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Up early for a trip to
Bubble Planet, which disappointingly turned out not only to be in our solar system, but on earth and not so much a planet as a big warehouse full of interactive rooms.
It's in a fairly desolate part of Wembley, but a thriving side business of charging for parking spaces has built up around it with lots of hand made signs saying "Parking £10". A nice man showed us to one of the spaces, outside a closed cafe. It wasn't entirely clear if he had permission to use these spaces or if we would come back to find we'd got a ticket, but we took the chance. And good luck to the guy. There looked like there were only about 8 available spaces and even allowing for the fact that people will probably only park for an hour or two, he's not likely to make more than £200 for hanging around here all day.
We got to the Planet early and had to wait in the gift shop area. I was slightly worried from this that we might have chanced across a Willy Wonka's Chocolate World style experience. There was a small ball pit and a sparse gift shop area, which seemed to be selling quite poor merchandise that said "Bubble World" instead of Bubble Planet. There was a counter selling weird canned drinks and a machine that made fancy candy floss at £7 a pop that wasn't on yet. I think business is doing OK as it's pretty expensive and there was a steady stream of customers and enough business to create a piggy-backing parking business, but if I was in charge of this place I'd definitely revamp this part of the cash cow. Utilise the space, bring in more bubble based stuff to buy and less crappy t shirts from a different business and definitely put in a cafe selling expensive coffee. There was nothing else around and I think that they'd sell a hot drink to every adult who comes through the door, certainly at 9.30am when we arrived.
The experience is not going to feature in any news articles though. There weren't as many bubbles as I think there should have been, but there was loads of fun stuff to do and though some of the rooms were a bit boring, there were enough things to do to keep everyone occupied for 90 minutes. The best bit was a ball pit the size of a swimming pool. It was only about three feet deep, but you could lie back and let the kids bury you in balls. I felt pretty happy under there and thought about having a little sleep. Any activity like this that has places to lie down is very welcome for a parent. Like Dustin Hoffman in the pool in The Graduate I thought about just staying under the balls and never coming out. I was happy here. The only danger was that some other family would fall or step on you, but it was peaceful and relatively safe and I could have stayed there forever. Or at least until I had had a proper sleep.
I could probably make a living in that weird underworld gathering coins and jewellery and car keys that had fallen off unsuspecting adults.
I got some great pictures of the kids inside giant bubbles, one capturing the moment that Phoebe's popped.
The kids ended up getting a £7 candy floss each. Watching it being made was part of the experience, but I wondered how my grandad would feel if he saw this. Even allowing for inflation that's an insane amount of money. If someone had told me this morning that I'd pay £7 for a candyfloss I'd have told them they were mad.
We were done in time to get back to Welwyn Garden City for lunch. I finally got a coffee and dreamed of living in a ball pit.
