom who was there mentioned, that if they charged $5 per child, it would probably be ok, but she wouldn't come back either way,and I totally agree with that.

The place isn't all that great . And how cheap can you get? The employees were complaining that the owner wouldn't turn down the AC enough and they were just sweating. I was too!! It just wasn't all that fun. Next time I'll just head over to Pump it Up. I guess I'll go review that one now. :)

I have been going to Great Kids Village formerly known as Explora World for the past thirteen years with each of our growing grandchildren. It has always been a fun experience for them and one that older ones remember fondly. We live more than a hour away, but feel it is worth the trip.

Hi - owner of GKV here. We're very proud of what we've done to make the center a great place again and I'm extremely disappointed by the venomous attack of "Nora" (not her real name, of course).

I greeted this client at the door and noticed right away that she was upset about something - I asked her a few times if anything was wrong and how I can help - introducing her to my staff and coming back again to see what I could do. At no time during the party did she say there was a problem.

After the party, she did say that there was icing on a chair when she arrived, but made no mention of other cleanliness issues. Our facility is very clean (and we've now repainted 90% of the facility in the past 6 months) and I encourage anyone to come and look for yourselves.

Regarding the party, my staff did a fine job and I talked with numerous guests on the way out who enthusiastically said they were happy. I don't doubt that the client was unhappy, but we followed our plan and unfortunately cannot please everyone.

It is disappointing that this client chose to make a venomous attack against us using a fake name versus talking to me before, during, or after the party so I could try to make fixes. Upon emailing her my displeasure about her posting here, she gave some positive feedback, but had no interest in posting online. We are nice people trying to run a business and I hope that people would try talking with me before posting such nasty comments.

Please feel free to email or call me at 301-309-2386 ext 6 with any questions.

Thanks,
Andrew

We just had a really disappointing experience with Great Kids Village/Andie's Parties for our 5 yo son's BD party. If you are considering a party here and expect a fun, structured event for the kids, you will be disappointed. 1) Poor cleanliness: The place first of all, smells like a farm, although there are no animals supposedly on premises. When we first walked in, noted dirty carpets, and thought it would be cleaned prior to our party, but it wasn't. My younger son had a chair in party room with caked on icing. 2) NO structure: The people running the party were not engaging the kids into doing the activities. The activities for the train theme were boring for the kids. The most fun the kids had was the pinata, but of course leaving them with sugary treats that no parents want their kids to have. The party room was never made clear to all the guests, so kids were wandering over the whole place, and some never made it for pizza b/c they don't help identify/round up kids for the party.
Kids have fun because they can run around the place, but the small toys are old and dingy. The bigger things like fire truck and ambulance are cool, but that's about all I can say positively.
In summary, PLEASE re-consider before spending a awful amt of money for poor service, dirty environment, and no encouragement from "party" staff. It was unfortunately an embarrassment for me to have my son's party at this place.

Went this last weekend for an MCPOM Group event. Our son had a blast and we met some great people. The place was a little chaotic but there was a lot going on and a lot of people there, yet I felt like my 3 yo son could still do the activities he wanted to and just be a kid.

I tried out the new place and I wasn't impressed. They used to have a good crew of employees but now no one seems to really know what they're doing. And the present employees don't seem to care. I heard the so called manager talking about her feelings for the new management. I had to laugh. lol The place is still grungy looking. I was told by this new manager that toys are not sanitzed nightly. The equipment isn't wiped down daily either. the parties are ridiculously expensive for what you get. And its expensive to get in and you don't get your moneys worth.

We are the new operators of PlayWise and have been cleaning up the facility greatly. JaniKing is onsite 4 hours per day, 7 days per week, cleaning and sanitizing. We have a clean and wonderful place for kids and we have hand sanitizing stations and "yucky buckets" throughout the facility. We strive to be the cleanest facility for kids during this challenging flu season. If you have any concerns please email Andrew at andy@playwisevillage.com anytime or call our office at 410-497-PLAY. We look forward to seeing you at the new and improved facility!

I took my granddaughter here over the weekened and found the place filthy. the toys were disgusting and I wouldn't even let her sit on the carpet because it was so gross. They need to spend some money and make this a cleaner and safer environment for children.

My kids love this place! Keep up the great work guys!

Just went there with my 4 year old and 7 year old. We had a ball playing air hockey and it's amazing that both kids still enjoy playing in the sandbox! Of course, the fire engine always attracts their attention. Looking forward to having our birthday party there next month.

Wonderful place to take my grandchildren. The staff is very kind, helpful and ready to answer any questions I had for them. I will return often.

Playwisekids is a great place to have fun! They Employees are great and always so helpful! Anything you need they have! A great place to go when the weather is to hot or to cold! General admission is good for all day so it's a great day to spend with the family. You can bring in lunch or order a pizza during the week and on the weekend get pizza or hot dogs from the cafe! Everyone from the Managers, the Pary staff , and welcome desk help are great! I bring my 5 year old niece all the time, she can never get enough!

We live around the corner and took our daughter there twice. I was there years ago for my nephew's party. It's a big open warehouse type facility with a lot of little sections of different activities. It would be very nice except that they've had the same stuff for years, don't change it very often and a lot of it looks donated or is very outdated. I'd gladly pay more if they gave it a serious overhaul. They have the space and can do so much more with it. At this point, admission is overpriced in my opinion.

This past weekend, we held my son's 5th birthday party at PlayWiseKids. We had my daughter's 6th there last year, and we had another great experience! The party staff seemed to have so much fun with the kids and it was a pleasure to work with the PlayWiseKids team from booking the party to the cutting of the cake. We originally discovered PlayWiseKids through Gocity! Highly recommended!

School was out due to snow and I was struggling with coming up with ways to keep three children of different ages occupied. Then I found PlayWiseKids through GoCityKids. All three of them played with each other, and met other children there to play with. They had a ball! Since you pay admission to stay as long as you want, we were there for 4 1/2 hours. We'll be back.

My 7 year old son loves PlayWiseKids and I have seen kids as young as 1 year old enjoying it as well. There is lots of open space and the best thing is that kids are using their imaginations when they play there. It's not like other places where they continuously feed tokens into games. They actively play on a fire engine, in an ambulance, in the sandbox, with huge blocks, etc. We have a membership and go there at least 2 times per month.

My daughter had her 2nd birthday party here. It was wonderful. There was something of interest for each of the 20 toddlers and young children who attended, from dress-up, to a real life fire truck and ambulance, to building blocks and sand. They also had a party room large enough to hold all of the children and adults in attendance. I highly recommend it for young children.