days out with kids

Looking for some rainy day fun? Head to Better Extreme Bath for a family trampolining sesh

Ok, so it’s yet another rainy weekend. You’ve used up all of your rainy day play ideas and can’t face spending another hour at soft play or the faff of a swim. The weather’s far too ghastly to even entertain going outside. And you’ve watched Frozen so many times recently that your kids are now calling themselves Elsa and Anna. What can you do?

This was our predicament at the weekend. We were running low on ideas until we started an internet search and came across Better Extreme, a trampoline park in Bath. *There are others around, which I’ll link to at the end of the post, but we didn’t fancy venturing too far with Storm Dennis on the rampage.

The smile says it all – the trampoline park was a winner!

Both our girls are heavily into jumping right now so a trampoline park sounded right up their street. Plus, every weekend Better Extreme hosts a “Family Bounce” session that’s suitable for anyone under the age of 12 (and parents/carers, of course). Ideal. If you fancy trying it out mid-week instead, they actually do a “Toddler Bounce” session on a Thursday morning, which would probably be even better if you’re like us and have very little ones (it’s only for under 5’s).

For smaller children, Better Extreme is fantastic. It’s housed in a big open and light space with a variety of different areas. You’ve got your standard trampolines – the main area is split into lots of individual trampettes so that people can jump at their own speed… AND there are trampolines on the walls too so if you feel like it you can really go big.

Then there are the games areas – there’s a basketball dunk court and a dodgeball court, which, when you’re not competitively playing the game (which we obviously weren’t) is just a great space for running around, climbing, sliding and throwing balls around.

There’s even a nice enclosed area for under 8’s that has smaller trampettes and a little foam pit that’s great for jumping into or just rolling around in!

Even though there were a few older kids there, I never felt concerned about ours getting knocked around; the girls were just delighted to have free reign to explore! Amazingly, despite it being the first weekend of half term, and a ghastly day, it was pretty quiet, which meant it was actually a really relaxed experience.

Big kids (or fun-loving adults) can go large and jump into a giant foam pit. Me and the hubby had a go (I did a very sensible pencil jump, his dismount was more daring), but we were instantly shown up by two girls who both did front flips into the foam.

If you’re up for extending the day, there’s also a soft play area and cafe on site (access will cost you extra). Bath Sports and Leisure Centre also has a great swimming pool that we’ll be checking out another time.

The small print…

Prices: The sessions aren’t cheap. A family bounce session ticket costs £15 (1 under 5 and 1 adult) so we booked two of those. Otherwise adult tickets are £11 and junior tickets are £8.50. You can’t go in without their branded grippy socks so that’ll cost you an extra £2 per person on top of the ticket price. The good thing is that you get to keep the socks so subsequent visits will be cheaper.

Timings: Family bounce sessions are 10-11am on Saturdays and Sundays. Toddler bounce sessions are 10-12pm on Thursdays. A full programme can be found here. On the website it says arrive 30 minutes before your booked session. This isn’t necessary – we arrived bang on time at 10am (you try getting there 30 mins early, on a Saturday, with two under 4’s and a 45 minute car journey!) and had no issues (though we had booked in advance online). Once you’ve got your socks, you just need to watch a 2 minute briefing video (health and safety and all that) and then you’re free to bounce.

Parking: The only reason I’d suggest allowing extra time before your session starts is the parking. Extreme Bath is linked with the Bath Sports and Leisure centre and parking is limited. You can park for 3 hours for £3.60 but if you show your ticket at the desk when you sign in, you can claim a refund of £1.10.

Location: Bath Sports and Leisure Centre, North Parade Road, Bath, Somerset, BA2 4ET.

As I mentioned before, there are alternative trampoline parks in Bristol. Here are the links:

AIRHOP – https://www.airhop-bristol.com/
FLIPOUT – https://www.flipout.co.uk/

Playing grown-ups: Mini Town at Cale Park Kitchen

The Little Big One is loving imaginative play at the moment so it was a real joy to let her loose at Mini Town Play over in Wincanton recently. The indoor play area is fab for feeding little imaginations and is designed to look like a mini high street. It has everything – a greengrocers, a hair salon, a toy shop, a boutique shop with plenty of fun dress up options to suit every taste, a police station, a vets and a fire station. The greengrocers was a big hit for us – both girls spent an inordinate amount of time playing with the child-size shopping basket and trolley! The toys are all great quality and, rather impressively, super clean too, which is a real bonus as, as we all know, this isn’t always the case. This is probably helped by the fact that between each play session there’s a half an hour gap, allowing the staff time for a quick tidy up. They run three play sessions every day, each lasting 90 minutes – which to my surprise went really quickly – at 9am, 11am and 1pm. And it’s super reasonable! It’s just £2.95 for children age 1 – 6+ (this includes free entry for 1 adult). Babies and pre-walkers are free and any additional adults cost just £1.50.

Mini Town Play is based at Cale Park Kitchen – a brilliant little cafe serving great value, tasty food. We ordered a couple of paninis (£6 each), a kid’s Bento box (£3.95) and a child’s egg and soldiers (£2.50). You can eat in the cafe downstairs or order your food to be brought up to the Mini Town area upstairs (we wanted to maximise our playing time so did the full 90 minutes of play at 11am and ate lunch in the cafe afterwards). If you’re just after a snack, they do cakes and small bites too and, if you have very little ones, there’s a great little extra playroom downstairs that has a lovely selection of baby and toddler toys and some comfy seats; just perfect for having a coffee and a sit down while your baby enjoys some tummy time or a little play.

Another great thing about this place is the fabulous park just around the corner. As well as all the usual attractions, it has a train, a couple of mechanical sand diggers and a giant slide with room for the whole family (yes, we tried it) or multiple children at a time! The park is surfaced with sand so it’s soft underfoot and perfect in summer (in wet weather though, you might want to have wellies to hand). There are a number of picnic benches dotted around so I’d definitely suggest doing that on a sunny day.

Booking is advised for Mini Town play as space is limited (they only let a few people in at a time) and it can be done very easily online: https://www.caleparkkitchen.co.uk/ We’ll be going back soon, for sure!