After 4 months of my "Crayola Experience" tickets sitting in my gmail inbox I finally decided to use them as a mommy-and-zombie playdate.
While sitting in Florida Mall traffic I cynically thought "this better be worth the $35 I spent... I do not want to spend more money once inside".
At admissions we were each given a clear bag with 2 silver tokens inside- 2?! What could I possibly do with only 2 tokens...?! I immediately began searching for the token kiosk with zero success.
Fast forward to 4 hours later where I'm arguing with Zombie because I want to make another shark mold but she's ready to move onto the lava stations. The Crayola experience stimulates the right side of the brain through hands on, messy and oh-so-colorful activities, bringing out 5 year old in everyone.
You begin with naming your own crayon, making your own puzzle ornaments and Christmas cards, you can even maek your own figurine out of melted crayons... so to answer the question we all have in the back of our minds- YES it lives up to the hype!
I noted a few social trends that scare but excite me about Zombie. She approaches kids her age like they are exotic animals- with added precaution and always starts with a waive to get their attention. While sometimes she's successful, other times kids find her too intense to befriend her. At the watercolor tables when these pompous 6 year olds (who stole our paintbrushes) came back for our paint pallet Zombie stood on her stool and yelled "YOU NEED TO SHARE!" they didn't come back for anything else. My 3 year old is a bad-(M)ass- a socially awkward bad-(m)ass!
At around 6:30 my stomach started to rumble and I remembered it had been hours since we'd last eaten. I would not recommend their "cafe" which has limited choices including: pizza, corn dogs, hot dogs and salad.
Since Hubs was taking us out to dinner in a few hours anyway we relied on a sugar rush of Dippin' Dots and Churros to sustain us for the next hour. After that the hunger was stronger than the urge to make more selfie coloring pages so we called it a day.
