Shipgarten - Tyson's Corner-Vienna

The set up of this place is ridiculous. Ordering food here is awful. The menu doesn’t make sense. Picking up the food doesn’t make sense. The food itself is reminiscent of carnival food but not as good, the beir is nothing special, and the outdoor play area is just plain dangerous for kids, including playscapes poking awkwardly out of the ground for kids to get hurt on, and heat lamps that have clearly fallen over way too many times to be safe around kids play area. And what is with all the picnic tables? There are so many packed in there it looks like a picnic table graveyard. I wanted to leave as soon as we got there, but I gave it a chance to get better. It only got worse.Edit: The shuttle driver, balloon guy, and face painter were all very nice. They were very much appreciated.

Why does this place exist? It’s not good in any way.

Parking is decent. They have valet parking for $20 or $30. Or you can go to a parking lot that is a few blocks away. They offer a shuttle that goes around every 5-10 minutes and is very accessible and clean. Entry is FREE. It was a cold day but playing the oversized chess and checkers was so fun to play with the kids. We went inside to do the FREE facepainting and playing with the oversized Jenga. You are able to walk around and enjoy the music that is playing through the whole place. You can purchase food while you are there. The prices are a little steep. We paid $8 for a Hot Chocolate that was made from a packet that you can buy at the dollar store and hot water. They do have an outdoor area for kids where there is two moon bounces that the kids enjoyed. They did try to play on the playground that are there but they are falling apart. The toddle playground is being held by screws that are poking out and could harm a child if they are left playing alone. It is definitely a hazard. They advertise that you can host an event here for a kids birthday but I would not do that with the current playground equipment. After seeing that we left.

We were very disappointed at the “petting zoo” event held in January. We had three 4 year olds and three 2 year olds and not once did we feel safe. The playground was very unsafe, some pieces literally held together with duct tape and with screws sticking out. The bounce house and inflatable race course were unmonitored by employees with no obvious weight or number limits. Parents were left to their own discretion. At one point we had to yank our children out due to the race track collapsing because of too much weight. Thank goodness we were right there watching.. many parents were obviously not. The beer was meh. We didn’t stick around long enough to try any food. It was advertised first and foremost as a “petting zoo” and there was literally one alpaca. That was it. The face painting line was 40+ people deep with 2 artists. We will not be going back.

The whole place is on a hillside that slants down with a small fence keeping everyone in around the property. We came for the kids day and it was way too packed with not enough supervision of the older kids. They took over the bounce houses and were way too big, making it dangerous for littles. Also, there were no diaper changing stations and the 'petting zoo ' that was advertised only ran for 30min-1hour with a huge line. The best part was the free face painting, but the sign up list was a few pages long, so expect to wait. Beer was also like 12$ a pint, 13$ for 2 pretzels with cold cheese, and parking was not well staffed (we ended up paying/waiting for valet {20$ . We wanted to park ourselves but it was very confusing to find so we just went valet. I personally won 't be visiting again with the kids, but lesson learned.