A fellow Mum actually recommended me to this place - Joy of Toys. Initially, I thought it was some new indoor place. Well turns out, I am quite the fool because this little indoor playland has been opened for quite a while.
Basically, Joy of Toys is a land filled with a plethora of toys. I am not even kidding - there are wooden toys, doll house, pretend play, musical toys etc. To get the best bang for my bucks, we went on a weekday ($24 unlimited playtime with re-entry plus free entrance for 2 adults). But to be honest, eventually we stayed for around slightly more than 2 hours max. because that's how long a child's attention is and the adults haha wanted to explore other things to.
After taking a look at the different play spaces, we decided on the main play space. It was recommended for school going kids (and he obviously isn't one) but I felt he would enjoy the toys there more. There are small parts but he is at a stage he doesn't put things in his mouth and throughout our time there, we gave him constant supervision.
Kids being kids, my son was overjoyed when he was released into the room. He went straight for the nearest toy and for a good 15 minutes, he was just watching and doing the ball roll again and again. First amused then thoughtful with a serious look as though he was figuring out the whole mechanics. I don't know about other parents but sometimes I really like bringing him to different places because it "unleashes" some part of their brain and he comes home either with a wider vocab and more varied physical action.
His favorite was probably the trucks and was toying with a intricately built city. Interesting, we also have these toys at home just that they are of a less impressive size. He used to play with them but after coming home from Joy of Toys he appeared to have a new love for them, which is great because I hate seeing toys sitting by the side collecting dust.
I made effort to bring my son to the doll's section to expose to him this genre of toys. We do have quite a bit of plushies at home. However, we don't have dolls at all at home (very male dominated extended family haha). I guess we are not entirely into "gender-neutral" parenting so we only get him boyish toys or toys that are usually associated with masculinity.
Initially, he was quite curious but after a while he seem to not really enjoy "playing Mummy" to the dolls and was seen flinging them on the floor. Guess, we won't be buying dolls for him for a while. LOL.
He did however, enjoyed "pretend play" and I did too, this was like one of my favorite as a kid. The amount of "food" and "cooking equipment" was massive. There was a lot to play. Seeing how much fun he had, we actually invested in an Ikea duktig kitchen, much to the horror of my parents. LOL! I showed them a photo and they thought I bought a new kitchen for ourselves.
I would think Joy of Toys is an awesome place to find out the likes and dislikes of your kids because even if you have all the money in the world, you probably want to junk up your house with all the toys. And from the experience, we actually made a better investment in his future toys.
If your kids are older, this is an excellent place to dump the kids and take a break/ go shopping. Caught a few fathers napping at the sofas and I took a page from them as well. Ultimately, indoor playgrounds are always a nice place to learn and play with the little one. To be honest, nowadays the kid's toys are so different and fun as compared to our time. The husband was so engaged toying around too LOL!
