Before we get started with our regular post, we want to say Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day to our readers!! We hope our little blog has been making life a tiny bit easier for you and your family, and we always welcome suggestions on how we can do more to help this amazing community of which we are a part!
Now on to our regularly scheduled post of an easy, local family-friendly activity that you can enjoy with your kids!
We Play Loud is a Kids’ Indoor Playground located in Lake Forest, CA, approximately 20 minutes north of Camp Pendleton. It’s a fun, cheerful and colorful indoor playground that you and your kids will love! Although we don’t get a lot of rainy days in southern California, we do have a lot of VERY sunny and sometimes hot days – occassionally we like to take a break from that sun and play inside where we don’t have to think about sunscreen and overheating.
We Play Loud offers an exciting indoor playspace for kids of a variety of ages, where they can run free and expel lots of that extra energy they always seem to have (can they loan us some, please?!). There are two locations, Lake Forest and Huntington Beach. The Lake Forest location is the closest to Camp Pendleton, and the only location we have visited to date. We’ve always been happy with the cleanliness, as well as the updates that we’ve seen over the last year with new play equipment. There is a cafe area with snacks and drinks available for purchase for parents to hang out if their kids are a little older and able to play independently. There are also two party rooms that can be reserved for events like birthdays.
The initial cost is $15 for the first child, with one parent being free. Each additional person (parent or child) is $7. Kids under 1 are free if they are NOT playing (an infant in a carrier, for example). However, there is a great area for younger kids and babies just learning how to walk (it’s heavily padded), so I will usually pay for my younger child under 1 to play (any child under 1 WILL need a ticket if they are going to be playing). The ticket price is for 2 hours of continuous play. You can purchase an additional 2 hours for half price. However, for my two younger kids, 2 hours has always been enough time to really enjoy We Play Loud (they tire themselves out easily running between the different activities).
A favorite area of my older child is this airplane, which moves up and down, and has a slide out the back!
You will notice that a lot of the play equipment at We Play Loud is motorized and moving, which is a fun feature that kids don’t usually have outside of an amusement park venue. Here are a few more of the moving “rides”, which are all heavily padded and do not move fast (even this worrying mom has no anxiety letting her kids climb all over these). We absolutely LOVE the bright fun colors. The koala that you see in the background is a mural on one of the party room walls, available to rent for parties. You can also see behind and to the left a giant ball pit of yoga balls! And catch a glimpse of the two story tall slide on the left side of the picture below (we didn’t catch it on camera, but there are actually several tall slides next to eachother, and our kids love racing the other kids down them).
There is an enclosed area with tons of plastic ballpit balls. There are several machines within that area where the kids can watch the balls get sucked up into overhead tubes and then collect into buckets. There are several big red buttons you can push that will dump the balls onto the people below. This is one of our favorite areas, and our kids love watching how the machines work and running around trying to dump as many balls as possible.
There is also an area for young kids (under 2) that is all padded. We love taking our crawler into this area because he can safely move around and play with little assistance. So often at home we aren’t able to let him just explore on his own, either due to stairs or furniture or big kids that could be dangerous, so we just love that at We Play Loud he can have some independent play.
A few things to know before you go:
-We Play Loud is open every day from 10am to 6pm
-this play space is designed for children 51″ and smaller (we’d guess kids under age 10 in general, but every child is different!)
-wear or brings socks, they are required in the play space
-there are cubbies for your shoes and bags and parking for your stroller (note that no outside food/drink is allowed other than baby formula, milk and water)
-you can park your car right outside the doors (We Play Loud is in a strip mall right off the highway, so parking is plentiful)
-you will need to sign a waiver before you enter, and you’ll be given stickers for all parents and children which the staff will match prior to your exit
Right now there is a Mothers Day Special going on, where you can buy a $100 gift card to use on passes for $80.80 (there is also a $50 gift card on sale for $40.80)!! Gift cards are always available online (although not always on sale) – this is a great present to ask for if family or friends don’t know what to get you for a holiday or birthday, because you can use it when it’s convenient for you, and it’s not more stuff that you have to PCS with! Plus it can be a nice break to let your kids enjoy this awesome play space while you have a coffee at the cafe.
Have you been to We Play Loud, or are you planning a trip? Let us know in the comments!