Jungle Adventure

So big! Too big! My eldest is 3 and there is no way on earth you could keep an eye on them from a table down below. Impossible. Especially if you like to give them some sense of independence. We moved to a smaller area that was considered more contained… somehow two of the kids managed to slip past us!
It’s a great place to go if your kids are older than 5 I would say… they have no real system for monitoring who is coming and going with kids which to me is a big scary deal. Anyone could leave with a child. There appears to be no policy to ensure that that child is meant to be with the person they are leaving with. Given that my son managed to give us the slip makes the thought of what could happen here not worth bearing.
The food is average. And it is kept to a moderate standard of cleanliness. I don’t think I’ll be going back until the kids are older.

It’s pretty good. It’s HUGE, and yes, it is in the space of our former and much-​missed WaterWorld. My family is still really upset by that loss but moving on… loads of things to play on that make use of this large and interesting space. Toddler area is very good in its own right with slides, climbing frames and a ball pit. Nice chill out space for babies but a bit dark. Some more lighting might be good and the areas under slides are not being dusted very often. The big kids’ area is amazing. It goes on and on and on with many levels and things to play, including rock-​climbing on a plexiglass wall, a trampoline way high up and an enormous wavy slide. The prices seem reasonable, staff seem friendly. Café is overpriced but free wifi available and lots of tables. There are discounted toddler sessions twice a week. So overall, very good. Will return.

Visited Jungle Adventure last week with a 1 year old.
It’s a sensible and probably commercially viable use of the empty space that was Waterworld and it is in a location that is convenient for a big chunk of central and East Edinburgh’s population. So, pros and cons:
Pros
— you can park unrestricted next to Tesco accessed from Easter Road
— it’s big, the biggest I’ve seen
— it’s free for under 1s and seemed to be priced sensibly generally
— for older kids (say 6 to 8 year olds) there are tons of slides and frames for them to mess about with
— there is a café with some ok home made looking stuff
Cons
— it’s big, so it’s noisy. Bring your headache pills.
— as another reviewer said, there really isn’t much at all for the smaller kiddies
— they don’t do much marshalling of the kids, so you do get mad, badly behaved 10 year old boys bombing the infants in the ballpit which is a bit dangerous and disconcerting

I would rather this building had reopened as a leisure pool but as my three year old son was desperate to try out the new soft play we went along. The entry pricing was fine. It was very busy on a Sunday afternoon but we found a table as people were leaving. The main frame was huge with slides and activities on different levels and my son enjoyed himself there and on the quad bikes. The café had a good selection of cakes and the menu was large (more choice than necessary really, for a soft play centre).
What I found disappointing and would like to see improved:
— the coffee machine was broken (it had been making too many coffees and had to cool down, the assistant said) and there were no hot drinks available.
— there were none of the advice/​safety signs you usually see in soft play centres with rules about sharp items, no sick children, etc.
— a few areas of the frame had collected dust balls and were already in need of a clean.
— there was nothing for babies other than the ‘toddler area’, a big space with a ball pool, foam number shapes and one rocking horse. I would expect to see mirrors, velcro puzzles, activities on the walls and shapes/​blocks on the floor for stacking, climbing, general sensory play. This area was very poor.
— the ‘toddler area’ was full of older children in spite of a staff member being on duty. There was no indication of age limits for that area so its designation as ‘toddler area’ was pretty pointless. I took my 9 month old baby there to crawl around and had to stay right next to her because of the older children barrelling past. We didn’t stay there long as there was nothing for her to investigate. The frame there was too advanced for toddlers and was more suited to three to five year olds. Apart from the frame, all that was provided was a very shallow ball pool and a few ride-​around cars.
— as a previous reviewer has noted, the place is really cold.
My three year old had a good time in the main frame but unlike other soft play centres there was nothing for my crawling/​cruising baby to do. This really needs to be looked at as there is a space available for activities aimed at younger children that is not being used properly.

OK so I still haven’t got over the closure of Leith Waterworld so whatever took its place next to Tesco at bottom of Leith Walk was going to have to be good to convince. So Jungle Adventure has stepped up to the challenge. From what I can tell it’s a chain concept/​franchise. It’s big. The soft play area is huge and puts it ahead of Clambers, Maddie and Marks, and Gambado. There are lots of big slides and nooks and crannies. Big number of tables so capacity will be interesting — this could get very messy with hundreds of kids. It cost me £22 for 3 kids under 10 for 2 hours (about £3.50 an hour per kid). Big kitchen set up with big menu of pizzas, baked potatoes, burgers. Kids meal deal £4.25 for choice of burger, nuggets etc and a diluting juice. Jug of diluting juice £2.95. Coffees are pricey (£2.40 for cappuccino). Biggest early issue is that the space is FREEZING so if you are sitting for 2 hours then wrap up. This will need sorted. Next challenge is how clean and efficient it remains and just how many people they cram in.