Weather cloudy? Or just your mood? Take the kids to Party Palace in the Aviation Mall, Queensbury, NY. Party Palace has all the right stuff. Convenient hours, location and fun stuff for the kids to do. When there’s nothing else to do, there’s always the Party Palace.
Convenience
When you have kids, the mall isn’t just for shopping, it’s for something to do. Walking around with kids in stores can be hazardous however, because they inevitably want to buy something. This kind of activity can throw a wrench not only in your budget but in your efforts to teach kids about impulse control.
Instead, Aviation Mall in Queensbury, NY offers up the Party Palace, a place where kids can indulge their impulses, wear off their boundless stores of energy and embrace other kids of all ages.
Minutes from the thruway or just off of Route 9, the Aviation Mall is easy to find and easy to drive with its own entrances and exits. Park anywhere in between Sears and Target and it’ll be only a short walk inside to find the Party Palace.
The Party Palace hours coincide with the Aviation Mall hours and are from 9:30 am to 9pm on weekdays and 11:30am to 6pm on Sunday.
Insider Secret: Almost deserted during the weekdays, your best bet to find kids playing at the Party Palace is in between mealtimes. Sparsely populated any time during the week, the Party Palace clears out for lunch time and around 3 pm when the older kids are getting home from school and the younger kids are having play overload meltdowns. A few kids are usually always milling around the Party Palace no matter what time you go, but if you want to have a lot of other kids around, aim for a Saturday during the winter. There are birthday parties in motion and weather outside that encourages indoor play.
Stuff to Do
A flat rate of around $10 will allow your kid to an unlimited amount of bounce and playground time. If they want to play mini-golf or ride on the small train, you’ll pay a few dollars more.
With a wide selection of impressive bounce houses, there’s always a place for the kids to younger kids to bounce without getting pushed around by the bigger kids. Any parent who has paid up to $5 for a 5 minute bounce at a fair or other activity bounce house, only to have their kids quickly exit with fearful faces because of being bulldozed by the bigger kids will be able to appreciate the price and selection of bounce houses at Party Palace. The selection of bounce houses includes a double slide, a boxing ring, a princess house and a running ring. There is a special toddler bounce house for even the smallest kids, where they can safely bounce without having to worry about getting banged around by the bigger kids.
Kids run from one bounce house to another. Trying out the physical differences and meeting the kids at each different house. They tend to gravitate toward a certain area, but your paid admission allows the kids to enjoy each bounce house as little or as much as they want. Also included is an inflatable baseball game and inflatable king and queen thrones gives kids a place where they will feel special, and allow them to focus their energies for a moment. Also included with the bounce houses is a basketball area that the bigger kids enjoy but which is just too high up for the little kids.
Insider Secret: Kids are given colored bracelets with their paid admission that indicates which areas of the Party Palace they are allowed to play in. Play areas can be upgraded at any time, so if you’ve only paid for the bounce houses and your kid finds another kid that wants to play on the playground, upgrading is easy. The staff at the Party Palace is very easy going and often allows kids to play in the extra play areas without charging extra. It’s always a good idea to offer to pay if your kid wants to take a train ride, for instance, and you didn’t pay up front, to avoid any awkward knowing glances from the other parents because it really depends on who’s working and how many other kids are there.
Best Bet: Combined Bounce House & Playground Admission
Paying for the use of the playground is also a good idea when visiting the Party Palace in Queensbury. The playground allows for a break from the bouncing and a place for bonding between the kids. It’s climbing ropes and three slides give kids the continued physical activity and its towers and tubes gives them a place to hide and share secrets. Although the playground is a little too challenging for most 2 year olds, by the time they’re 3 years old, kids can play unimpeded. If they do have a problem getting their footing, more times than not another kid will help them out. Witnessing how well most of the kids play together gives a spring to the heart and a joy that is unquestionable.
Insider Secret: How to avoid Disappointment at Mini-Golf and Arcade Areas
As good as the bounce houses and playground areas are, the mini-golf and arcade areas of the Party Palace are disappointing. The mini-gold area is dingy and neglected. Working against the mini-golf is that it doesn’t have much in the way of obstacles, it has a crammed-together, confusing layout and it is a calm game located in the middle of the bounce house ciaos.
Kids often start out wanting to play mini golf, and if there’s not much going on, they might get a few holes in, but this area is often quickly abandoned for the activity in the other areas. There is a good selection of club sizes and lots of balls available, so if you want to experiment with how your kids like mini-golf without making it the whole focus of your day, you could do worse than the couple dollars spent on it at the Party Palace.
The other area of the Party Palace that should be used with caution is the arcade. On the plus side, many of the arcade games only take a quarter or two and do provide a few minutes of entertainment and do award a lot of tickets to the winners.
Caution: That is, if the arcade game still has tickets in it. The arcade games often run out of tickets and the often go a long time without being restocked. Player beware also of the number of tickets it’s going to take to win any of the prizes. These prizes are destined for the junk drawer, so if the prize is the goal, take a look at them first and plan out if they are worth it. Saving tickets from various trips to the arcade is going to award you a much better prize but is a hard sell to the kids who want an instant reward.
Insider Secret: The Guaranteed Prize:
A better bet for the kid that wants a little arcade prize is to feed a quarter into the dump truck machine, located away from the main arcade area. There is no skill involved in this arcade game, but the kids are awarded with watching their prize, often a plastic ring or colorful bouncy ball, fall down into the truck and the truck driving it over to the retrieval slot. The best combination of play and prize is found at this arcade game.
Best Bets in the Arcade Area: If you’ve decided against trying to win a prize and just want a fun game to play, your best bets at Party Palace are the Ske-ball, Table Hockey and Pool Table games.
Ske-ball gives you a lot of balls and a lot of tickets if you win (and if it’s stocked with tickets when you play) but is often too hard for the littlest kids. The hard Ske-balls go bouncing all over the place, and the plexi-glass protective guards on the game get a lot of use in the arcade area.
Table Hockey is only $1 per game. This game is one of the few games at the Party Palace that suitable for parents to play with their kids. The kids love the air table and seeing their score come up electronically. Just remind them to keep their fingers off of the goal areas to avoid getting pinched.
At $1 per game, the pool table is also fun for the bigger kids and is often the only game you’ll see adults competing against each other in.
Insider Secret: Look around in the arcade area for a small portable stool for the little kids to stand on. The stool really helps them reach and enjoy the arcade games a lot more.