Wannabees Family Play Town

Wannabes is a themed indoor play center, it’s dedicated to letting children’s imaginations run wild.

The kids can pretend to be on TV with a proper green screen, put out a fire dressed as a fireman, deliver post to the entire town, run the pizzeria or look after the animals in the vet.

On our last visit, my daughter went with nail painting in the mini salon, dress up, shopping at the supermarket and a fashion show. Shen then ended off her morning with an arts and crafts activity with the lovely Flora.

My daughter bestowed the ultimate accolade on it: “I want to have my birthday party here”. Never have these words been uttered at another venue.

Wannabees Family Play Town

Wannabees Family Play Town is based on imagination but its better than any situation you could ever create at home. There is a whole City where the kids can run around and pretend to be adults.

Best of all are the accoutrements in each of the play areas! The fire house has a fireman’s pole and around the corner there are proper water hoses to put the fire out. I’ve already mentioned the green screen in the TV studio, but man, is it cool! I even got stuck into that. In the super market, the kids can actually push little trolleys around and pick items off the shelf.

Unlike most of the other big play centres, you don’t pay per hour. You pay once and then you can play and play and play. You can come and go and you’re covered. There are so many different experiences that the kids can have in one centre, you will most definitely be there for 2 hours or more.

There is so much value for your money!

The kids can go to the rooms and play in each room of their own accord or you can join the daily tour. Outside of the tour and the rooms, the kids can dance and play on the stage or join in an arts and crafts session.

Occasionally, there are also special events – disco’s, guest visitor and school holiday programs. You can find out more about that on the whats on part of their website.

Where is Wannabees Family Play Town

There are two locations: French’s Forest and Hornsby.

French’s Forest is the slightly bigger of the two. It’s located in Capital Business Park and the official address is C1/1-3 Rodborough Rd, Frenchs Forest. You’ll find that there is parking on site.

The Hornsby Location is located inside the Westfield. The official address is Shop 2042, 236 Pacific Hwy (Westfield Shopping Centre), Hornsby, NSW, 2077.

This post is predominately about the Wannabees Family Play Town in Westfield Hornsby.

Where exactly is Wannabees in Hornsby

If you don’t know the mall you may struggle to find it so I’m going to tell you the easiest way to get there! Just follow the instructions closely and you’ll have no problem!!

The easiest and most direct way to access by car Wannabees is via the Burdett Street Carpark. Drive in the left lane into the car park – don’t go up the ramp on the right.

Once inside you’ll start at the purple level, keep winding up until you get to the yellow levels.

Level 2 is where you want to be but the end of that level.

Each computer level has different sections with different letters. Go past A, B (that’s on the opposite side to A) and C all the way until you get to the row that has E and F on either side.

If you park there you will walk straight into the mall entrance that has Wannabees on the left.

Wannabees Family Play Town Features

The whole play town is centered around the different play rooms. Whatever your child is into, there should be a room for them. If they’re still a little bit little, there is a soft play room for the under 4s.

My son has always loved the construction room and the fire station. I have a feeling he would have also loved the Pizzeria and bossing people around in the Supermarket.

My little one headed straight for the vet first, before she discovered the salon and the fashion shop, pictured below.

Themed Rooms

Construction Site – remember your hard hat while you create a new house.
Fashion Shop – there are cupboards with dress up outfits for girls and boys. This leads up onto the stage so you can pop up and put on a performance once you’re dressed up.
Fire Station – dress up as a fireman, get down the pole and race through the City to get to the house that has a fire. Just make sure you don’t get wet from the real life water hoses.
Hair & Beauty Salon – my daughter got her nails painted for the first time and was delighted.
Hospital – this is such a sweet little area for those carers in the family. Or maybe for an aspiring Doc McStuffins.
Pizzeria – make the pizza and serve it up or be a customer, the choice is yours.

Police Department – join the line up (its so cute) or dress up as the policeman.
Post Office – you can post the letters in the Post Office or you can deliver them all around the City.
Radio Station – we were a bit too little to do this one so I would love to know if you’ve done it and what it’s like.
Supermarket – be a shopper and choice your groceries or man the register. And there are real life shopping registers.
TV Studio – there is a great video that is put on the screen, you then stand in front of the green screen and get projected onto the screen in front of you.
Vet – care for the little animals, give them an X-ray and put them to bed.

We had a fashion show, followed by a dance on the stage to frozen. Then we got to play some games – seista and dancing statutes.

The ladies looking after the kids and playing the games with them are fantastic. They’re so engaging, remembering everyone’s name, plaiting hair and painting nails.

The Guided tour

Every hour, every day at Wannabes Family Play Town there is a tour of the facilities. Meeting in the middle you then get taken around each of the rooms so that you can get the most out of your experience.

It is during these tours that you get to put out the fire, watch yourself on tv and try the radio studio.

The tours run on an hour loop and the first tour starts at 10:15. I would aim to be there for this so that you can tag along and get to see how everything works.

Monthly Activities

When we visited my littlest got to make a lovely handbag (thanks to some very clever paper plate cutting). This was just the activity that was scheduled for that day. Every day there is something new that is going on.

For the month of August, there was:

A teddy bear’s picnic on 9 August;
Mini Games on 13 August and
Fun with food on 23 August.

We will definitely be back on another day to try a different activity.

Drop and Shop – Woohoo!

There is a drop and shop option – how awesome. Imagine going to a Westfield and actually being able to buy something without a child hanging on your leg or throwing a tantrum. I think after you’ve visited once and your children are comfortable with the lovely ladies there then you should be fine to go back again and again and leave your children with them.

They are so competent, attentive and creative. One minute they’re directing the fashion show, the next they’re at the supermarket register.

But just note that this option is only available between 10:30am and 4:30pm daily. I’ve set the prices out below but for drop and shop the prices are:

1 Hour: AU$25.00 (Siblings AU$15)
2 Hour: AU$30.00 (Siblings AU$20).

Wannabees Family Play Town Facilities

Accessibility

The whole area is flat so pram access and wheelchair access is perfectly fine. The only area which you child may want to get to which would be difficult is the stage. However, there is a ramp through the back of the fashion shop, I am just not sure how wide it is.

Wifi

There is free wifi! Need I say more. You can sit, have a coffee, read the paper or just catch up on all your emails while your children play.

Café

For those of us in need of coffee when in the company of our children there is a cafe on site. Thank goodness! You can either order through a window in the play area and stay with the kids or you can go sit in front of Wannabees in the cafe.

The food on the menu is really diverse, you can get a noodle dish or a salad or

The cafe serves the usual suspects for kids – chicken burgers, hot dogs and fish and chips. The healthier option on the kids menu is the snack pack which is a sandwich, a fruit and either a juice or a water.

My daughter had the chicken nugget meal which was a huge serving and a juice for $10. Thats really good value in the Sydney market.

Bathrooms

There are great bathrooms kitted out with a little loo and sink for the little ones. The ladies bathroom also has a change table for the nappy changing.

Just to make sure dad’s are stuck – there are nappy changing facilities in their bathrooms as well.

Opening Hours and Tickets

Both venues are open 7 days a week but only mornings through to 2pm.

The ticket prices are the same for the two locations. Remember all the pictures in this post relates to the Hornsby location.

French’s Forest

Opening Hours

Monday – Friday: 9:30 am – 2:00 pm; and
Saturday and Sunday: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm.

Hornsby

Opening Hours

Monday – Friday: 9:30 am – 2:00 pm; and
Saturday: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Sunday: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm.

Both locations are closed on public holidays.

Tickets

(Children up to 12 months are free of charge).

Weekdays (during school term)
- All kids are $15.00.
- Parents and carers are $5.00 which includes a coffee voucher.
- Seniors are free.

Weekends and school holidays
- Kids 1 to 2 years old are $15.00.
- Kids 3 to 10 years old are $20.00 but remember this is for all day long!
- Parents and carers are $5.00 which includes a coffee voucher.
- Seniors are free.

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For more information you can visit the Wannabees website. We hope you’ll have as much fun as we did.

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So you know, this is a sponsored post.

We were invited to check out Wannabees Family Town but we were just planning to pop in and take some pics, meet some of the people and get a sense of how the other children where enjoying their experience. Instead we landed up spending hours and hours playing.

Thank you Wannabees for inviting us!