Overall: Tiniest parent room ever!!! Funky stores, but a terrible place for anyone with children and a pram.
Good Points: A parent room. Elevator access. Bottle warmer. Sink with soap and water. Cute pictures on one of the walls. Nappy bins and paper towel dispenser. A single chair.
Bad Points: The room is too tiny for pretty much anything. Located on 3rd level. Elevator and escalator are narrow. A single, tiny flat bench barely big enough for a nappy bag. No food prep space. Too small for a pram. One uncomfortable plastic chair. Door chocked open with general rubbish bin. No change table or change bench.
This is probably the smallest, most inaccessible parent room I’ve ever seen. The Mandarin Centre has funky shops with cute and quirky gear for kids, but it is absolutely appalling when it comes to providing decent and useful parent room facilities.
The parent room is on Level 3. You won’t find one on Ground, Level 1 or 2. Nope, the only parent room I found is on Level 3. It’s not easy to get to this Level either, especially if you have a pram. There is an escalator and an elevator, but both are quite narrow. This is just the beginning of the difficulties.
The signs indicating a parent room offer such promise, but the end destination is a massive disappointment. The parent room door can be locked, but as the door had been chocked open by a big general rubbish bin, it looks like it’s meant to stay open. This is quite strange, and if anyone can enlighten me as to why this room is meant to have the door stay open, I’d love to know.
Actually, I think I’ve just realised why the door is kept open. It’s impossible to fit a pram in here with the door open let alone closed. The parent room is basically a tile broom cupboard – it’s that small!!! There is a teeny bench which has barely enough room for a nappy bag, let alone being able to change a baby on it (no chance at all). The sink is set into the bench, with a soap unit above it. On the opposite wall there is a paper towel unit, and all the bins are just underneath it. Apart from a single plastic chair taken from the food court, there is nothing in here to really help a parent look after the needs of their child at all. I don’t understand this. Why not at least have a fold out baby change table? That would be the least one could expect.
If you’re shopping with babies and intend on going to the Mandarin Centre, I’d say avoid it. Head to Westfield instead, at least for when you need to feed and change the little ones anyway.
