Name: Kinder Park
Direction: next to Water Park. You can also access via the lotus ponds.
Tel: (84-4) 37101666
Categories: Entertainment » Playground
Description: A large, indoor, children’s entertainment center.
Review:
”Our unruly horde descended on Kinder Park on a Friday morning. 4 classes, so about 110 kids, teachers and hangers-on. We’d warned them that we were coming, and so they were ready for us, with greeters dressed up in panda suits. They marshaled our kids in front of their stage, and told them to break into three groups (prior knowledge of this had us prepared with groups already sorted). A guy dressed in a colourful silk clown suit then outlined what each station would be doing.
One area was designated Kinder City, and was broken into many small shops. Some areas were loved by all the kids, such as the garden where plastic fruits and vegetables were buried in clean sand or hung on pretend vines which they picked then sold to the supermarket downstairs. Some were only popular with a selection of the kids, like the Beauty Salon, where you could get your nails done, make beaded necklaces, or get your hair crimped and curled. They had a library with a good range of interesting, brightly coloured picture books and comics. I saw things that are really popular at the moment such as, Fruity Robo and O Long Vien. All these were in Vietnamese, but maybe they’ll expand into English at some time. There were some things for dressing up in, such as firefighter clothes. The ride on horse bike-things were hugely popular with staff and students.
One group played a few games with the clown and pandas (until the latter overheated and tottered off to cool down) such as bowling at some skittles with an erratically rolling ball, and some running races I think. I’m not too sure exactly what games they were playing, as the photo opportunities were far better in the other areas. Also, the vast bulk of the instructions were given in Vietnamese, so I only got a vague feel of what was going on by grabbing a kid and getting them to translate on the fly.
But the piece de resistance for Kinder Park has to be their playground. It’s a decent size, and not just for Vietnam. Everything is padded, so kids have to work really hard if they want to injure each other for fun. I had a ball crawling around it… to take photos, of course. The list of things on it is extensive:
A couple swings, quite a few punching bags dangling from the roof – some in bag shaped one as a guy with a beard, a very large ball pit (half a dozen kids and a couple of teachers fit in quite comfortably), swinging walk ways, tunnels, a curly slide, large foam(ish) see-saws, barrels, stars and other objects to jump on or push, an three wiggly slides next to each other so you can race, random foam(ish) triangles poking out of some of the walls/floor like an obstacle course, rope bridges, air powered cannons that fire foam balls that are too small to hurt but too big to choke on (I surreptitiously tested this, in the name of science).
You’re not allowed to bring your own food in, but they did the loaves and fishes gig most admirably for the kids ready on time and brought out promptly: rice, omelet, prawns, minced meat, rau mong and a bowl of the standard boiled sock juice. For the teachers, we had that if we wanted it, and they also offered us plates of spaghetti, chips and hot dogs. Their chefs deserve gold stars, as the spag bol here beat the pants off a whole bunch of other places that set themselves up just as restaurants, some swank places included. It was really good. We were all raving about it. And as we were leaving, they were doing a photo shoot of some of their other grub too, and it looked really spectacular. I don’t know if they do booze, but I could definitely see coming here for a birthday lunch and getting in touch with your inner third grader.
After lunch we ditched the groups and let the kids free-range around where-ever they wanted. I was expecting some impressive vomiting, due to what is normally an obvious equation: excitement + heaps of fun + wolfing down food to get back to frantic physical activity but it never eventuated. Even though I thought it was going to be crazy, the kids weren’t too berserk, and we could relax and enjoy our food. Kinder Park has a huge staff; I counted nearly 30 of them later when they were watching the show.
There were a few parts we didn’t use on this trip, the 3D cinema and the ballet room, but we did send one of the teachers up the rock climbing wall – again for research purposes. They recommend kids in grade 4 and up for that, that’s why we didn’t throw our charges at it, but they said if their parents/guardians are there with them, then yeah, no problem. This is done all trussed up in a safety harness with a rope, and its on a padded mat, so if you fall you shouldn’t go splat too badly.
When the kids started to slow down, they put out chairs and gathered them before the stage again, and put on a show (this is when I was able to count all the staff, the place is crawling with them, it’s great for supervision). Magic tricks, some dancing in costumes and some hand puppets made up the bulk of it, put to music. It was pretty good, but I’m a sucker for magic tricks. As an added bonus, the lotus fields are just outside, and a bunch of us nipped out for photographs posing amongst them as well.
I’m not sure what the price was, they have a group deal from 9 – 2:30, but I didn’t deal with the liaising or paperwork or payment side of thing, so I am not sure what the damage was. Most of the signs were in Vietnamese, but I think there’s an entry fee to get in, then you pay for each bit you want to go to, so if you have lots of kids or they want to do lots of things, you may end up getting nickeled and dimed to death if you can’t put your foot down.
This place was awesome, so much fun. I can’t rave about it enough. I will definitely want to go there again on excursion, and take our niece and nephew there soon.”
”This place has a great large soft play area. It also hosts a ‘kids city’ which includes a pretend shop, hairdressers, where your child can make their own necklaces & bracelets. They can also have their hair washed, nails done or make up done. The play post office allows you to make your own cards etc, cafe/restaurant with lego, police station, farm where you can pretend to plant your own vegetables in the sand. They also have a kids cinema, a ballet room, and lots of other activities. It is pretty impressive. It costs 50,000VND per adult and then if you want to enter the soft play area then you pay an extra 50,000VND per child. Food and drinks are also available. I would highly recommend this place.”
Review: Kinder Park - Hanoi
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