First trip to a playroom

Teodor is an active toddler who loves to jump, climb, etc., generally discover what his body can do, so his grandmother thought it would be a great idea to take him to a playroom in a shopping centre, so he could use up his energy there. I was a bit reluctant to the idea as he is not a big fan of places which look like a kindergarten and or where other kids try to interact with him plus I thought it's a bit pointless for a toddler, but she wanted to visit such a place, so why the heck not to give it a try.

When we came, he started screaming, not really a surprise, but the grandmother wanted to chicken out...but I refused and we went into the baby area instead...and I showed him a car which was in a toy box there. The scream instantly disappeared.

The cars were an instant success, he spent the whole hour playing with the three ugly plastic cars and sliding down the slide...things he could do at home and for free :-)

I'm always reading about toddlers having a short attention span...probably it depends on activity, he spent more than one hour (we bought an extra hour) doing two things: playing with cars and sliding. I tried to lure him to the trampoline, but he jumped on the floor instead. Another thing I noticed, there were only a few other kids (I didn't want to go there in a peak hour, so we went on Monday afternoon) and none of them found any activity, which would totally absorb them like the cars and slides did absorb Teodor. I was just wondering what is the point of taking children to such places...ok, trampolines or jungle gyms are cool...but still, for how long can they entertain a child? Or maybe this playroom was just too small?

Even though it was nice, I'm not planning to visit such a place any time soon...