Gymboree Play and Music Programs

I came here for the free first class and tried the art one. My daughter loves art and I thought it would be a fun activity, especially during winter break. It was an hour class and parent participation which I didn’t think was entirely necessary for my 3 year old. The activities were free paint, circle time with song, snack time with story and 2 art projects that were very elementary. Everything was already cut and portioned out and I felt like my daughter was kind of rushed. The teacher was great and very friendly but this stuff I could’ve easily done at home with her. I would never pay the exorbitant prices for the class. Maybe the others are better?

I got a groupon to check out their classes for my 4 ½ yo. She is a mover and I was looking for some classes to where she gets movement, esp on those long chilly/​rainy days. They had a sports class which was what made me get the groupon. I found out that it was full and she could only try other classes. She tried the music class for 3weeks and and an arts class, said it was fun. The staff were professional and friendly. The open gym is free with membership, but has limited kinda funky timings. The first time she had been to open gym, it was ok and didn’t care the second time around. It is mostly great for little ones.
I would certainly recommend this to parents with infants to 4 yo. I liked that they would need it socks only in the gym, — with little kids crawling and tumbling around, I thought this was a great way to keep the place clean. It’s a tad pricey but their liberal make-​up class policy and no contract on the monthly renewals IMO makes up for it. Also if you don’t like to get a drink from the bathroom like me, I suggest to have a water bottle handy. IMO, it would suit them to have a drinking water fountain OUTSIDE the bathroom.

We’ve been coming to this Gymboree with our son since he was 3 months old. Now he’s almost a year and we’re still loving it. Gymboree offers a great environment for parents to play with their kids, chat with other parents, and make friends — both the parents and the kids. We really like the friendly staff here and coming to Gymboree is our highlight of the day. Yes, we go almost every day :)

There was some confusion about the free class trial and a Groupon that I had purchased. The website mentioned the free class trials, so I immediately signed the little one up for the music class. It started out well. There weren’t too many children in the class and their ages didn’t intimidate my little one, so it felt comfortable. We tried to educate the kids about rhythm, so there were activities where they sat in our lap and we rythmically moved to the beat and added some fun twists. The theme was Jazz, so the tunes were all jazzy. They were all done sitting and either playing an instrument or playing with a handkerchief. When one tune came on, my little one just had to get up, so all the kids ended up getting up and running around. The hour of the class became a concern when my little one seemed to lose steam halfway through (that’s his naptime), so while we liked the class, it wasn’t available at the right time of day.
We voiced our concern to the teacher and were informed we could take another free trial class they offered called Family Gym Play and Learn. It was basically kids playing in the open gym with a little structure and some group activities at the end of the class.
As we exited the class, I was approached by one of the employees who mentioned my Groupon and how I had now done the free class plus one other, so I could get 3 more classes with my Groupon. I was completely confused by that since the Groupon was for 4 weeks of classes and a month of Open Gym plus the free trials had nothing to do with my Groupon. It got sorted out, but that pressure did force me to sign my little one up for a class that I wasn’t quite ready to enroll in and, if I’m totally honest, left such a weird bad taste in my mouth that my expectations became very high… especially if it meant another month of classes would be $ 64!
We did the 4 classes and I was able to rush to the Open Gym times on 3 different Thursdays. It was stressful and another bad incident in the lobby had really tainted the whole experience. My little one came to enjoy the parachute play and absolutely loved the bubbles and popping each one after class, but when comparing it to the swim class we had and after hearing about other music classes, I don’t think the cost of the prices here are worth it to us.
I find most of these classes are catered to the non-​working crowd. Us working Moms and such have to rush to things or take the only class offered on a Saturday, even if it interferes with a child’s nap schedule. It doesn’t work out in the end. I was offered another free month as a result of my experience, but I’m not sure what the point of it would be except allowing my little one to enjoy a few more experiences with the parachute and bubbles.