Eldest daughter (10) has bee invited to go to Ryze in Edinburgh for a birthday party. I know when it first opened kids were getting broken on a regular basis and there was a problem with staff not being able to sensibly deal with first aid incidents.

Is this still the case or have things got better? we are not into cotton wool but we are going away on a big holiday in a couple of weeks and we could really do without a broken kid just now.

Thanks

we went once before it closed and again more recently. They definitely seem to be a lot more ‘on it’ now. mostly kids just bouncing up and down, it’s pretty harmless unless you are really going for it and/or clueless.

We have one near us in Guildford (AirHop)

We also have a friend who is an A&E consultant. He confirms that he regularly sees admissions from there but equally he sees car accidents, bike crashes, sports injuries and an endless stream of biffers with CV issues as a result of doing none of the above (exception of driving cars – predominantly to the takeway at the end of the road)

I can’t comment specifically on Ryze but in my experience the staff at the one we’ve visited are usually pretty good and diligent but it’s a risky activity to have multiple kids on multiple trampolines at the same time. I did have major concerns one time when a group of scouts were there on a trip and were frankly out of control. I spoke to one of the staff who gave me a bit of a ‘I know but what can you do?’ answer. Response – 1/ get the supervisor down here now; 2/ get him to speak to the scouts directly; 3/ get the scout leaders down from the cafe and get them to speak to the scouts, because the ‘3 warnings and you’re out’ rules now applied on a group basis, and was very impressed with how it was handled once the right member of staff was involved.

Ultimately depends on how trustworthy your kid is. If they follow the rules they will have a good time and strong probability have no issues.

My tip – is tell your kid to stick to the other activities for the first 15 mins and the last 15 mins (Airhop has a foam pit, some basketball hoops and a staffed dodgeball area) – the first 15 mins is frantic as everyone goes mental. And the last 15 mins everyone is tired but trying to extract the maximum out of their hour. The middle 30 mins is plenty of time to get plenty of bouncing and fun in.

I don’t know if it’s still carnage, I get the impression that’s calmed down but the venue’s awesome. I’d definitely become a statistic if I went but I still want to.

I’ve taken mine a couple of times and it seems a lot quieter now the novelty has worn off. There’s plenty of staff and loads of room. My son does a bit of diving and when he first went I was expecting them to say you can’t do this and that in case you hurt yourself but they seem happy to let you go for it if you know what you’re doing. If you want Northwind I could arrange for him to give you some tuition, he’s got a trip to Barcelona to pay for.