Visiting Vienna

I’m not prone to exaggeration, being English, but Minopolis is the best children’s entertainment idea I’ve seen in a long, long time. It is manna from heaven for parents; if you need to keep kids occupied for a few hours, this is the place.

Opened in November 2005 at a cost of €8 million, it’s a town setting on two floors covering 6,000 sq. m, and featuring 25 stores and other buildings, such as a bank, supermarket, bakery, building site, hospital, fire and police stations, food laboratory, refuse facility, TV studio, newspaper offices, academy of art and more.

The kids can take on a job (or jobs) at each place. So if you visit the building site, the supervisors kit you out with an orange bomber jacket and helmet and you can put on roof tiles, lay a wooden floor, operate a crane or paint a wall.

Or you can be a policeman and guard the cells, patrol the streets, or provide a police escort for the bank security staff (also kiddies!) taking money to the shops.

As if the role playing wasn’t enough — and my kids could have happily spent a week there — the children get paid cash (or given pay slips) for their work.

They can pay the money (Minopolis has its own Eurolinos currency) into their own account at the bank (or cash the pay slip there). And they can use the pretend money to go shopping, “buying” groceries or electronics at appropriate stores.

Trained staff (of which there are plenty) at each location supervise the activities and other helpers are available to answer questions, provide directions or point kids at a nearby location. All of the staff we encountered were friendly and attentive, encouraging and helping the children.

Parents are allowed to accompany their children around the town, but can’t enter the actual locations. However, each has a glass or open front so you can watch the little ones the whole time. Or if you prefer, there’s seating, snack bars and a bagel outlet where you can while away the time while the children bake bread, make a TV programme or put out a fire.

The stores, sites and equipment are either the real thing or extremely good working replicas; the supermarket, for example, is an exact copy of one of Vienna’s chains, with a real till and real products. The hospital doesn’t have a genuine computer tomography unit in it, but it does have a moving replica that looks and works just like one!

Quite apart from the play and fun aspect, Minopolis involves kids actively in town life. They learn about different roles and social interactions, assume responsibility and see how things — like bank accounts — work. Genuine edutainment.

Yes, German is the language here. But many of the helpers I met were happy to talk to the kids in English. Plus most of the occupations are language-independent. You don’t need to speak German to drive a refuse lorry, install roof tiles or bake a pizza.

All-in-all it’s a very well-thought out concept. There’s a free cloakroom for your coats and bags, for example. And each child and parent gets a unique coded wristband with a built in computer chip to wear.

If a child tries to exit the town without the adult it came in with, then exit staff are alerted automatically by sensors and keep hold of the child until the adult arrives. So you can relax completely about child safety.

Most of all, though, it’s just enormous fun for kids.

Key info…

Prices are €8 per child and €4 per adult on normal weekdays and €10 per child and €5 per adult on weekends, holidays etc. It’s a bargain, believe me.

It’s closed on Mondays, and other weekday mornings are reserved for kindergartens and schools. The general public can enter from 2pm to 7pm on weekdays, and 10am to 7pm on weekends.

You can reach the complex on the U1 subway line. Get off at Donauinsel and take the Hubertusdamm exit from the station. Minopolis is right ahead of you in the large cinema complex. You can’t miss it.

Address: Minopolis, Cineplexx Reichsbrücke, Wagramer Straße 2, 1220 Vienna
Website: http://www.minopolis.at/ (German only)

This entry is filed under Entertainment.