Pump It Up

A relative of mine was raving about this place, so I brought my kids to check it out. The concept is great. Who doesn’t love inflatables? Nazis, probably. But other than that, pretty much everyone likes them. But while the idea is great, the execution is «meh,» at best.
Here’s what was right:
The gentleman working the counter was very friendly, and at $ 7 per kid and no charge for adults, the price is good. And you better believe I got on those inflatables as much as my kids!
Here’s what was wrong:
The hours are absurd. They were open from 10:00 — 11:30, which I gather are their normal operating hours. I don’t mind that we only had an hour and a half to play. That was certainly all we needed. It just would’ve been nice to have a little more flexibility about when we took that time.
There was a severe lack of things to do. There were four inflatables: a big slide, a race/​obstacle course, a basketball court and a jousting ring that could only be used if there was an attendant present, which there wasn’t. There was also an air hockey table which worked intermittently. That’s it! And none of it was bouncy. I was expecting the basketball court to double as a bounce house, but no, it was just mushy.
The equipment was also pretty shabby. Each inflatable had a lot of wear and holes. It didn’t affect the performance, but it did make someplace that was already a disappointment even more underwhelming.
Pump It Up was good for a one-​time experience. But for the same price you can take two kids to the Jungle Party House, and stay all day. That’s probably what I will do from now on. They have a much greater variety of activities, with play dough, karaōke, costumes, Legos, a jungle gym, air hockey that always works, pool, foosball, a Nintendo Wii, and a bounce house that’s actually bouncy.

This Pump it Up is not at nice as the one in Madera but it is pretty fun place, especially for private parties.
They have an open play day on Friday that would be cool except they don’t really monitor the children at all and even though everyone is supposed to be wearing socks, I have seen children without socks running around. I wish they would require all the children to wear socks and enforce this requirement.