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General FAQ
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Party FAQ
What is a Family Entertainment Center?
The term "Family Entertainment Center" (FEC) defines an industry as a whole. Paradise Park is a part of this industry, which includes over 20,000 facilities worldwide.
Family entertainment centers are community-based and usually located near residential areas rather than a downtown business district or tourist locations. Typically, our guests visit Paradise Park six or more times in a year and stay approximately 2 to 2 ½ hours each visit.
Paradise Park offers several anchor attractions: a children's edutainment center; foam factory; rock climbing wall; bumper cars; token-operated game room with redemption prizes; miniature golf; go karts; and batting cages. Paradise Park includes a café to service its guests, and offers party packages and group events for corporations, schools, churches and individuals. Indoor party and meeting rooms are available for groups, as well as a sheltered outdoor picnic pavilion, sand volleyball court and campfire area. The availability of multiple attractions for families on a single property drives repeat usage by our guests. This gives Paradise Park a unique brand identity and differentiates us from other entertainment options.
What is a Children's Edutainment Center?
One of the primary attractions at Paradise Park is the children's edutainment center (CEdC). Designed for children nine (9) years old and younger, it is a first for the greater Kansas City area and integrates children's educational experiences into a fantasy of discovery play, exploration and fun!
A children's edutainment center emphasizes hands-on discovery learning through developmentally-appropriate spontaneous play, and it includes some elements of pure entertainment. At Paradise Park, not only do children have fun, they also learn social, physical, mental and emotional development skills. Our children's edutainment center is just plain fun for the children, and they have absolutely no comprehension they are learning while they enjoy the activities. In a nutshell, edutainment combines play with learning.
At Paradise Park, children develop their social skills by interacting and playing with other children. This is increasingly important to more and more parents today. Unlike our grandparents' generation that viewed children's play and learning as two separate entities, today's parents prefer to combine these experiences. Adults want their children to learn as they play.
The children's edutainment center at Paradise Park fulfills these needs for both parents and children with a variety of indoor activities and an outdoor adventure play garden. Paradise Park values the productive use of our guests' leisure time and strives to improve children with worthwhile activities.
Paradise Park believes that consumers want to enrich their lives and that of their children, but they have lesser amounts of leisure time to accomplish this. That's why a children's edutainment center is important, especially with college-educated families. In addition, the children's edutainment center provides a safe and enclosed environment, where children and adults must enter and exit together.
Paradise Park's children's edutainment center features indoor activities that include: pretend classroom; block building; interactive children's cooking; soft contained play climbing; miniature play; face painting; water room; infant-toddler area; pretend village with a pretend Bank of Lee's Summit and Hy-Vee supermarket; art studio and performance area. Scheduled show times are available daily in the performance area featuring Stuffee, a 7-foot doll presented by Centerpoint Medical Center. Healthy Lifestyles room presented by Lee's Summit Medical Center. The outdoor children's garden includes: pedal trikes; dinosaur dig and sand play; pretend fishing stream; and a variety of fun playground equipment.
Group and field trip rates are available to the children's edutainment center for groups of 20 or more children. Call (816) 246-5224, ext. 105, or e-mail us at geoff.hill@paradise-park.com to schedule a field trip to the children's edutainment center.
What is the History of Paradise Park and how did it evolve?
Although Paradise Park celebrated its Grand Opening in May of 2004, the family entertainment center originally opened in 1992 as Putter's Paradise. The initial facility included a 3,500 square foot clubhouse building and two miniature golf courses. In 1993, an eight-station outdoor batting cage was added, and an indoor 20-station game room was added in 1994. Finally, in 1998, an outdoor golf driving range was added to the mix. The golf driving range would eventually be replaced with a family-oriented go kart track.
Located in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb just 16 miles southeast of Kansas City, Putter's Paradise was extremely successful and grew with the community. During the 1990s and into the 21st century, the city of Lee's Summit grew significantly faster than the Kansas City metropolitan area due to its excellent school systems, attractive quality of life and quick access to the amenities available in Kansas City.
With that in mind, Putter's Paradise sought an aggressive expansion to keep up with the growth and demographics of its surrounding area. In late 2000, the company retained the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group to conduct a market feasibility study for possible expansion. The feasibility study was favorable and discovered a tremendous business opportunity. Not only was there a large market area population to support expansion, but it exposed a target market niche of white-collar, upper middle-class and above, college-educated families with children.
Once the feasibility study identified the opportunity to attract a specified target market, White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group was retained to produce the new center for ownership. White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group helped orchestrate the overall design of the new facility and established a new brand identity. Issues such as the quality and environment of the décor, ambiance, lighting, acoustics, furniture and way-finding signage were all addressed successfully.
The old Putter's Paradise building was demolished September 3, 2002, to make way for the new Paradise Park 35,000 square foot indoor facility. By December of 2003, Paradise Park was open for business on its 14.5 acres of land and held a grand opening celebration May 7-9, 2004.
Paradise Park quickly became a big hit within the local community by attracting families with children, particularly college-educated families from upper middle-income and above backgrounds. On September 30, 2004, Paradise Park was honored with the Golden Token Award as the Best New or Renovated Family Entertainment Center (FEC) by the International Association for the Leisure & Entertainment Industries (IALEI). The award is given annually to recognize design excellence in the family entertainment center industry, which includes over 20,000 facilities worldwide.
In May 2006, Paradise Park was awarded the Lee's Summit Chamber of Commerce "Small Business of the Year" award and was inducted into the Chamber's Hall of Fame in January 2007.
This success also established the foundation to attract successful corporate partners. Paradise Park is proud to have Centerpoint Medical Center, Lee's Summit Medical Center, Hy-Vee, Bank of Lee's Summit and Coca-Cola as its sponsors. These sponsorships allow Paradise Park to offer additional amenities and services for its guests, as well as many cross promotional opportunities for each entity.
Currently, Paradise Park strongly appeals to all consumers that are not shy about investing in quality, but at the same time, they insist on value. The majority of our guests are extremely knowledgeable, selective, affluent and discerning, forming a market of New Luxury customers. Our guests have a desire to "trade up" for a quality entertainment experience that caters to a family-friendly environment.
Why does Paradise Park use the tagline "Family Fun & Adventure"?
Paradise Park's tagline is "Family Fun & Adventure". We strive to create a family-friendly environment and brand identity. The availability of multiple attractions for families on a single property drives repeat usage by our guests. This gives Paradise Park a unique brand identity and differentiates us from other single-anchor entertainment options.
Guests are reminded that Paradise Park is a family entertainment center that happens to feature a children's edutainment center as an anchor attraction. There are many families with people of all ages, including children, on our property at all times.
Violent and unruly behavior, including foul language, will not be tolerated. Children under the age of 16 years old must be accompanied by a parent or adult chaperone! Unattended children under the age of 16 will be asked to call a parent to pick them up. Paradise Park is an alcohol and tobacco free facility. These items are not allowed on Paradise Park property.
Guests that violate these policies will be ejected from the facility.
Is cleanliness important to Paradise Park?
Paradise Park places cleanliness as a top priority. We realize that keeping the facility clean is critical when parents, and particularly mothers, decide which places they will take their children. "Clean" typically ranks high in customer surveys along with "safe", and ranks higher than "entertainment", "customer service" or any other category. Paradise Park has developed extensive employee training and procedures to maintain the overall cleanliness of the facility, including the restrooms!
If a guest discovers an area that does not meet these standards, we encourage our guests to report this to a member of our team for immediate attention. We ask that all guests help keep Paradise Park beautiful and discard personal items in the nearest receptacle.
Are there any violent games in the game room?
One of the most popular attractions at Paradise Park is the game room that features a variety of redemption, novelty and video games. It is the policy of Paradise Park to ban all games that contain graphic violence, obscenity and/or sexual behavior. We believe that any games with violence, sexual themes or other content runs counter to the "family" environment. These games may be offensive to parents and do not belong at Kansas City's Premier Family Destination!
What is the Partners in Education Program?
Paradise Park is proud to be one of the district-wide sponsors for the Partners in Education Program in the Lee's Summit R-7 School District. The Lee's Summit Partners in Education program features schools and businesses working together to share resources and expand opportunities that enrich the community.
The Lee's Summit School District has more than kept up with the growth of the community. Three decades ago, Lee's Summit was still a small town with a population around 20,000. Today, it's soaring past 80,000. Student achievement is reaching new heights in Lee's Summit, and test scores are rising faster than the rest of the state.
Paradise Park is proud of its partnership with the local school district. The program is a critical component in attracting our community-based target market.
Did you know that all of the attractions at Paradise Park may easily be incorporated into curriculum for a variety of subjects and/or team building exercises? The children's edutainment center is of particular interest with area school districts and is heavily utilized during a variety of educational field trips.
May I bring in my own food and beverages to Paradise Park?
No, Paradise Park does not allow any outside food or beverages on its property for general admission guests. This information is clearly marked at the front entrance.
Due to the fact that Paradise Park operates its own café, we follow city, county and state health codes and ordinances for safety and to prevent cross contaminating food served at the Paradise Park Café.
Paradise Park offers affordable lunch specials for groups and field trips, as well as professional catering services for larger groups. The Paradise Park Café serves hot and cold subs and wraps, pizzas, salads, and cookies along with gourmet coffee and espresso drinks. The birthday and team party packages offered includes food and beverages within the packages, and no other outside food or beverages is allowed on the premises.
Does Paradise Park offer party packages?
Yes, Paradise Park offers spectacular party packages appropriate for children and youth of all ages. For proper planning, please book your party at least 2 weeks in advance.
To reserve a party, a $125 non-refundable deposit is required. Hosted Parties will not be reserved without a deposit. Sales tax is added to the final cost of each package.
Each child must have socks and athletic shoes. Only Paradise Park pre-arranged and booked parties are allowed at Paradise Park. No walk-in parties that include gifts and/or food items are authorized. Guests will be asked to remove any unapproved items immediately from the Paradise Park premises.
May I do my own walk-in party?
Paradise Park loves to celebrate bi