Scallywags Indoor Play, Brierley Hill, near Merryhill

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• 

  Guest

  Great play area for kids, refreshments easily available. Good location if you're with someone who can look after the kids whilst you go for a quick shopping spree.

  on 4/7/15
• 

  Guest

  I went to scallywags for the first time today, and found it ideal for my 3 year old and 18 month old. Safe and easy to see what they were up to. Food was very reasonable, loads of parking. Absolute Bargain price to get in. I can imagine it gets busy, because it's in an ideal spot to combine a bit of shopping and some fun for the kids.

  on 17/9/14
• 

  Guest

  My son celebrated his 5th Birthday at Scallywags recently. I was really upset with scallywags didn't tell me that had bring my own balloons ect to decorate the party area the staff was moody and didn't help one bit i had ask for food,more juice for kids parents waited ages a desk to be let in never going there again

  on 15/8/14
• 

  Guest

  The play area is big and parking is ample. Prices are pretty reasonable, especially off peak. The toddler area is pretty small so fine for babies but not brilliant for an active 2/3 year old who would still be to small for the main section.

  on 11/8/14
• 

  Guest

  Had my son's birthday party here can only give praise for the organisation of the party by our party host. This is a very well maintained play centre which has a gret choice of menu for food and drink and is good value for money too..

  on 27/1/14

• Jackie A

  My son celebrated his 5th Birthday at Scallywags recently. All the children had a brilliant time and the food looked lovely (shame the children didnt share with us). Ruth our party host organised everything with a happy smile and even cut, wrapped and put the cake in bags for me. Thank you Ruth and thank you Scallywags.

  on 18/11/13
• 

  Guest

  I have to disagree I'm a child minder I go at least twice a week the staff couldn't be more friendlier or more helpful perhaps it's the miserable customers their selves I see it many Times the staff have to put up with rudeness.It's fantastic value during term Times at £1 it's very affordable and the food is always fresh.Girls keep up the good work.

  on 16/8/13
• 

  Guest

  Well everytime I take my children to scallywags the staff are never never helpful!! In busy times all not busy time. Staff should have a smile on there face working in a kids place. But you will not find that a Scallywags!!! I now go else where with my children.

  on 13/8/13
• 

  Guest

  Staff were not very helpful or enthusiastic, they did not explain you needed your receipt to claim the snack & drink for your child, when I went to get these I was told I should have been given a 'print out' of what I'd ordered, I said I had only been given a receipt.  The girl that had served us was there & I pointed out that she had served us & at what time, this girl just said 'I didn't serve you' she had her bag & coat on & obviously couldn't be bothered to get involved. The other lady just said she couldn't do anything without the 'print out'. I went back to our table & looked at my receipt & could then see that was what was needed to claim the drink & snack. Why they couldn't just say it was the receipt I needed I don't know! Eventually got the drinks & snacks & I asked for a straw for the cup of squash for my little boy who is not yet 2 & is not used to drinking out of a big cup, I was told that they only have a 'limited number of straws' & they were needed for their slush drinks! I mean, what an absolute load of rubbish - I brought 300 straws from the 99p store the other day, if any sort of place should have an abundant supply of straws it should be one like this! Luckily I had brought his sippy cups with us. Ridiculous! I would recommend going to the Fort Jester or alternative Wacky Warehouse or Funatics or Tiny Terrors, all have just as good play areas & the staff are a lot nicer & more helpful. Would have recommended this place if it hadn't been for the staff!

  on 12/8/13
• 

  Guest

  Had a great time recently at my daughters birthday party. Great value, very helpful staff and we even had a party host who looked after us from start to finish. Brilliant. Thank you

  on 10/6/13
• 

  Guest

  Hi,I think toddler time is really good value for money,the only few things i would like to see improve would be the toilets looking & smelling cleaner & fresher & also instead of chart music blasting out cant we have nursery songs playing please,little ones would love it, :-)

  on 14/2/13

• Jackie A

  Hi Sammie thanks for the reply to my posting and to the others on here. I just have one question to ask about the age limit of 8? Is this correct as I think you will be loosing a lot of customers as that is really young - I have an 8 year old (nearly 9) and 4 year old so if 8 is your limit that means that I wont be able to come again with both of them!

  on 11/2/13
• 

  Guest

  Hi this is Scallywags Gosh we get no reviews for 9 months and then 3 in 45 minutes. wowzers - its like waiting for a bus ! Scallywags at The Fort is a very very busy play centre with a really busy kitchen. We opened our first site in 2004 and opened this site in 2008 so I can honestly say yes we know how to manage a play centre. We get thousands and thousands of happy customers and in fact our attendances are growing month on month. Further to this , we employ an independant mystery shopper company to visit our sites and monitor all of our standards. We just achieved our highest ever customer satisfaction result from them of 93 % we believe we are the only local play centre to do this. We also ran a survey of people who had held parties at Scallywags and out of 75 responses 71 said they would recommend us to a friend. I note your various comments and will look into these as an extra check and make sure staff are aware of your comments. Please be assured of our continued efforts in driving Scallywags even further If ever you visit us again ask to speak to a supervisor or manager we will love to talk with you about your points, it is hard to explain things via a chat forum Im sure you will understand that kind regards Scallywags

  on 11/2/13
• 

  Guest

  my local soft play, looking for a new one. always filthy, older kids in the under 3's throwing soft blocks about, parents uninterested and staff chit chatting. great times!

  on 10/2/13

• Jackie A

  Both my children 8 and 4 love going to Scallywags and I sometimes take the younger one in the week after nursery - great value £1.00 to get in. The food is fine and not expensive. The only thing I dont like is the toilets they always smell of warm nappies. We went last week and the light in the ladies toilets over one of the cubicles still wasnt fixed (it was like it just after Christmas).

  on 10/2/13
• 

  Guest

  This has the potential to be a really good soft play for under-3s. Unfortunately, it is very badly managed. Staff are uninterested and seem to spend all their time in the kitchen talking to each other rather than ensuring the rules of play are adhered to. Therefore, older children are forever in the toddler area knocking the little ones over and causing chaos. Also, the barrier which separated the toddler area off from the main seating area has been removed, meaning toddlers can easily venture out and get immediately knocked over by one of the older children flying past. As a parent you need to constantly hover over them and keep pulling them back in rather than being able to let them enjoy themselves and have a little freedom within a safe space. The last three times I have visited scallywags I discover that the published opening times were not being adhered to and they were closing early (on Saturday evenings mostly... Funny that!) and the last time we were refused entry entirely even though there was 45 minutes before closing time. I have not tried the food so cannot comment on that but will never be visiting this centre again due to the total mismanagement of the place.

  on 10/2/13
• 

  Guest

  Have been to Scallywags a couple of times now and even though i love the under 3's area it seems a shame that it is unmanaged, i wouldnt expect a member of staff to be there all the time but they all walk about and witness the bigger kids in there running about where babies are crawling or stationary but dont seemed bother to do anything Sadly went the other week, rang in the morning to make sure they were open normal time (5pm) so i got on the bus with my little one in the lovely rain, and arranged to meet my friend and her little one there. I got to scallywags at 3.30 (5mins later than my friend) to be told it was shutting early due to a private party at 4.30 and i couldnt go in due to insurance purporses and as they were shutting early (thought it was a party?) they have to give an hours notice. I asked if i could go in and tell my friend i wasnt allowed to stay and they said no its shut, so not only did i waste bus money getting there and friend wasted her money getting in and we ended up going to Funky Monkeys My advice ring the second your about to leave and save a wasted journey, a few people were trying to get in after me and were also turned away one lady even stated "they do this every week"

  on 4/5/12
• 

  Guest

  Can babies go like nearly 4 months

  on 21/4/12

• catherine c(151)

  my girls really enjoy going here but if you havent got a car its a mission to get to but well worht it in the end a nice day out

  on 7/2/12
• 

  Guest

  Still a really good play area for all ages. Could there please be some paper towels and a better hand dryer in the toilet.

  on 4/12/11
• 

  Guest

  Love it here. My daughter is 2 and the toddler area is great for her, bit more challenging than a lot of toddler areas. Food good, although sometimes a bit slow to come out - think it is cooked fresh though. Def my fav soft play place.

  on 25/10/11
• 

  Guest

  I am glad to hear that you like visiting us and that our staff are friendly. I have personally looked for any chipped plates last Friday and there are none so not sure what happened there. Our plates are commercial grade vitrified china which are chip resistant. We are proud to have 5 Stars for food hygiene and safety at all of our sites. I am sure you will appreciate we serve many hundreds of meals a week across our sites. The food side of our business is huge and the menu and processes we use have been developed over the last 7 years since we opened. We do not use chip warmers to "hold" chips - they literally come straight out of the kitchen to your table. The nature of the product will make it go cold quite quickly, say within 5 to 10 minutes, there is not much we can do about that, if you do have any problems though just ask a staff member and we can reheat them or you can use one of our free customer microwaves. Regarding mould on cheese , I can honestly say I have never seen or heard of this at Scallywags. We use about 30 to 40kg of cheese a week, this comes straight from the supplier into our fridge , all temperatures are recorded to ensure the cheese is delivered and stored correctly. If you want to discuss anything next time you visit us please ask for a manager or supervisor and we can go through it with you. If we have not met your expectations tell us about it - it's hard to put things right ten days later via a forum. Kind regards Scallywags

  on 15/6/11
• 

  Guest

  We have been there many times this year, staff are pleasant , food could be a lot better, I was served food on a chipped plate last week! , it had two huge chips on it- not good. I've been given mouldy cheese and chips are often cold. The toilets should be checked more often , the hand dryer needs upgrading as it's far too slow.

  on 4/6/11
• 

  Guest

  I took my 5yr old special needs son today as he had a day of from school due to teachers training, and he loved it! It's small enough for me to watch from outside, but also during quiet times parents are allowed in as well :) I did notice a few signs about food and drink not being allowed in but there was plenty of evidence this has been ignored. over all though a fantastic experiance.

  on 26/4/10
• 

  Guest

  Hi Ann I'm glad your son enjoyed his visit to Scallywags. The pottery we buy in commercial grade bisque as used at ceramic cafes. We have a wide choice to paint. The paint then has to dry for 24 hours before being prepared for glazing. The glaze is then left a day to dry before being fired in our kiln for a few hours (at over 1000 oC). Allowing for kiln space it usually takes at least 4 to 5 days to turn around your masterpiece professionally, which is why we quote a week for pick up. Our pottery painting is very popular with birthday parties and activity times, for example fathers day gifts etc. The pieces of pottery and processing them obviously have a cost which is why we dont include this in the normal admission price to play. Thanks for visiting Scallywags, see you again soon Sammie Scallywags

  on 20/3/10
• 

  Guest

  Went to Scallywags with my 5 year old, the pottery painting wasn't included in the admission you had to pay extra for that, you also had to come back about a week later to pick up the pottery you had made, I thought you'd be able to get it after the children had played for a while. We didn't bother with the pottery in the end but my son enjoyed playing on the slide and going through the tunnels etc, he wanted me to go on with him as he didn't have any friends with him and someone in charge said that would be ok, some other moms and dads were on the playing equipment with their kids as well, which I think is good if your child is a bit shy or unsure. He had fun and enjoyed himself.

  on 11/3/10
• 

  Guest

  Hi Sammie, apologies about the mugs, was about 6 weeks ago so memory not 100%! Glad to hear the crockery has been thrown away, on my visit my mother inlaws; my sons and my plate ALL had chips in them. You are right; I should have asked to speak to someone at managers level at the time but I guess with 2 young kids running around it's not so easy! I'm not sure that I would visit again but if I did I promise that I will ask to speak to someone if I find it like I did before. But it does amaze me that it was left to get like that in the first place, anybody that works there could see the mess the place was. Also it would be good to mention to your employees that it is not rude of a customer to expect a clean table in which to eat their food off , that was how I was made to feel when I asked for it to be cleaned (and then it was still left with bits of dried on ketchup!) The man next to me gave up and cleaned his own table with baby wipes. Anyway my mother in law WILL visit again with my son as she lives very close so I will pass all this on to her and im sure she will now have nothing other than a glowing report from her visit from now on! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. Esme

  on 24/2/10
• 

  Guest

  Hi Esme further to your comments re chipped crockery I have carried out some further investigations. I can confirm that there was one plate in our kitchen that was chipped and this has now been thrown away. We use vitrified china which is chip resistant and designed for commercial use Your comments about a chipped mug are a little confusing because we have used paper hot drinks cups for the last 18 months and we do not use china mugs or cups at all. The reason for this is so that hot drinks are served in a sealed unit with a sip lid which we believe is safer with children running round, and we believe we are the only play centre to offer this. Finally I must add that we were awarded 5 stars by the local authorities for our food hygiene and safety, an achievement that we are very proud of. Hope to see you soon Sammie, Scallywags

  on 23/2/10
• 

  Guest

  Hi Esme apologies that your visit did not live up to your expectations. I am sure that you will appreciate that all indoor play centres are very busy in and around February half term. We permanently have at least one staff member clearing tables with a trolley during peak times. We have a high turn around of customers at peak times because people just want to drop in for an hour or two to let their kids run around and to keep them happy. Over the past 5 years we have built an excellent reputation for keeping our Scallywags play centres clean, safe and well maintained and our staff work very hard towards this. It is amazing how many customers pick up on how clean our centre is and comment on it. We also do this whilst charging the lowest admission fee, we believe, of most play centres in Birmingham. All in all I think we do a fantastic job and our customers keep telling us so. Our visitor numbers continue to grow and our party diary is fully booked most nights so this would confirm our efforts are appreciated. I hope your next visit is more relaxing. If you have any comments on your next visit ask to speak to one of our managers or supervisors who will do everything they can to help you. I am sure you will understand it's hard for us to put it right now days later on a discussion board. Thanks for your comments Sammie, Scallywags.

  on 23/2/10
• 

  Guest

  My 2 kids enjoy it here but I didn't! While they play I want to relax and enjoy the time too. The floor was a sea of mess. Food and rubbish was all over the floor where the tables and chairs are. ALL the tables I went to sit at were filthy so I asked for mine to be cleaned. Well you would have thought I had asked for the world. Food on the floor is not pleasant for the kids to walk in as they obviously have bare feet. When our food came the plates and my cup had big chips in it, they should all be thrown out once they are chipped as it's a breading ground for bacteria. All in all I found it a dirty, unrelaxing experience!

  on 21/2/10
• 

  Guest

  A bright clean play center that caters for children of all ages. My one year old son loves it as does my eight year old daughter and nine year old son. There is plenty of seating area for parents, and the menu is good. I am always impressed at how clean this center is, I have to say, its the only one we come back to time after time. Thumbs up from us!!!!

  on 11/6/09
• 

  Guest

  My son who is 2 and a half loves it here. Only down side is the lollipops on show. Also, they need some bouncers etc for the really little ones (I have a 3 month old who ends up staying stapped in her car seat). It would be nice to entertain her too.

  on 20/5/09
• 

  Guest

  I've been here a lots of times with my 3year old daughter and we love it. Its lovely and bright, clean and has a friendly atmosphere. The play area itself is one of the best ones i've seen so far with lots to do and children can be seen at almost every point. Especially great when its not so full as the bigger kids tend to be abit more boistrous but other then that i have absolutly no other complaints.

  on 19/5/09
• 

  Guest

  my 2yr old son loved it there and i plan to take him again soon. only took him once so far. i regret not taking him more often. i wil try to make it a regular thing from now on because the joy he has is brilliant to see. not a big place, but u dont exactly want somewhere big when u want to be sure your child is safe. food very expensive, so even tho me and hubby ate along with our son, next time i plan to just get something for my son to eat. but the food was quite nice too

  on 29/1/09
• 

  Guest

  Visited Scallywags today for the first time.Scallywags was great! Spacious, clean play area with plenty for my 15 month old to do. Table area was a bit cramped and tables not cleared quickly enough, but I can overlook that for the great value and the fact my son enjoyed it, rather than crying like at the other one. Will be back soon!

  on 10/1/09
• 

  Guest

  My daughter had her 5th Birthday party here it was fab would recommend. Staff lovely and well organised been to a few parties since all good.

  on 7/12/08

• Sarah O(16)

  We've been there a few times i have a 4 & a 3 year old and an 18 month old, they all love it. It's lovely and clean, the staff are friendly and the times that I have been they have kept an eye on the toddler area. The food is nice and they do an after school thing where they can play and eat for an extra £1.

  on 24/11/08
• 

  Guest

  we took our two year old boy at the end of october and he loved it. he had great fun and we'll definitely be going again. food is expensive however, although quite tasty.

  on 19/11/08
• 

  Guest

  Loved it here. I like the area for the under 3's. Food was ok it's ashame its all deep fried will just order a jacket spud next time. I think its really light and bright and seems to be so much better the other playcentre one down the road

  on 16/11/08
• 

  Guest

  My kids love this playcentre and we find the after school deal good value !! For only an extra £1 they have their tea and its a great treat for them. Its cheaper, bigger and cleaner than the others. The only thing I hate about all these play centres is the fact that parents seem to switch off to what their kids are doing !!! You see them sat there either chatting to their friends or reading the paper and their kids could be doing absolutely anything !!! It's always those kids that are the centre of all trouble... I like to know exactly what mine are doing !!

  on 13/10/08
• 

  Guest

  Agree about the sweets etc! I hate to moan but one thing I dislike about all these places is the fact that it's costs near a fiver to let your child play, god help those with 3 or more but then they have those machines as well, I wish they wouldn't have them there, Jaden just wants to sit on them the whole time we're there! Lol :) xxx

  on 7/10/08
• 

  Guest

  my two children loved it, 6 and 5. The only down side for me was the amount of sweets that are around, either the machines or the lollipops on show at the cafe.

  on 7/10/08
• 

  Guest

  I would say that on the whole the place is fab, I especially like the toilets, being a larger lady it is so nice not to have to perch one cheek on the sanitary disposal unit! On the downside there was no supervision of the toddler area to ensure the bigger kids didn't take it over and the food my friend ordered for her little boy was so obviously deep fried.

  on 7/10/08
• 

  Guest

  I didn't have a good experience. My little one is 18mths. She got sat on in the toddler ball pool by bigger kids and the bigger play frame was too cramped for me to go in with her. There didn't seem to be a safe area for us both. Will not be going again till she is bigger!

  on 6/10/08
• 

  Guest

  I second that! It's very good there! Soooo new and fresh and how cool is that foot/basketball court! Wicked! We will be back there soon!

  on 6/9/08
• 

  Guest

  Went here today whilst shopping at the Fort and it is great. The staff were really friendly and for once it is nice to see good clean toilets. The play area was good too, especially for the little ones !! Will definitely be going again !!

  on 4/8/08

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