What will happen to indoor playspaces?

[Anonymous]

Before the pandemic I used to take my son to indoor play spaces, and I never really worried about him catching anything. We would wash hands and use hand sanitizer and do the best we could. He went to preschool and the kids seemed to pass the sniffles back and forth all winter. He also would get truly sick from time to time but nothing different than most kids. Now after CV19, I'm not taking my son back to any of these places and I'm wondering if I am being crazy or prudent. I'm sending him back to preschool in the fall because they are doing everything they can to keep the kids safe and have already outlined all the SD measures they are taking. I'm sure we will get much more detail closer to the opening of school.

What are all of you doing? I was also feeling really bad for the businesses like Nook, Badlands, Magic Ground and the Lane along with the places for older kids like SkyZone.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I don't know. My kids are older now - 6 and 9 - but we went to those places a ton when they were younger and still would do ZavaZone, SkyZone etc. I don't think I'd send them right now and I'm relatively lax compared to some (sending to camp, in favor of school opening etc). It's sad.

[Anonymous]

Scramble in Alexandria is already open for camps, although it doesn’t sound like they’ll reopen for the public at least this summer. Some of the others (I’ve seen Busy Bees, Jolly Yolly in my area of VA) have reopened on a limited basis, not sure what will happen after Phase 2 in a few days. I believe they are allowed to operate under the “entertainment facilities” guidelines.

I think the trampoline places will be fine because they skew a lot older, if not even to adults. I’m more worried about an injury at those places than I am about Covid. The places geared at little kids, I’m not so sure. Some will make it, but it’s already expensive to run those types of places and being completely shut down for 3 months or more and then people being too spooked to go is going to make them not profitable.

[Anonymous]

I’m very curious about the new Children’s Museum in DC. It finally - FINALLY - partially opened after so many delays and then boom, Covid. The whole thing has been a mess for years now.

[Anonymous]

Pump it Up Alexandria is open too

[Anonymous]

Those places are pretty easy to clean. You can wipe down everything including the mats with bleach / water solution.
They can do temp checks and kids with running noses etc can be asked to not participate.

[Anonymous]

Mobu kids and JW tumbles in falls church and arlington have closed for good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those places are pretty easy to clean. You can wipe down everything including the mats with bleach / water solution.
They can do temp checks and kids with running noses etc can be asked to not participate.

It's true that these places are easy to clean. The problem is the employees don't actually clean.

[Anonymous]

I saw Ivanka trump and kush at zava zone in February with security detail

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those places are pretty easy to clean. You can wipe down everything including the mats with bleach / water solution.
They can do temp checks and kids with running noses etc can be asked to not participate.

Agree the surfaces are generally easy to clean, but the problem is one little kid sticks his hand in his mouth, then wipes it on a surface, and that happens like every other minute throughout the day. My 5 year old DS got strep a few summers ago, and we think he picked it up from one of those places because he wasn’t in preschool at the time.

[Anonymous]

Yeah there is no way I'm taking my 1 and 3 year old back any time soon. Scramble is a petri dish during normal times.

[Anonymous]

I had a birthday party booked at Busy Bees for April and they are telling me I need to apply the deposit I'd paid towards a future party within a year. No thanks...

[Anonymous]

They will go under. Unless they own their spaces or can work out a deal with their land lords. I don't see how they could possibly avoid it. Unless they figure out a different business model that is only ever for private rentals. Kids will not socially distance.

[Anonymous]

I certainly won't go back this year, but I think that other people will. I think we'll see a lot of them go out of business though, they don't operate on large margins anyway.

[Anonymous]

The problem for me isn't the touching of spaces. It's being inside with lots of other people in spaces without windows.