Generally speaking, soft play centres are heaven for kids and hell for parents. While the tots run wild the parents have to try and relax in a brightly-lit, often-uncomfortable dining area where time seems to stand still.
It’s an endurance test as it is, so you can imagine getting a $60 AUD (£29) bill for a kid’s meal would push many people past the end of their patience.
That was one Australian mum’s experience when she took her kids to Adventure Land in Darwin, Australia.
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The centre doesn’t allow ‘outside food and drink’ beyond baby food and water bottles, but its café does ensure it only uses ‘fresh products’.
Cost-wise, that freshness doesn’t come cheap: the mum was charged $63.40 AUD (£30.59) for a chicken parmi, 12 nuggets, a portion of chips, some gravy and two drinks, leaving her ‘not impressed’.
The big ticket items were the chicken parmi at $21.90 (£10.56) and the 12 nuggets at $16.90 (£8.15).
Posting a photo of the meal and receipt, she said: “[I] will probably just be cooking from home now on and taking it with us, it’s getting insanely expensive."
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Plenty of other parents were similarly stunned by the charge.
“Yep, normal, we don’t eat there for obvious reasons,” said one who reckons it’s par for the course at a kids’ play centre.
Another suggested: “Wow! Go to the pub with a playground, hell of a lot cheaper.”
Some others agreed they ‘refuse to go there with those prices’.
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An Adventure Land spokesperson came to the brand’s defence, citing cost pressures the business was facing and the need to reflect the challenges in their pricing strategy.
“The real story should be how businesses are meant to survive with price increases and then be subject to slander over it,” they told news.com.au.
Amanda Heath, director of the play centre in question, added: “This mum purchased a variety of products including large slushie, large 600ml coke, large water, large chips, 12 nuggets, gravy and a parmigiana meal.
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“I would like to point out our parmigiana is cheaper than any other tavern/establishment around us by at least $8.”
To be fair, that does sound like a lot of grub. At the equivalent of £30, maybe it wasn’t the nastiest mark-up in the world.
Heath added that the centre’s chips and gravy are 'cheaper by $4' while the drinks are 'the same as the rest of the eatery and monitored by Coke'.
“Our menu is at industry standard with kids meal options from $11 making it affordable for everyone," she concluded.
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It seems, however, that Darwin's Adventure Land is now permanently closed.
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Rachael Davis