Kidtropolis – Review

Kidtropolis. Promoted as “funtastic” promised to be an event to remember, but in my view failed to deliver. On arrival at Excel, there was nothing to welcome you to Kidtropolis, even when you reached the doors the signage was minimal, but OK, it’s not always about the frills..

The Good Stuff..

The Transformers, yes the boys were delighted to see Bumblebee, and have their photo taken. Actually, all the character meet and greets were popular, there were the Angry Birds and two characters from Paw Patrol. Oh.. and the Playmobil Knight! The stage had plenty of live action going on, though we couldn’t see a programme of events – which made deciding whether to sit and watch difficult.

The not so good..

Successful children’s events in my experience are about attention to detail, it doesn’t matter whether you’re running a kids party or a theme park, it’s about creating an experience. My children will hum songs they heard while stood in a queue, or remember the entertaining member of staff who made them giggle while we waited. Kidtropolis had big queues, and I was OK with the idea of the queues, but disappointed that it was a complete over sight to fail to entertain the children (and parents) standing in these queues. Queuing for 20 minutes to fire a Nerf at a target, with staff who were clearly overwelmed by the masses of children. I have to say, the Nerf lady was brilliant, and I didn’t envy her having to collect up all the darts! Some queues were so big, we gave up, yes My Little Pony and the Inflatable Assault course both proved to be such long queues, we abandoned.

Some brands handled the busy event better than others, WOW toys and Big Jigs had particularly friendly staff who kept on smiling while they were greeted with over excited children. Smaller brands were able to offer more fun, but I have to confess that we, like many other families, had been attracted to the event for the big stuff.

The problem..

Kidtropolis on paper was a great event, but the reality failed to make a great impression on us.

Disclaimer: We were given tickets to the event for the purposes of an honest review.