Monkey Joe’s

I’ve been to Monkey Joe’s a couple times before my baby was really big enough to enjoy the bouncing. The smaller «toddler designated» bouncers seemed fun for him and he enjoyed himself. Now that my baby is closer to 2, we were excited to give bouncing another go since he is def all over the place and would enjoy the bouncing and slides more. No denying, he had tons of fun running around the place and bouncing all over. However, he had pink eye the days following. I blamed myself, maybe I wasn’t hand sanitizing him as much as I usually do. After that experience we tried Monkey Joe’s again about a month later. Well, my baby contracted Hand Foot and Mouth Disease the days following. Needless to say, we will never be going back. I just received an e-​mail from Monkey Joe’s advertising a fun, clean environment compared to playgrounds and explaining their commitment to keeping a clean, germ free environment through cleaning services that intend to kill 99.9% of bacteria «say no to sniffles, coughs and germs». It made me angry and concerned for others who may be drawn in to this location based on that kind of advertisement that clearly is not true. Monkey Joe’s doesn’t seem to keep up with their clean standards and some parents just don’t care to bring their kids out in the public when they are sick, it’s not worth the chance of your baby contracting something. The other reviews are absolutely true to the fact that there is no staff on the floor to help monitor and maintain any kind of standards set for this business, which is concerning. Another thing I noticed from my last visit was how dirty the toys were in the play area and how a GoodWill price sticker was still on one of the toys and how garbage (empty juice boxes and napkins) is just left on tables and floors. I hope this review was helpful to you, if you read it all =) Thank you.

Monkey Joe’s is not a great place. We had a 4 year old’s birthday party there for 16 kids in January 2012 and we were very disappointed with the party staffing/​service, the lack of rule enforcement by staff, and the facility was overcrowded. My kids insisted on a return visit this month, and it was worse. Staff was rude, unhelpful, and not monitoring the door at all. I could have walked out with anyone’s kid and no one would have noticed. Not comforting. On the upside, my kids love the jumping.

Parents beware. This place is an accident waiting to happen. They have a seriously horrible negligent staff with the exception of the snack counter guy and and the young guy with the lip ring… both did their jobs well. The guys were the only two people we saw emerge from the back room yesterday… a busy Friday afternoon. I know there were two other girls on duty, but we never saw them. mind you this is while kids are jumping ten feet off the outside sides of the bounce castles.
Parents love these places because the kids can have fun and burn off energy and you can get some work done. But, I almost had to ask this lady for her phone SO I COULD STOMP ON IT… just like her son was doing to all the other kids around. Pretty sure the other parents there would have cheered me on… because while she enjoyed her time to herself EVERY OTHER parent there had to deal with their kids getting punched, jumped on, or tripped on purpose. Thanks, lady. Glad your smart phone means more to you than raising your children up right.
The bounce castles are fun, but good staff makes all the difference and they need to clean house before someone gets hurt and they have a lawsuit on their hands.

Awesome place for kids… Your admission fee is good ALL day unlike other places we have been too. Has a place for parents to sit and watch TV (if they would like), has a computer, etc. Kids love it…

Um, I mean… this is a jumpy place. You have to go to these places with the same expectations as you watching your kid go into a ball pit: yes, it’s a bacteria ridden cesspool of yecht. Yes, there’s always going to be the behemoth jerk kid bulldozing over the 3 year olds. Yes, any food served in the vicinity is going to be overpriced and awful.
But it’s a jumpy place! Kids love jumpy places so suck it up and take them.
Here’s some tips: bring hand sanitizer. Sneak in your own water bottles. Watch your little ones like a hawk and wear your mean face and deal out evil eyes to the behemoths as needed to keep your little boos safe.
Stay vigilant. Also, the Monkey Joe mascot dude is scary.

I definitely agree with the safety concerns of the other reviewers, mainly because of the lack of supervision from staff (a bunch of bored-​looking teens who could not care less if you paid them to) and parents. In theory, it’s nice that they provide an area for adults to watch TV and check their Facebook page, but in reality it tends to create a building full of kids gone wild. As another reviewer also said, it is very difficult to keep an eye on more than one child in this place because of the layout. I have a rule with my kids when we go that they have to be able to see each other at all times so that I can see them both. If you lose track of one, it could be ten minutes before you find them and by then there’s probably been an injury on account of some older kid leaping around recklessly. Honestly, my kids do enjoy going to MJ’s, but it stresses me out because I worry about them the whole time and I feel like I have to be ready to police other kids who are being too rough with the little ones. Doesn’t really make me want to go spend time there.
Also, the prices are ridiculous. $ 10 per kid for free play? No thanks. We bought the $ 60 card for 10 visits when they first opened and have since used buy-​one get-​one coupons and one Groupon, but I will never pay full price for what you get from this place. My kids are usually ready to leave after an hour, and it’s totally not worth the money to stay just for a little while.

I have to agree with one of the other reviews, I really wanted to like this place, but it was awful. Where do I start with? DO NOT go there if your kids have nut allergies because the rule is no outside food which encouraged people to buy all the nut filled snacks and candies they sold at the concession. Then kids were eating at the «mom lounge» and running back to the inflatables with full mouths of peanut m&m’s. I watched my peanut and tree nut allergic kids like a hawk to make sure they didn’t have a reaction while lost in the massive inflatables.
It was so hot in there I felt like I was going to pass out even after I downed a bottle of water (it felt nicer in outside with it being mid-80’s than it did inside). Their «swisher» sanitation system seemed to consist of teenage kids cleaning the inflatables with a spray bottle with cleaning solution and a rag. My son and I have many allergies, including allergies to strong smells, we both had itchy faces and stuffy noses by the time we left and it was due to the cleaning solution in the 100 degree heat of the place. I’m not impressed with it being «germ free», expect your kids to get dirty at these places and just give them a bath as soon as you get home, no need for chemicals all over the inflatables!
And the «mom lounge» was a joke. Yes, there were tons of tables in the lounge, but they were crappy tables with ok chairs, but it had the same awful color scheme as the rest of the place and it was not my idea of a «mom lounge» which I thought would be like the nice lounge area at little Monkey Bizness in LaGrange. Take your money somewhere else. I regret buying the groupons before seeing the place because I really don’t want to take my kids back.
Other than that, the kids had fun, but it was an absolute headache for me and my friend and watching kids 4 & 5.

I really wanted to like this place. The kids can run around and be active, there’s internet access, and there’s comfy chairs for the parents — sounds great! And there’s also two inflatables reserved just for the 3 and under set. Fantastic!
The big problem with this place is the lack of supervision. I’ve been there twice now, and both times there were older kids (teenagers) running around, climbing the outside of the inflatables, and barreling my tiny kids over. I tried to put my 1 year old in the little kid bouncers, but those also were taken over by older kids (mostly 5 – 7 year olds) and he was hurt and crying within minutes. Both visits the «referees» were non-​existent and the few teenage staffers that were working were not enforcing any rules or attempting to maintain a safe atmosphere.
The building is long and narrow, and it is really hard to keep an eye on multiple kids. At first I wasn’t overly worried about this, because they have a wristband system where the parent and child are given wristbands with matching numbers that are checked upon departure. Great idea, except the first time I went there my smallest son lost his wristband and when I left with him there was no concern over his missing wristband. The second visit, there were no employees at all checking the door so we walked right out. I don’t feel I can rely on this system to keep my kids safe.
Fingers crossed that management here will see the common themes in these reviews and increase the quality and number of staff.

My kids like Airtastic better than MJs. The games are a distraction from the physical play which is why I went. The kids keep asking for money to play games instead of exercising. They also do not let parents play on the inflatables.

If your kids are under 3, stay away! Me, a friend and our 2 1 ½ year-​old daughters went to Monkey Joe’s in Aurora one Saturday afternoon. It was beyond busy with kids running everywhere. To be expected, it was Saturday afternoon after all. We headed over to the two designated inflatables for kids under 3 only, only to find many big kids jumping all over in them, even though there are signs at each entrance stating age restrictions. We went in and tried to stay out of the way and still have fun, only for the big kids to bounce too «enthusiastically» and made it dangerous for our little ones to even sit in there. I nicely asked a few of the bigger kids to go jump in other inflatables, but it didn’t matter because they didn’t listen to me and others came in after anyway (not to mention a snippy mother who was mad that I asked her clearly over the age of 3 daughter to leave). There were no employees making sure the rules we followed. I was afraid for our little ones’ safety so we asked for a manager. A 16-​year old-​looking gentleman came over (who looked like the oldest person working there in the whole place). We explained our concerns (nicely) and he (and the other 4 staffers just standing around behind the counter) looked at us like we were asking something outlandish and offered no solution. So we left shortly after we got there. I will definitely not go back there. The fact that they had all kids themselves working there, and standing around not monitoring the play areas made me feel like it is not a safe place for little kids.

I came here for the first time thinking it would have a bunch of things for my young daughter to play in/​with. She’s only 16-​months old and to my dismay, she really only «qualified» for the two young toddler bounce inflatables and the young toddler play area. We were allowed to bounce and slide in the big kids area, but my kiddo was scared of the heights and it was sensory overload with that. So, we stayed in the toddler area. She liked it, but like I mentioned earlier, I was hoping she had much more to enjoy.