Kids Empire Tampa Citrus Park

About

Ask about the punchcard before you pay at the door. Ten admissions, no expiry date, and — the unusual part — not tied to a named child, so two households can split one and nobody loses value by staying away for a few months. Ordinary admission is generous in its own way: one ticket runs from opening to closing, and you can leave for lunch and come back the same day as long as you tell the desk on your way out.

Inside it is a climbing maze on several levels — jungle-gym passages to crawl through, slides that wind rather than drop, ball pits to land in and a lit dance floor in the middle of it. Ones to threes get a walled-off zone with mini slides, soft building blocks and a smaller pit of their own. Admission is sold to anyone from one to seventeen, which says more about the till than about the equipment; the build is aimed squarely at the younger half of that.

Three rules catch people out. Socks are compulsory for everybody, adults included, and are sold at the desk if you forget. Outside food and drink stay outside on general admission, cake included, though a booked party runs on a different set of rules — settle which set applies to you before you plan anything around candles. And there is no party room here: celebrations sit at reserved tables on the play floor while everyone else plays around them. Sunday lunchtime is this branch's own busiest stretch.