Kids Empire Mesa

About

One ticket covers the whole day, and you can walk out and come back on it. In a Mesa summer that is worth more than any single attraction, and families describe using it exactly that way — play, leave to eat somewhere of their choosing, return for the afternoon. The air conditioning earns its own line in review after review, usually from someone who has just come in off a 108-degree street.

The structure is a tall multi-level maze with mesh sides, so a parent can track a child across the whole thing from a seat, which is the detail mentioned most often after the cleanliness. Half a dozen reviewers reach for the word clean, several noting how unlikely that seems given the number of children going through. The slides are steeper than they look — one visitor calls them near-vertical and another thought the tallest could use more padding where it lands — so a cautious child should watch one before committing. It suits ones to about twelves, with a separate toddler zone of mini slides and soft blocks for the smallest, and two adults come in free with each child.