Ad disclosure: We were invited along to Rush UK for the purpose of this post.
The girls spent an hour and a half enjoying bouncing, swinging, and somersaulting to their hearts content earlier today at Rush UK Birmingham, which reopened this weekend with “Covid Secure” measures in place. We were asked to come along and check out what they are doing to keep their visitors and staff safe, and enjoy what the trampoline park has to offer.
Georgie and Lydia had a fantastic time jumping around and enjoying the different activities Rush has to offer. They jumped into the foam pits countless times, bounced down the tumble lanes, jumped around the main court, shot some hoops in the basketball area, swung off the trapeze, and went head to head on the battle beam.
Covid Secure Measures
Rush have written The Rush Pledge which outlines what they promise to the customer, and what the customer promises to Rush. This covers their safety measures and what rules the customer has to follow in order to bounce.
In order to bounce at the park, you have to sign a new waiver promising to follow the new guidelines, which cover social distancing, new age restrictions, and obviously committing to stay away if you have any Covid-19 symptoms.
On their side of things, they’ve made a lot of changes to the layout of the ‘lobby’ area of the park, and have bounce sessions of 1 hr 30 mins with half an hour deep cleaning in between sessions. They’ve reduced the capacity of the park to ensure visitors can safely social distance, and have also made changes to the book in and safety video process.
Before arriving at the park, we watched their new ‘at home’ safety video, signed fresh waivers, and checked into our session online. This was a pretty simple process, though I think it could be made a little more user friendly.
Upon arriving at the park, we were able to go through the new one way layout check in quickly to pick up our socks and wait in the lobby area for our session to start. You can also check in using their new ‘drive thru’ check in system – we were over half an hour early so were already parked up when it opened up for our session, but we saw cars being directed from the entrance gates to the area they have set up for people to check in and pick up their socks from the comfort & safety of their cars.
For people walking to Rush, or those like us that missed the drive thru, they had a small check in desk where the party waiting area used to be. Stickers on the floor in the queue for this and all over the lobby waiting area helped families to stay safely apart from one another, and happily people were being pretty well behaved while we waited to start our session.
Lockers have been moved to the main area of the park, and are free to use so you have somewhere to stash your shoes. Most of the other visitors were careful to observe social distancing and follow the new ‘customer pledge’ throughout our sessions which was good to see – there were of course the occasional ‘covidiots’ who didn’t bother, but you get those everywhere.
One of the new age restrictions is that under 8s must have an adult supervising them at all times, which meant James and I had to take turns, once we had drinks and a table at the cafe, to watch Lydia. Although she is pretty responsible and mindful of her distancing we wanted to make sure we stuck to the rules, as we had promised.
Unfortunately there were one or two young kids running around while their parents were in the cafe out of sight, but it is a tough one for staff to enforce, as it’s hard to be sure what age children are. I think Rush should consider having an alternative wristband for this age bracket so that it is obvious to the staff monitoring the main floor which children should be accompanied by an adult.
The staff were really helpful; answering questions and keeping an eye on all the adults and children enjoying the facilities. We saw them intervene when needed, when people weren’t following safety guidelines, and administer first aid (in PPE) when required.
As far as cleanliness goes, we saw staff clean frequently touched areas throughout the session – both in the cafe area and within the activity areas. The trapeze and foam battle beams were wiped down frequently between and during play.
There were plenty of hand sanitisers around the park to use, including at the bottom of the stairs to the cafe area. Bouncers are encouraged to use it regularly throughout their visit.
The unisex bathroom is limited to two people at a time, with two of the cubicles and two sinks taped off to ensure distancing.
In the cafe, the staff are using PPE and perspex screens, and they are encouraging customers to order from their tables using a really easy QR code ‘scan to order’ system. I tried to do this but they didn’t have the slushies on the order page so I had to go up to the counter to get the girls their promised slush puppies!
Overall we had a good experience and there were a lot of measures in place to help us feel comfortable and safe while we were there. The girls were able to keep their distance from other bouncers fairly easily, and it didn’t make me feel too anxious at any point.
Lydia definitely gave our afternoon out a big thumbs up. Both girls collapsed at the end of the session onto the cafe seating and pronounced themselves tired, sweaty, and happy! It had the side effect of wearing them out thoroughly, so they were happy to chill out at home for the rest of the day.
