The easiest single stop in and around Minneapolis is Mall of America, where Crayola Experience and the PAW Patrol play area at Nickelodeon Universe are both inside, and Rainbow Play opens its playset showroom in Bloomington for weekday sessions nearby. Several suburbs run cheaper rooms of their own: Backyard at Brookview in Golden Valley, Edinborough Park in Edina and Eagles Nest in New Brighton charge a small fee per child and let adults in free. For a baby or toddler, The Play Group is a small room built around under-fours, and every visit is booked ahead. North of the city, Zero Gravity in Mounds View adds trampolines, a net course and laser tag, and Kids Empire in Roseville takes children up to twelve from opening to closing.
36 indoor playgrounds within 20 miles of Minneapolis
Ages
Indoor Playground
The Play Group
★ 4.9(44)·Minneapolis, MN·5.0 mi
Book before you set off. Every visit here is reserved in advance, and the door opens on a code sent by email beforehand. Private groups can take the room too: one family drove more than an hour, was turned away because of a private booking, and could find nothing on the website saying so. On Saturdays and Sundays the space is also rented out for parties.
What you are booking is a small, calm room for babies and toddlers up to about four, stocked with Montessori-style and imaginative-play toys. The site's own argument is that most indoor playgrounds in the Twin Cities are built for school-age children and can overwhelm a small one, and parents of under-threes rate it for exactly that. Several single out how clean it is, and one says it meets a toddler where he is developmentally. A coffee bar has opened alongside, and there are enrichment classes as well as open play.
One winter visitor found it cold, with the thermostat reading 62, so dress a baby warmly.
This one pays off for a family that means to stay. Admission runs from opening to closing with re-entry, and the main attraction is a multi-level maze of padded paths, ball pits, slides and a dance floor, pitched at children up to twelve. For a one-year-old it is a harder sell: the under-threes get a toddler zone of their own, and a visitor who paid for a one-year-old found it small, and the only part the baby could use.
Several reviewers find it expensive, and the house rules add friction for some. It is card-only, everyone on the play floor needs socks, and outside food and drink are not allowed, though you can bring plain water in a closed container. One visitor turned around at the door over those rules. The ride-on vehicles need a separately loaded points card, and one parent describes the track as mayhem, with children trying to start cars they have not paid for.
Staff enforce the rules, which one parent found reassuring and another found abrupt. Reports on cleanliness split: several reviewers call it very clean, while two describe dirty floors, one of them first thing in the morning.
Almost every complaint here comes back to the smell, and it runs through a full year of reviews. Visitors from June 2025 to July 2026 describe the play area smelling of urine, one saying it takes ten or fifteen minutes to get used to, and others mention dust under the toys and fixtures that look worn. Most of the same reviewers still like the place, which is the honest reading of it: a good structure with an upkeep problem.
The structure is why people put up with it. It is a three-story climb at Brookview in Golden Valley, split into areas for two-to-fives and six-to-twelves, with a big twisting tube slide that one grandparent admits scared them. Much of it is netting rather than closed tubes, so you can see a child instead of losing them inside. Residents of Golden Valley, New Hope and Crystal pay a dollar less, adults and under-twos are free, and everyone wears socks.
On a busy day, seating runs short; one parent found too many adults with nowhere to sit. There is a restaurant in the building for lunch.
Split your expectations by age. The main structure was rebuilt in 2017, and reviewers with school-age children like it: a 23-foot web tower, a long wave slide, a tightrope walk and tunnels one visitor calls a sophisticated maze. The separate area for three-and-unders is where the complaints collect. Parents through the spring and summer describe it as outdated and worn, with a broken carousel, a smell behind the play bus, and bigger children running through it with nobody from staff stepping in.
So a toddler visit means watching that gate yourself. Supervision is the parent's job here by the playground's own rules, and opinions of the staff are mixed: some reviewers find them rude, while one singles out an employee who climbed into the tunnels to help scared children through.
It is a City of New Brighton facility with adults free and a wristband that lasts the day. Food and drink stay outside the play area, and it closes for a week around Labor Day for its annual cleaning.
Everything the children play on here is for sale. This is the Bloomington showroom of a backyard playset dealer, and on weekdays it opens its floor of swing sets, basketball hoops and trampolines as a pay-to-play indoor playground, in two-hour sessions booked and paid for online. Most of its reviews are about buying and installing playsets, so the picture of a visit comes from the handful of families who have played or held parties there, and from them it is warm.
Those parents describe a big, low-key space with no loud music or neon lights, where adults can talk and still keep an eye on the children; one family has been coming for years with three sons. Play runs from mid-morning to mid-afternoon on weekdays only. Children under a year play free, and the company asks for one adult to every four children. Snacks stay in the eating area, off the showroom floor, and the party rooms are not booked during pay-to-play hours.
What reviewers here bring up most is price, and they bring it up approvingly. One parent sets it against two nearby play centers that charge $22 to $30 and make adults pay as well; here the child pays and the parent plays free. Others call it cheap, affordable and worth it, and one parent who has brought a son since he was five says he still loves it at nine.
The park belongs to the City of Edina. Adventure Peak is the big climbing structure, built with wider tunnels so parents can follow children in; Little Peak is a gated, padded area for four-and-unders; and The Summit has small basketball hoops, scooters and ride-on toys. A heavy door closes off the climbing area, so a child is unlikely to slip out unnoticed, and the greenery inside is what one parent says makes it a lovely place to sit and watch.
Two things to plan for. Outside food is allowed only at the picnic tables by Guest Services, and the Peak Cafe opens Friday to Sunday; one family expecting lunch found it closed for the summer. And the oldest children may tire of it first, as a visiting family found when their eight-year-old was bored after half an hour.
Adults pay the same admission as children here, and that one line in the price list drives most of the unhappy reviews. A parent bringing a toddler pays for two, a couple with a baby pays for three, and several visitors say that is too much for pretend play; one grandparent adds that the craft stations cost extra on top, in the Playseum's own play dollars. Grandparents get in for $2 on Tuesdays, which changes the sum for that visit.
For the money you get a mall unit in Ridgedale Center divided into small themed shops and stations for dress-up, pretend cooking and crafts, and the families who come regularly are enthusiastic. Parents describe children from toddlers to an eleven-year-old busy for hours, one comparing it favorably with the big museum downtown for how clean it is and how much there is to handle. A free activity runs most weekdays, from story time on Mondays to melt-and-pour soap on Wednesdays.
Several visitors mention Christian music playing over the speakers, which one welcomed and others did not expect.
This is a play area for small PAW Patrol fans, and the height rule says exactly how small. Children up to 42 inches need a grown-up with them, children from 43 to 52 inches can play on their own, and anyone taller comes in only as a chaperone. One parent puts the sweet spot at under five.
It sits inside Nickelodeon Universe, the theme park at Mall of America, as a free-play area themed on the show's town, and the park rates both its sound and its visual effects as low. Children can come and go freely once in. Entry is by points rather than by time: it costs six, bought on a Point Pass, and one family admits coming to the park only for this and leaving again. Socks are required, though one parent noticed the no-shoes rule is not enforced on the adults.
Allow three or four hours, which is what the attraction itself recommends, and plan lunch around it, because there is no real food option inside. That time goes on more than twenty hands-on stations where children melt crayons into keepsakes, make drip and rubbing art and name a crayon of their own, with a toddler play area and a bigger one for older children to run off the rest.
Budget beyond the ticket, too. Every visitor needs one, adults included, and on the way in you are handed coins for the machines; one visitor found that several of the activities described as part of the experience cost extra. Tickets are valid for a year rather than for a time slot, and admission drops for the last two hours before closing.
Who it suits is a matter of opinion. One reviewer says preteens get bored; another family brought a nearly seventeen-year-old and all three of them had a blast.
Recent reviews keep returning to two points: parts of the park out of service, and how much costs extra. Over the summer visitors describe arcade machines showing error messages, trampolines and games out of action, and dodgeballs too soft to throw, and more than one says that almost everything beyond the trampolines is paid for separately. One parent buying adult grip socks with cash found cash cost more than a card.
The trampolines are the core, and they are why families keep coming back: an open jump arena with a tot court and a three-story indoor playground, alongside the Sky Walker net course, laser tag for five and up, an interactive pixel floor and an arcade. The day passes are tiered by how much of that they include, so choose one before you go. A parent who arrived at half past four on a Wednesday found it crowded and short of staff and left after thirty minutes; others describe friendly staff and children worn out by closing time.
It is locally owned, in Mounds View, and a parent jumping with a child needs grip socks too.
Staff may not be in the building at all. The park describes itself as self-supervised: entry is by a QR code you get when you buy, employees are not always on site, activity is watched remotely, and parents are expected both to supervise and to clean up after themselves. Reviewers describe the place as clean and well run. But one parent's only complaint was the other parents who do not watch their children, and with staff not always on the floor to step in, keeping track of your own is entirely on you.
The space is large and varied: a playground, a jumping pillow, a ninja course, basketball hoops at several heights, a soccer field, a building zone with big foam blocks, a toddler section and a huge swing. There is an eating area with vending machines and high chairs, and you can bring your own food.
School field trips are the other thing to plan around. A member of many years dropped their membership over groups of 80 to 120 children arriving at once. They now check the field-trip days the park posts online, and note there are never trips on Mondays.
Plan a weekend visit around the gym's calendar, not the other way around. Open play here is fitted around private rentals and birthday parties, and the gym says so itself: hours vary, and its online calendar or a phone call is how you find out. One reviewer who used to like it has given up over this, saying it was closed so many weekends that a family with a school schedule could never get in.
When it is open, the equipment is the point: suspended swings, a zip slider, a trampoline, crash mats, a climbing structure, an arts-and-crafts area and a calming room. Parents of children on and off the spectrum both write warmly about it. One lists the swings and the calming room as what made it right for an autistic daughter; another says that on the spectrum or not, it is a fantastic place for kids to play. The double doors at the exit come up too, as what makes one parent feel their child is safe there.
Reviewers repeatedly call it clean. The families writing in range from a two-year-old and an eight-year-old on an ordinary visit to a birthday party with guests aged one to fourteen.
Foam pits, climbing walls, a ropes course, a ninja course, dodgeball, trampolines, bumper cars and an arcade share this building with a slide-and-ball-pit structure, so it plays more like an adventure park than a toddler playroom. The foam pit catches adults out: one family needed a staff member to pull them back out of it, and signed off their review by telling other parents to beware.
The range is the reason to come. A family who arrived at one in the afternoon with an eleven-year-old and a six-year-old stayed until closing, and another, with a toddler and a seven-year-old, says both had a blast. Several reviewers mention how clean they found it, and early on a weekday one family had the place practically to themselves.
There is no snack bar. Outside food and drinks are allowed, so pack lunch, and an All Day pass lets you step out to eat and come back in on the same wristband. Everyone jumping needs trampoline socks; the desk sells reusable pairs if you forget.
Families with severely autistic children are the people who write about this place most, and the words they reach for are safe, second home, part of our community. One parent describes a six-year-old who had not left the house in eighteen months walking in and playing for two hours. There is a calming room and a teen room, and the equipment is chosen for sensory regulation rather than for burning energy.
It is also usually near empty. A regular says there are typically one or two other children in the building and often none at all, which is the whole point for a child who cannot cope with a crowd, and a fair warning for anyone hoping their child will find someone to play with.
The reservations are real. It is expensive next to the municipal option down the road, and more than one reviewer says so plainly. There is also a serious safety complaint on record from a birthday party, which the parent says went unanswered — worth reading the recent reviews yourself before you book one.
Being able to see your child from anywhere in the building is what reviewers here mention more than anything else, unprompted and repeatedly. One says she can stand basically anywhere and still track multiple children across the space, which is the single most useful property an indoor playground can have and one that most of them do not manage. Adults are not charged, and the day pass allows re-entry, so lunch outside and a second session afterwards is the normal way to use it.
It works across a wide age range and there is a sock vending machine for the people who forget.
Two warnings. The membership is currently very hard to cancel — a parent describes three attempts over a summer after the billing system changed, with the monthly charge still going out, and says other parents have hit the same wall. Pay per visit until that is fixed. And school field trips can take the place over without warning, which turns it into the wrong room for a two-year-old on that particular morning.
From $13✓ Verified by phone · Sep 2026
Toddler areaNo food on siteSocks requiredHosts parties✓ Sensory hours
People typically spend 45 min to 2 hr here
Busiest Saturday 3pm-6pm; quiet until 9am; weekends run about 2.21x weekday levels.
Opinions here split cleanly on one thing: the remodel. Parents who liked the old layout say the new structure is too big to keep eyes on a small child in, and one who had been coming since her daughter was ten months old says it no longer works for the under-threes. Others simply say they love the new layout. Both camps are describing the same building, so the honest read is that it got taller and better for climbers and worse for toddlers.
It is run by the city, which shows in the pricing: a few dollars a child and nothing at all for adults, with resident and non-resident rates on the party rooms. That puts it at the cheap end of the published admissions here, and makes it an easy way to fill a winter afternoon.
Two things to expect. The rules are enforced firmly — shoes off for adults, water only in the play area, shoe covers if you need them — which some visitors found excessive and others found reassuring. And the toddler area is not policed against bigger children, which is the most common complaint after the remodel.
Indoor PlaygroundArcadeFamily Entertainment Center
Chuck E. Cheese – Woodbury
★ 4.1(1311)·Woodbury, MN·17.6 mi
Almost every complaint here traces back to staffing. Reviewers describe fifty minutes for a food order that arrived cold, a prize counter with nobody behind it at closing, and a regular who put it plainly: the staff are friendly, but there are never enough of them. That reviewer does note it improved when the weekday management changed.
That matters more than it normally would, because this branch runs a Sensory Sunday morning and a session like that only works if somebody is on the door. One family arrived at five past nine for it and found the doors locked. They waited with staff visible through the glass, tried the door repeatedly, and left at half past with their daughter in tears. The session is on the calendar here, but catering to sensory needs is plainly not what the place is built around, and that morning is what the gap between the two looks like. If you are coming for it, call ahead the same day.
Beyond the arcade the branch has trampolines and an American Ninja Warrior-style course — more of a play floor than most of the chain runs, and the reason it belongs on this page at all. It is spacious and well lit, and a weekday visit is a different proposition: weekends run close to three times busier.
Café on siteSocks requiredAges 1–12Hosts parties✓ Sensory hours
People typically spend 1-2.5 hours here
Busiest Saturday 1pm-6pm; weekends run about 2.82x weekday levels.
The clock is the thing to watch. Two reviewers, five days apart, describe the same problem: a staff member counting children out of the slides before their session had actually ended, in one case telling a parent to leave forty minutes into a ninety-minute ticket. Both went out of their way to say the slides themselves were excellent. Note your start time and keep the receipt.
Otherwise this branch reads well. Ninety minutes turns out to be the right length — a family with a six-year-old and a fifteen-year-old found both entertained and neither bored — adults can slide too, and the Tuesday two-for-one makes it noticeably more affordable.
The gripes are consistent with the chain: concession prices that draw comment, seating that is mostly reserved for parties so there is little left for adults who just came to watch, and tables that a frequent visitor found dirty on four visits running. There is a monthly pass, which is how the regulars use it.
