The Playroom

About

Start with the opening hours, because they rule out most families before anything else does. Open play runs on weekday mornings into the early afternoon, there is none at weekends at all, and the room closes completely between Memorial Day and Labor Day. If you work Monday to Friday this is simply not available to you, and that deserves saying before anything good about it.

What it is, though, is a real indoor playground and not the spare corner of a sports centre you might assume from the address. It sits inside Naperville Yard and runs to three distinct areas: a small field holding four large inflatables with toys for younger children, an open turf area where older ones can run and play sports, and a multi-storey play tower with a two-storey slide and a glide rail. Socks are required throughout and an adult has to stay with the child.

Almost nobody has written about it, so there is no accumulated word of mouth to weigh against that. Admission is at the low end for the town, which makes finding out cheap. For a parent at home with a preschooler on a weekday morning, it is one of the easiest ways in Naperville to wear one out.