If you are a parent that cares about the safety of your children, SkyZone Fort Wayne, IN is not the place for you. With the absence of adequate employee monitoring and parental supervision, if you plan on going to SkyZone Fort Wayne, also plan on getting hurt.
These are my observations and experiences from our trip to Skyzone Fort Wayne.
SkyZone Fort Wayne THEN
In the past (7years ago) Skyzone Fort Wayne was a much safer experience and a ton of fun for the kids! When planning a trip, you would need to do it in advance. You wouldn’t be able to show up and expect to jump. You would need to purchase tickets online, hours or days in advance to get the time that you desired to jump. You would arrive before your time and purchase your socks and sign your waiver. At your designated start time, there would be a safety talk by the employees, then you would get to go play! There were employees at every station, monitoring for safety and directing the kids, much like a life guard at the pool. When your time was up, there was an announcement. If the employees saw your wrist band color was one that is out of time, they would politely remind you. It was never crowded because of the timed tickets!
Now, The Experience is Much Different
Today, you don’t need to plan your trip. You don’t need to worry about the time that you want to jump being filled. When you arrive, you buy your ticket, and your socks (or re-wear the socks you have already purchased. Socks are expensive at $3.49 a pair), then they allow you to go and jump. There is no safety talk with the kids and parents. There aren’t employees at each of the stations. The couple employees that you do see aren’t monitoring kids. They are doing their own thing, such as, being on their phone, bouncing basketballs, or just plain zoned out.
Employees do not all adhere to the same safety standards. For example, they have a trapeze. One employee would hold the bar, so that I could pick my kid up to reach it, then I would hold the bar for him once he was on it. Another employee would not hold the bar, stating he is not allowed to because of safety standards.
Before going on the trapeze, I asked an employee if my 5yo son can do this activity. His answer was yes to my 5yo son (4ft) and my 3yo son (3ft son). Later after my 5yo had been on this activity several times, I saw a sign tucked half way behind the activity against the wall that you should be 5ft to participate.
When you are there and you look around at the parents, you will notice that the number of guardians is drastically different then the number of children. Skyzone Fort Wayne was packed with people, mostly kids, without guardian supervision. Of the guardians that were there, not very many were actually watching their children. The rules state, you have to be 13+ to be unaccompanied. This was most assuredly not taking place.
In the freestyle trampoline area, there are kids of all ages on both the toddler trampolines and the all ages area. Kids were running from one side to the other across the width of the area, 2 or more kids on one trampoline square, children laying down across 2 trampolines, kids doing flips while another comes up and jumps on the trampoline they are flipping on, double jumping from the big foam box onto a trampoline when a toddler is on it. There are a ton more examples, I saw while there. Where are the parents? Not watching. Where are the employees directing safety? Not there. There used to be a rule that a person had to stay on their trampoline. You couldn’t jump from one to another or run across the width of the area. You also could only have 1 person her trampoline. Evidently this isn’t a safety standard anymore?
There is another area where the kids can jump from the trampoline into a foam pit. Next to the trampolines is a tall platform kids can jump off into the foam pit. I was directing my kids to wait in line to jump on the trampoline into the foam pit. The parent next to me told me no one is waiting, and if they do, they won’t get a turn. So, if you are trying to teach your child kindness and manners, this isn’t the place. Your child will not be treated kindly by others. Being courteous of others is not a thing at SkyZone Fort Wayne. Kids were cutting in line to jump off of the platform. While my 3yo was getting out of the pit, another preteen did a flip over his head into the foam pit. He didn’t wait until my son was out. I said something but the kid did not listen. Again, no parents. No employees. There were grown-ups laying in the foam pit under the platform to take photos of their kid jumping off, blocking the trampoline next to it, so the little kids couldn’t use it, but of course, they were. A couple of those kids almost hit their head on the side of the trampoline because of those adults. My 3yo fell down some stairs and a couple little girls wouldn’t move so I could get to him.
Think Pinoccio’s, Pleasure Island when thinking about Skyzone Fort Wayne.
There was a little girl there trying to make a connection with me. She wanted me to watch her do things on the activities. I told her I couldn’t because I had to keep an eye on my boys. Her guardians were not there, and she was maybe 9 years old. Another boy asked me if this was our first time there and asked if he could take my son and show him around the facility. He was maybe 8 years old. No parents around.
When you arrive, the jumpers are given a wristband to indicate your time. We paid for 90 minutes (general admission for SkyZone Fort Wayne was $24.99 and for kids 4 and under it’s $18.99. You only pay if you jump). After that time you are supposed to leave. We were there for 2 hours and no one cared. No one told us it was time to leave. I was rather loud about our time being over and no one said anything. I feel other people were doing this and it was contributing to the over crowding. So, just an FYI, no one cares about your timed wristbands. At least not the facility.
The facility was filthy with trash laying everywhere. Cleanliness is not on Skyzone Fort Wayne’s priority list.
I read the waiver that is required to be signed. FYI to everyone not reading it, you sign away all of your rights. You are signing that you have inspected thoroughly that the equipment that your child is playing on is safe and if you allow your child on the equipment you are agreeing that is it safe. If the equipment breaks and your child gets hurt, SkyZone Fort Wayne is not liable. Tell me…. How many of us actually get everyone off of the equipment to have a thorough inspection of it before we play? How many of us actually have the knowledge to know if something is structurally sound enough for multiple people of different weights to play on? If everyone else is on it, it must be OK right? If the facility is letting people on it, then it must be safe right? However, an employee told me that it is safe for my child to be on equipment I later saw a sign for that said it was not safe for his size. Who’s liable for that if my sons get hurt? Me because I signed the waiver.
If you decide to plan a trip to SkyZone Fort Wayne, do not expect safe fun for the entire family. Expect a safety nightmare and manners to go out the window. Expect too many people and not enough supervision. Think Pleasure Island, from Pinocchio. Expect to get hurt.
