Do not book for birthday parties
Do not book for birthday parties: They offer rubbish value for money. Go to Jam Jam or Air Hop.
I recently held my son's 4th birthday party at this venue. Below are the issues we experienced - when I shared this with the management afterwards, their response was that all of the below was entirely intended and a fixed part of how they run birthday parties at Red Kangaroo - including their decision not to provide heated party rooms in mid January. Terrible attitude to customer service given how much they charge- definitely avoid and spend your money elsewhere. I should have booked at Jam Jam boomerang, where we've attended many good birthday parties, or Air Hop, which other parents told me provides better party service. Here's an outline of what happened to us:
No heating in party rooms: Upon being shown the party room, it was freezing cold and I asked that a heater be turned on. I was informed by the staff on site that it would not be possible to heat the room out of 'health and safety' reasons. This is because, according to one staff member, the heaters had the fuses removed after a child was burned badly by touching one of the radiators at a previous party. It has now been confirmed by management that a child was badly burned at their facility so they have removed heating from the party rooms and will not offer any discount for this for winter parties. Needless to say, in the year 2026, it is completely feasible to provide heating to a room in the middle of winter without creating the risk of burning a child, but Red Kangaroo doesn't seem to be able to figure this out.
Overall process and management of the party: It is clear they don't have proper training and procedures for providing a party service, and that overall there is a clear culture of not providing a high quality service at this facility. Examples:
- They make you buy additional socks for any adults who want to stand near the trampoline area and supervise their children, even if the adults are not jumping. This information should have been conveyed in advance and, ideally, worked into the price of the overall party, but was not.
As a result, I had parents coming to me saying that staff were trying to escort them off the premises and they would need to go purchase socks. My own husband was asked twice by staff to leave and was told he could not stay with our son, who, as a result, became extremely distraught and remained so for the rest of the time, ruining his party experience.
- Hotdogs and crisps were provided in large plates and had to be handed out manually by parents (at all other party venues, e.g. Jam jam boomerang or air hop, the party providers plate each child's lunch plate individually).
- The amount of food provided for each child was also extremely poor, given the price of 24 GBP per person.
-No condiments were originally provided - I had to ask our party host to go fetch some ketchup, and when she came back, she had brought back a bottle that was almost empty. I had to ask her to go fetch some more immediately, when really this should have been common sense.
- They do not provide cutlery and ask that you bring your own! No cutlery provided for children to eat cake and they were supposed to eat it with their hands.
- The handling of the birthday cake was, quite frankly, jaw droppingly bad. It took 15 min between singing happy birthday and our host being able to find plates to serve out a *pre-cut* cake (and still without cutlery, mind you!).
-In the room provided, there were no chairs provided for the adults to sit. Everyone just stood around in their coats, cold from the lack of heat.
As I say, terrible overall experience, and this venue clearly doesn't know how to provide a party service right now. When I contacted management, they simply defended all of the above decisions, including their decision not to offer heated party rooms. So it's clearly very bad by design, and not an accident or one-off.
