Rainbow Town Play Centre – Glen Waverley – the most popular kids play centre in the area

Located just off Waverley Road in Glen Waverley, Rainbow Town Play Centre is probably the most or one of the most popular kids play centres around the area. The outside of the venue looks an old and dilapidated factory with a three colour stripe, but the interior of the play centre has had a lot of refurbishments and looks pretty colourful, fun, and exiting. The space is big with a huge play area and a downtime area with lots of chairs and tables, plus an excellent café and restaurant.

We booked the play centre for a party. The experience of having a party at the centre was great, though you do feel a bit rushed given you only have access to the party room for probably no more than 2 hours. We opted for the Ruby Package where each kid was priced at $42,50 with food and access to the centre. The pack required a minimum of 8 children and included three kids dishes such as chicken nuggets, prawn twisters, samosas (vegetarian), chips, fairy bread, etc, plus 3x jugs of juice (the centre will choose between apple and orange juices) and an in-season fruit platter.

Outside Rainbow Town Play Centre is an unattractive factory, but looks can be deceiving.

Highlights	Probably the best play centre in Melbourne’s south east. It’s packed with people on weekends thanks to it being a very popular birthday party destination. The play area is large, exciting with a ball pit, large slide, many obstacle courses, ridable vehicles, and trampoline area. There is even rock climbing and a bumper car area.
Cost	$34.80 per children to access the play area and trampoline
Location	49/55 Myrtle Street, Glen Waverley VIC 3150
Website	https://www.rainbowtownonline.com.au/

The only way to get to Rainbow Play Centre is by driving. It is just off Waverley Road and you can spot it if you see the black building hosting a restaurant called The Roe Australia. Parking on site can be difficult even though they have two parking lots. We have had to resort to parking in the streets a number of times, because both lots were full.

Having a party at Rainbow Town Play Centre

In regard to positives and negatives of having a party, the positives was that bookings can be made via the website and there is sufficient information about what is included in the packages. There is a confirmation email that is sent before the date to confirm the attendees, the selection of food for the kids, and any extra food orders. The other plus is that you can order from the normal menu. The communication is good and as long as you are clear about the numbers, the names of attendees, what you want and don’t want, the venue will cater for you. Attendees can just rock up and be let in without a hassle and can enter as soon as the centre opens.

Another positive is the value that you get, for $42.50 for each child you get access to the play centre, which is already $34.80, and you get three kids plates plus juice and a fruit platter and a room hire. All adults that visit are free as well, so adults to the party with no kids can come too. And, the food is excellent and worth ordering more to appease all the kids and adults.

This shows the down time area with claw machines and the entrance to the play area

The negatives are that the online booking isn’t foolproof and has things that are missing from the menu. For example, when selecting the food for the package, you couldn’t select things like Party Pies. This can be corrected when the team send you the confirmation email, but it was a tad annoying. Also, bookings could only be made a month and a bit in advance, but no earlier.

Before booking, we had scouted the venue ahead of time seeing all that they had to offer including all the rooms and options. We opted for room 8 with the unicorn walls and slightly bigger space and a 1 PM session.

On the day, there was an earlier party session at 10:00 AM. They provided us the room at 12:30 PM and we had only 1 and half hours. They kicked us out shortly after 2:30 PM for another party session at 3:00 PM. Throughout the whole day, all the rooms were booked out. But at least, they reserved a smaller table outside the party rooms for you and your party to use before and after use of the room. When we were kicked out, we had to move all extra food and drinks, plus belongings to another reserved table outside the room.

On our first visit, we were mightily impressed with the quality of the food. It’s a Chinese run establishment that happens to do fish and chips and a bunch of Asian dishes like Fried Rice, Fried Noodles, Noodle Soups, Plated Meals. All the food we experienced was really good, so for the day of the party we ordered their meals. We opted for Fried Rice with Chicken, Fried Noodles with Beef, A Whole Smoked Chicken and Chicken Ribs (from their normal menu) and Vegetarian Fried Rice (from their normal menu).

On the day, the room was set up for us. But it was quite busy and the food came out in a slow, staggered manner. Initially we were a bit worried when only the fruit platter and Smoked Chicken came out first, because everyone was quite ravenous and the small number of dishes made it seem like we didn’t order enough. But fortunately as the food came, we sighed a relief as the dished looked decent and were a good size for a party. However, we did have to ask for cutlery and cups and water a few times before we resorted to sourcing (or pilfering) water jugs and cups for us to use.

If there were any issues, there is a button in the room to call servers. But it’s not an option when they are super busy. And they seem to be well staffed, but the number of people at the centre makes it difficult.

Once we paid for the party, the birthday person was given a gift voucher to visit the centre again for free during one of the weekdays – which was neat.

The play area

The down time area has a bunch of UFO catchers with a decently high success rate. Here, people can sit down to recuperate or order food or drinks (including coffee and bubble tea) at the counter or order via the QR code on the tables.

The play area requires everyone to take off your shoes and there are plenty of shoe racks/shelves for people to use. Kids are all given grip mark socks to wear.

The play area itself consists of a jumping / trampoline area, rock climbing, ball pit, slides, baby section, and so many play equipment and options for the kids to enjoy. There is a lot offered at this venue that it feels like a dream for kids and parents too (since kids will no doubt have a fantastic time, allowing parents to recuperate with a nice coffee and/or meal). For an extra fee, there is a cool bumper car area.

Some of the activities like the giant slide and rock climbing have people on site to assist and guide kids.

Otherwise you can expect a lot of craziness in the play area with lots of kids running around, things being thrown, and lots of excitement.

Overall Rainbow Town Play Centre is an incredible place to visit with kids or to have a party. It’s offers a huge play area, excellent food, and great value.

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