Norwood Play Cafe Review

Indoor playground and cafe at Norwood Swim School

If you’ve got kids who swim at Norwood Swim School then no doubt you’ll have spent plenty of time at the Norwood Play Café enjoying a coffee while your kids have their lessons, or ducking in to grab a treat after your kid’s swimming lessons. It’s one of the things that makes Norwood Swim School so family-friendly, and it’s also a great facility for the whole community to enjoy.

Norwood Play Café menu

A wide range of cabinet food means there’s something to please most if not all kids, and parents can enjoy freshly brewed coffee, tea or hot chocolates. New to their coffee menu is Milk Lab coconut, lactose-free and almond milk. (Both my almond-milk drinking friends swear by Milk Lab almond milk as the tastiest).

If you don’t go in for coffee then there’s the usual selection of juice as well as coconut water.

Snacks include such staples as:

• cheese toasties
• Popsicool gourmet ice blocks
• yoghurt
• cheese and crackers
• muesli bars
• hotdogs
• ham & cheese croissants
• bacon & egg toasties
• apricot bliss balls
• fruit cups
• jelly

Gluten free bread is available, and they make their own sushi and cold rolls fresh each day.

There’s also jars of cookies, lollies and treats up on the counter.

My children are particularly fond of a hot chocolate and a cheese toastie when they get out of the pool starving after burning off energy after a swimming lesson.

You’ll often see parents with their little swimmers lining up at the counter to buy jellies or other treats to celebrate a milestone such as moving up a level or achieving a new swimming milestone.

Norwood Play Cafe indoor playground

The play area at Norwood Play Café isn’t massive but it has enough to occupy the children while you relax with something to eat or drink. It’s also a good choice for super-hot Adelaide days or rainy days when the kids are just bursting with energy but it’s too wet to take them to a playground.

The floor to ceiling window along the edge of the cafe means you can see your children swim while you sit in air-conditioned comfort, without all the noise of the pool. Or you can take advantage of their free wifi to get some work done.

The indoor playground at Norwood Play Café offers:

• Two side-by-side slides for racing your mates
• Opportunities to climb
• A brightly coloured plastic play structure which has lots of nooks and crannies perfect for playing hide n seek
• An enclosed tunnel which takes you from one level to the next
• Soft-fall surface – perfect for overly confident toddlers, or older kids wanting to practise their handstands
• A great view of the action in the pool

Toilets are along the edge of the pool and baby change facilities are in the female toilets, or in the larger family toilet area.

Norwood Play Café facilities

• Free Wifi – great for getting some work done or checking emails while your kids have swimming lessons
• Air-con
• High chairs
• TV – if you happen to be here later in the afternoon or the early evening with tired children, or a fractious toddler then the TV can be a great distraction.

Things to consider:

❤️ The indoor playground is not entirely fenced off from the café area itself, but there is a fence around part of it. The café itself is separated from the main pool viewing area by two quite heavy doors.

❤️ The toilets are cleaned regularly but with so many people rushing in and out of the pool to lessons there’s a reasonable chance that the floor will be wet.

❤️ If you’re there at a busy time then a good moment to make a dash for the toilets is before the change-over in lesson times and the edge of the pool becomes more crowded.

❤️ Depending on the time of day that you come, you could enjoy some peace and quiet … or you might find the café and playground area full of excited and potentially wet and noisy little swimmers playing “Red Rover” or chasey.

❤️ Parking may be an issue at peak times eg during after school swimming lessons. Parking on the opposite side of The Parade is a good bet however as the lights at the pedestrian crossing change very quickly.

Our verdict

With it’s great little indoor playground and tasty treats galore, Norwood Play Café is one to check out if you haven’t done so already.

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For more information and all enquiries please visit Norwood Swim School Facebook page

What: Norwood Play Cafe

When: Monday – Friday 9am-12pm, 3pm-6:30pm, Saturday 8:30am-5:30pm, Sunday 8:30am – 12:30pm

Where: 273 The Parade, Beulah Park

Who: Families with kids under 12

At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.

As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently. All photos are by Play & Go.

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