Jumping around at Flying Squirrel

/

By now you probably know there's a new trampoline park in town - the Flying Squirrel, located in Gloucester right across the street from Costco. It's a giant place, and they claim to be the world's largest indoor trampoline fun park. I've never been to a trampoline place with the kids before, so we decided to check it out last week as an end of summer activity.

If you've never been to a trampoline park before, it's basically a large space with wall-to-wall trampolines of all shapes and sizes. Flying Squirrel also has a snack bar, tables/chairs, games, foam jumping pit, a rope swing, basketball and dodgeball games, and a small fenced-off toddler area.

Cost

You pay by the hour ($20/hour) and "toddlers" (children under 6) pay $10 if you go at certain times of the day. They also have "neon lights" glow-in-the-dark jumping on Friday evenings (9-12pm) for $25.

It's pricey, but we arrived at 10:45, which meant that we paid for 11am - 12pm but got to jump for the extra 15 minutes (they charge by the hour every half hour, so you may get some bonus time depending on when you arrive.) 

I didn't think one hour would be enough time, but my two girls were TIRED by the end. I certainly felt like we got our money's worth!

Ages

There were people of ALL ages there, from teeny little toddlers to moms and dads jumping around. I chose not to pay to jump, as the pelvic floor is just not what it used to be ;) Plus, I wanted to check things out before I decided to join in on the fun.

There were couches and chairs everywhere for parents to sit, as well as the tables/chairs in the snack area where we could eat the snacks we had packed.

My girls are 4 and 7. My 7 year-old was good to go pretty much everywhere, but my 4 year-old mainly stuck to the smaller trampolines and the huge foam pit. The games of dodgeball, basketball, slack line and battle beams were a bit out of her league. I'm glad I only paid $10 for her, as I feel that a place like this is better for older children. That said, there's a small toddler area where the wee ones can bounce around without any danger of being knocked over by bigger kids - it was just a bit TOO small for a 4 (almost 5) year-old.

Safety

Everyone is "required" to watch the safety video before they start jumping. It plays on loop while you wait in line to pay, so you're naturally drawn to watching (even though technically you could just ignore it). It gives advice for proper/safe jumping, as well as rules and regulations. 

There are staff located throughout the facility, and I noticed several times they approached jumpers to ask them to avoid certain areas or to stop an unsafe activity. However, they all seemed really friendly about it, and I even saw one employee suggesting an alternative (safe) way to do a fun flip.

That being said, both my kids got hurt. I think this is pretty typical of trampolines (I don't own one, but I've heard of SO many kids spraining ankles, breaking bones etc.) My daughter jumped into the foam pit at one point and then twisted her ankle because she landed at a weird angle. It seems fine, although she's still complaining about pain one week later!

My younger daughter tried to balance on the slack line, and fell right on top of it. I guess it knocked the wind out of her a bit and hurt her chest. Needless to say, both kids were done jumping before time was up because of their injuries. They rated the experience as fun, but said they didn't like getting hurt.

Worth it?

All in all I'd say a trip to Flying Squirrel is totally worth it. Next time I think I'd try some jumping too!

However, I may wait another year until my little ones are just a tiny bit older and more capable of navigating all the fun activities. 

A day at Calypso with the kids

/

We had only been to Calypso once since it opened, and that was two years ago. Ever since, the kids have been asking to go again because they loved it so much. For a million reasons, we never made it a priority. I promised them we would go this summer and so on my very last free weekend before school starts back up, we got there - and it was fantastic!

What we loved

We aren't really a speed demon family and we have outgrown the little kid section of the park, so we stuck to a few attractions that provided endless entertainment for all five of us.

* Jungle Run lazy river - this tame lazy river almost never has a wait and my kids could have happily just gone around and around without every stopping for hours at a time. This probably shouldn't be surprising based on the fact that they would spend hours in tiny hotel lazy rivers, but they really enjoyed this and it was one of our faves of the day.

* Kongo lazy river - this is the more exciting "lazy" river and we waited the longest. The line-up got too long for us by the end of the day. It's super fun and worth waiting for at least once or twice while you're there, though! You float atop a tube and get to see all kinds of fun Kongo scenes and get pulled around through faster and slower parts, wavy parts, spraying parts, etc. I cheated and went through the inner tube so my feet could be on the ground and I could control how likely I was to end up with a bucket of water on my head (not my favourite!)

* Wave pool - the wave pool is amazing, but also intense. I won't let my kids go in alone and I won't let them go in without life jackets. It's got REALLY big waves and there are hundreds of people in there. I do feel it's well monitored with at least 10 lifeguards watching closely, but I still wouldn't let my kids in this pool unattended. With parents and lifejackets though, the kids LOVED the wave pool and getting thrown around by the waves. 

* Family twisters - there are four small slides that are very anti-adrenaline and younger kid friendly. My kids are too big for the kiddy area but these slides are just the right place for a bit of sliding without worrying about their stomachs dropping out from under them on the bigger slides. The lines are relatively short and we can just sit at the bottom while they go up and around many many times.

Pro tip

Reserve a table in the shade when you get there. We got there when they opened and had no problems finding a table. A couple of hours later I saw quite a few open tables, but by early afternoon they were hard to come by.

It seemed to be pretty standard procedure to leave your stuff at a table and have it unattended for the day. We were happy to have a table to come back to to for eating and drying off, or just to take breaks and cool down from the really hot sun.

Many people in the park had coolers (you can go back out to the car and grab it when it's time to eat) and bringing your own food makes the day more cost effective. (Seeing all the coolers in the park made me think we should have a post about how to pack a cooler for a family day out too - that kind of stuff always overwhelms me so I skip it and spend a fortune on food ;) 

Word of warning

You cannot wear shirts on the slides at Calypso - including swim shirts. It's not very prominent on their web site or very well explained. It meant my daughter, who I put in a swim shirt to protect her from all-day intense sun, couldn't ride any of the bigger slides. For many of the boys (and some girls too, though my daughter didn't feel comfortable doing this) they can just take the swim shirt off for the slide. Instead my daughter had to skip some of the slides she really wanted to go on because we brought the wrong swimsuit.

The cost

These prices have been updated for 2023 and you can find more information on the Calypso website.

Small pricing: $49.99 for anyone under 52”

Tall pricing: $59.99 for anyone over 52 “

You can save $5 per ticket by buying online.

Parking costs: $15 (credit or debit only, no cash. You can also prepay online)

Lockers cost: $15 for a small locker and $25 for a large locker

Season passes are a great deal if you think you can make it to the park multiple times in the summer though.

The kids deemed this the most fun thing we'd done all summer, so I call that a major win. We'll definitely be back next summer!