Granby Fun Factory - West Dorset

Visited the Fun Factory on a rainy day with my baby. To book in, other children in the waiting area were running into his pram. The gates were hard to open. Upon arrival, we were told, that the only available tables were upstairs and there was no lift! I had to carry the baby and pram up the stairs. Walking through the downstairs department was like trying to run through a jungle. We finally got to our table which was covered in what looked like chewed food and saliva and all over the chairs too. I am aware that soft play areas are noisy but this was more than that. I took the baby down to play in the under 3's section which was a tiny cage. There weren't many activities for him to play with. The baby mirror in there was dirty, the ball pit was over crowded. To get on the slide, it was a climb and with a baby, it proves impossible. Older children were coming in the baby section and scaring him and leaving the gate open which I was furious about. The sensory toys were broken. A 7 year old girl was in there throwing balls at him too and I had a go at her mum and told them to get out. I told a member of staff and they did nothing about it. He also had some lunch there which looked cheap and processed. You could literally see the fat dripping off it. You are apparently allowed to take the babies in the older children's play area but I was straight away put off when i saw the filth on some of the children's socks and the rate they were running around! In order to make this a better place you really need to add a lift, make a better play area for babies, get friendlier and more helpful staff, healthier food, clean the place and maybe even give it a revamp, buy more toys for the baby area and in general make it more appealing. Until Fun Factory up their game, I'm certainly not going back. Unless you want your babies to have a day of being in the worst play area of all time, don't come here!

The main area looks like a lot of fun for the kids but could be a lot for younger children just a very small pen, food and drinks are ok but a little on the expensive side

Staff nice and friendly, kids love the play area . There was a bouncy castle and zip wire outside which they also enjoyed. Very good value for money

The kids really enjoy themselves here, it is always a enjoyable experience for all and feel 100% percent safe letting the children run around. Only thing I would say is I think the food and drink has become far too expensive for what you get in the last few weeks.

I 'm torn to write this as we have been here on a few occasions and while yes it 's dusty there are great thick cobwebs in all areas from the play area to the toilets, we 've always had a good time, the time previous to this visit they were very helpful with my allergic baby to cater a meal to his needs. However, this time it was by no means as busy as I have seen it in the past, the girls who are so usually 'on it ' were messing around behind the counter as a result there were dirty tables everywhere, the tea coffee station was grubby the toilets were lacking a certain attention to detail (see review of soiling on toilet walls! one girl actually watched a very aggressive fist fight between two boys in the foot ball area, and did nothing, in the end we looked for the parents broke it up, but all of this I would have brushed off if we hadn 't been treated so rudely. We met some family for a play and brought with us more adults than children! Might not have paid much in terms of entry but they certainly made their money on the rounds of coffees drinks etc we ordered at £18 a pop! It was my daughters birthday so we had a little cake warning you aren 't allowed to turn three at the fun factory unless you pre book it! I asked one of the girls if we may light a candle on the cake to which I was told, it sets off the fire alarm, we can only have candles in the party room. Fair enough, no candle to blow out, sorry baby. Next thing we know a different older lady is coming up to us saying we aren 't allowed the cake either, as we haven 't PAID for it. We are also told that the girls didn 't want to come over tell us as they were scared to speak to us! Bearing in mind we are a group that included an 80 year old a 7 month old, and the fear the girls had I can only think must have come from the way in which we stirred our tea or sipped our cappuccino!!! We actually asked if they had a cake we could buy so we could still at least not dissapoint the birthday girl to which we were told no. We don 't do cake. While I appreciate they cater for parties and that is a good source of profit perhaps that is something we would have considered in the future when our daughter knew more children than adults! It is more the manner in which it was dealt, it was embarrassing, it was accusational at behaviour we had not demonstrated and worst of all it upset the children.