I saw the ads for the Bubble Planet Seattle: An Immersive Experience earlier this year and was mildly intrigued. Their marketing is slick and photo ops are always fun. It’s advertised as being in Seattle, but locals will know it’s actually in Bellevue—which, as many Seattleites would argue, is not Seattle.

The exhibit opened on April 18th in a warehouse that longtime residents will remember as the old Toys “R” Us. Here’s the TL;DR: my 2-year-old had a great time, and it was worth the money, and also, I wouldn’t have been sad if I missed it because I think there are so many fun things for kids (her age) to do.

Tickets run from about $20 to $35 depending on the day and time. I paid $31 (regularly $35) for a Monday morning slot because I found a 10% off discount code through a local Instagrammer here and my kid was free. Parking in the lot is $7, but there was plenty of free street parking nearby (with a two-hour limit), so I parked just outside instead.

There are 10 rooms in total. The first room was very dark and very loud—honestly overwhelming. I immediately questioned my decision to come. Thankfully, the rest of the rooms were better, and my kid wasn’t interested in the first one anyway. The second room was a hit. The room is filled with yoga-sized pink balloons. My kid is small so she actually disappeared under the balloons, which was mostly fine since it wasn’t crowded. However, a few slightly older kids were running and nearly collided with her several times (which is not their fault, they are just kids having fun, but still!). I managed to keep her out of their way, but during busier times, this would be more stressful.

I don’t take my kid to many indoor play spaces, so I don’t have much to compare to other than the Bellevue Square’s Kids Cove, but this place felt grimy. For something that’s only been open a few weeks, it already felt a bit gross. A photo station featured a bathtub full of rubber duckies—almost all of them had brown residue on them. There were duckies attached to the wall, but others has fallen onto the ground, including one with a 2 inch screw sticking out of it, pointy end up.

My kid’s second favourite room was the “bubble ocean” which was a swimming pool sized ball pit a bit past halfway into the experience. We were in the first half of the ball pit that was only a few feet deep, but my kid disappeared beneath the balls, so I had to keep her in my arms or continuously pick her up, which was really tiring! But she had so much fun here. Squeals of delight as she sat on the edge and “jumped” (scooted) herself in. Important note: shoes aren’t allowed in this area and definitely wear/bring socks because I wasn’t wearing any and I had to buy a pair for $5.50 (a scam!). I didn’t see anything on the website or my email confirmation that indicated that socks are required.

Her third favourite room was the infinity room, but it said no touching, and this is monumentally hard to enforce with a toddler, so after she ran around in that room a bit, I moved us to the next area so I didn’t have to keep stopping her from touching the strands of balls, which I admit, were quite enticing.

After we walked through all the rooms, we backtracked to the big pink balloon room near the entrance to play a bit more and then exited from the entrance. I couldn’t’ tell you if this is allowed, but no one said anything to us. My kid definitely had a great time and we spent about 90 minutes there, including a snack break in the middle section where they sell some drinks and packaged snacks. Overall, I’m glad we went. My kiddo had a lot of fun and it was a unique experience, but keep in mind the pictures and videos you see online are definitely nicer than the actual place.

Logistics information taken directly from their website (with a few small additions from me in italics):

📅 Dates: now through June 30, 2025
🕘 Open Hours: Sun-Mon 9:30am-6:30pm, Tues closed, Weds-Thurs 9:30am-6:30pm, Fri-Sat 9:30am-7:30pm
⏳ Duration: approx. 60-90 minutes
📍 Location: 103 110th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
🚗 Parking: $7 per vehicle for up to 3 hours (or free two hour street parking!)
👤 Age requirement: all ages are welcome! Kids under 3 are free
♿ Accessibility: the venue is ADA compliant
❓ Please consult the FAQs of this experience here