Good Points: No-touch auto slide door. Good signage throughout the centre. Male symbol included on the Parents Room door sticker – nice to see dads recognised. Large colourful play area. Four change bays spread across two benches. Sink and soap dispenser in the middle of each change bench. Disposable change mats. Central relaxation zone with armchairs and television. Separate food prep bench with sink, soap, microwave and paper towel. Adult and child size toilets, with toilet paper units for each. Locking doors on 2 private feeding cubicles.
Bad Points: No toys or play panels in the play area. Giant stinky nappy disposal bin (yuk!!). Unhygienic hand dryer in the toilet. Ridiculously small private feeding cubicles (cannot close doors because you can’t fit a pram inside!).
This is the best of all the parent rooms on offer at Castle Towers. It’s on the top floor of the shopping centre, up the ‘paris end’ (ie where the higher-end stores are located). So it’s reasonable to expect this would be the best facility. It’s still not the best we’ve seen of all parent rooms and shopping centres, but for the Towers you just won’t find better.
What this place does well is telling you where to find the parent room. From the moment you get off the travelator, there are signs hanging from the ceiling directing you to the toilets and parent rooms. Just follow the signs and you’ll get there.
The door to the room is brilliant! It’s a no-touch automatic sliding door. It has a sensor of some sort that picks up when you’re at the door and it opens for you. Love it! No buttons to push or doors to jack open. Perfect for mums and dads with prams and no hands to spare.
The room has a big colourfully fenced play area where you can let older ones run about and burn off some steam. You might want to BYO toys, as there’s NOTHING in here to keep the kids entertained. No toys, no play panels.
One of the most important features for parents is the baby change benches. There are two benches with four nappy change bays spread among them. In the middle of each bench is a sink and soap dispenser, with disposable change mats found at the ends of the benches. Little touches like free change mats really can make your day. The nasty gigantic stinky nappy disposal bin against the far wall can kill that good feeling though. It’s just gross! It’d be awful to be the person who has to empty this thing. Even worse would be having to use this bin later in the afternoon after loads of nappies have been changed. I can onlt imagine how horrid the smell would be by then.
Another good feature is the food prep area. It’s separate from the nappy change benches (a big plus!!) and it has it’s own sink (even better!). The microwave is clean and working, and there’s paper towel on hand. Opposite the bench is a relaxation type zone. A few wipe-clean armchairs sit side by side, in perfect position to watch the television mounted high on the wall. This space would be great for feeding, as the allocated feeding cubicles are too small to fit a pram, and therefore you can’t close the door and have any privacy. So you may as well get comfy on one of the central armchairs and feed bubs. At least you’ll have a decent view of the tele.
Seriously though, the cubicles are ridiculously small! All that can fit inside is the armchair. Yes the doors do lock from the inside, but that’s pretty much useless as you can’t fit a pram in there anyway. Even on this visit, the mum feeding her baby in one of the cubicles chose to keep the door open and have the pram half in/half out, rather than close the door and keep the pram outside. I’d do the same thing. With all the space in this parent room, surely more space could be given to decent size private feeding cubicles. The Towers does so well with many other aspects of the parent rooms, but across the board the feeding cubicles are completely impractical.
Which is your favourite of the parent rooms at Castle Towers? My next mission is to find the praised parent room in David Jones. I STILL cannot find the thing, despite wandering about for a few laps following marked signs that turn up nothing. Maybe I need to do a Narnia and look behind the coats at the back of the cupboard.