Written by: Caroline
When I heard that Happy Hangout, a new indoor play place, was coming to Cincinnati I was pretty excited and looked forward to going with the kids. But when I found out that it’s almost in our backyard I was ecstatic. I immediately started figuring out when we’d be able to go. The Cincinnati Children’s Museum at Union Terminal is excellent but a bit of a drive and I wasn’t sure if Lilly was ready for it yet. COSI and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum are set up for older children and would be better suited for day trips when the kids are older. Discovery Zone was the place to go when I was a kid but closed down long ago and as an adult, Chuck-E-Cheese seems sketchy at best for a kid Lilly’s age.
Happy Hangout combines the toddler-sized village in the Cincinnati Children’s Museum with the tubes, slides, and adventure items of Discovery Zone, and has a small area for younger children who are there with their big siblings. Lilly loves exploring, pretending (though we’re still working on pretend eating), and running around with the other children there. Make sure to bring snacks with you since halfway through your visit your kid will want a pick me up and they don’t offer food. If you schedule a party, they do have a recommendation for a local business that does cakes and mini cupcakes.
So far we’ve been to Happy Hangout twice, both Thursday mornings so Lilly could participate in storytime if she so chooses. Both times she respectively declined, but from what I could see story time looked like a lot of fun Lilly just doesn’t have the attention span for it yet. On our first visit during Lilly’s brief visit to storytime, the kids were playing with scarves to match with their story about jellyfish. The second time we started in storytime and made some music, danced a bit, sang about saying hello to our friends, and then she promptly ran out of the room.
When I took Elliot to the bathroom to change his diaper the kids that remained were listening to The Little Engine That Could and looked to be preschool age or older. I was bummed Lilly didn’t want to stay in the room for storytime but when there are a ton of things to play with and do it’s hard to stay in one place. Keep an eye on their schedule of events when you’re planning your visit as they regularly schedule story times, baby sign classes, character visits, and other special events. Double-check that the event is included in your play price. If supplies are needed, then the event could cost extra.
Lilly starts off her visits playing in the little village. She’ll drive the firetruck, make sure the camper is fully stocked for the trip this weekend, pick up some supplies at the Riverfront Market grocery store, make a snack to eat at Bridgetown Finest Eats, Help the pets at Fiona’s Pet Clinic, and then will run off to the baby area to go down the slide a few times. For the most part, Lilly spends most of her time split between the fire truck, camper, and restaurant. She loves playing with the pretend food, opening the cabinets, putting away the spices, and causing terror with the shopping cart (when it is available).
Most of the pretend food and toys are Melissa and Doug brand and seem like they will hold up well to lots of little hands (and the occasional little mouth) for months if not years to come. With a wide variety of plastic and wooden food items, little ones have a lot of options for grocery trips, pretend cooking, and learning how to share with others. There are children’s vet/doctors’ toys in Fiona’s Vet Clinic, and a wide variety of fake beauty supplies at the salon.
After a while, Lilly will wander over to the large playset. You can get to the main play area by some wave platforms, stepped platforms, or a fake tree with stairs inside. The fake tree is the only way Lilly can get up on her own, but at 22 months and a little under three feet, she can’t explore much of the play area on her own yet. Both times we visited, I joined Lilly to help push her up the obstacles she couldn’t quite navigate on her own yet. She particularly enjoys the two varieties of tunnels where she jumps and dances while waving to people on the ground.
Overall, I think they are handling opening during the COVID-19 pandemic quite well. Workers wear shirts with “NOT YOUR MOM” on the back and the Happy Hangout logo on the front and regularly come around to put toys in the ‘correct’ location and do some light cleaning. They were sanitizing some of the toys on our last visit which made me feel better about Lilly sticking some of the things in her mouth.
As of right now reserving your playtime in advance is suggested since they are limiting the number of people in the space at one time and I am unsure how long that will remain in effect. You can reserve your spot online and do a single-time reservation, get a punch card (currently sold out), or purchase a monthly or yearly renewing membership. They are cashless so if you come in the day of to pay for your child to play, you’ll need a debit card, credit card, or an online payment method.
I can’t wait to take Lilly back, but with returning to work full time soon our opportunities for trips will be limited. Hopefully, we can plan to snag a Saturday morning reservation soon so Joe can visit as well.
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