Have you visited Kokoland at Multiplaza yet?

San Salvador does not have a huge range of quality places to take toddlers to play, and although our local malls had a few options they all closed down before we had junior.

A few weeks ago I was surprised to see a new play area being built in Multiplaza mall, and today we got chance to visit and check it out. As Friday is no longer a kinder day for Chiquitito (that's another story) I was looking for something child friendly for us to do together so we headed on to Multiplaza to see what it was all about.

Situated in the basement level, it is on the opposite side of the open plan area to Le Croissant shop and next to the new Juan Valdez Colombian coffee shop. Surrounded by a low wall and an open entrance, it seems to entice passing children in a way that the Pied Piper was familiar with.

Aimed at children 1.10 metres and shorter (aproximately 6 years), Kokoland is designed on a castle theme, and surprisingly entrance was FREE! As a British person well versed with the story of Tintagel and King Arthur, it is more precisely a Camelot theme, as there is the central castle, a large dragon and a sword embedded in a stone. A little bit of Cornish history in El Salvador!

When you enter you have to remove your child's shoes, leaving their socks on. You have to accompany your child inside and you will be asked to remove your shoes. If you are not wearing socks or tights they will give you some rather sexy feet covers to wear! 

TOP TIP: take a pair of socks!

Your shoes will get stored in a cubby hole until you decide to leave.

What is there to keep your little one occupied?

In the centre of the play area is a large castle, with turrets, a lowered draw bridge, walls and two slides. The structures have a springy feel to them and are covered in a plastic fabric finish. There are steps leading up to the slides and steps that seem to lead up to the turrets. Junior wasn't sure about climbing onto the turrets, and I felt like they didn't really have a use - they could have been more enticing to children - maybe if the could have got inside them.

There is also a large dragon, made to look as if he is lying on an island, with part of his tail submerged under the water. However, Junior decided that the section of tail that was on its own was a snake, and nothing I could say would persuade him otherwise. The dragon is perfect for climbng upon and Chiquitito and the two year old playmate who arrived after us were happy to sit astride it then slide down its nose!

I guess the reason they are so fussy on footwear is due to the fancy floor finish. The carpet is padded to give a soft landing if children take a tumble, and has a very pretty pattern on it.

There is also a sword embedded in a stone, that Chiquitito was fascinated with. He was pretending to pull the sword out and was busy making sword swah buckling movements (I put that down to watching Peter Pan the movie several times this week).

Around the edge of the play area are several play zones where children can match objects etc. The pictures spin around, and whilst Junior was not particularly interested in matching the objects he loved to see how fast he could get them to spin around. There is also a mirror that distorts your image, which caused much hilarity with both my son and his playmate.

I was surprised to see they had a touch screen games centre, that looked a lot like a larger than life iPad. I was even more surprised to see the choice of games available, as they were not aimed at young children. The two games we tried was an object hunting game and a Mahjong game. There was also a message that said 1 game free, and it said you had to pay for further goes. At the moment this was not in operation, but I wonder if this is how they plan to recoup some of their costs?

Is it worth a visit?

I would not make a special journey just to use this play facility, but if you are in Multiplaza and want something to occupy your young child then it is worth a visit.

We stayed for half an hour, and I suspect that was largely due to it being totally new and there being someone else for Chiquitito to play with.

At almost three years of age there dertainly wasn't much to keep him occupied for much longer, but it might be different if a few children were playing together.