For LP’s 10th birthday she asked to go to Clip ‘n Climb at the newly reopened Places Leisure Centre in Camberley. It’s where the children have been having swimming lessons for years – when it was The Arena – and since it reopened both her and Little Man have been excited to experience all the centre has to offer.
What is Clip ‘n Climb?
Clip ‘n Climb is a really fun climbing experience, suitable for any age from five and up and even adults can have a go. Once you’ve had an initial briefing you can hook yourself on and off the equipment, hence the name, and are pretty much left to your own devices to climb and enjoy yourself.
What is Clip ‘n Climb Camberley like?
The Clip ‘n Climb arena at Places Leisure Camberley is made up of 25 interactive and fun climbing walls that reach over 20 feet high plus 11 additional challenges on the climbing walls with automatic belay devices. It’s a real test of agility, confidence, balance and problem solving skills.
We arrived at Clip ‘n Climb and took a seat in Costa Coffee where you can easily view the climbing in progress. Just before our time slot a staff member came, checked us off on his list and gave us waiver forms to fill out. We then had to watch a short safety briefing video and have harnesses put on.
The climbing doesn’t start until everyone has harnesses on. This can be quite time consuming – especially if there are a lot of younger children there as they have special harnesses that need a lot more adjustments. By the time we started to climb we had about 50 minutes of our session to actually climb.
How did we find our Clip ‘n Climb experience?
LP and Little Man absolutely loved climbing and even just after their first session I could see their confidence growing more and more. They would happily push themselves on the courses and then jump off, having complete faith in the harness and ropes bringing them back down safely.
Dave and I also climbed but we both said we found it much harder to trust the harness and to go against our natural instincts to grip on for dear life! I found it really hard to let go of the walls and trust the rope to guide me down safely but I’m sure that’s something that comes in time – adults just naturally have so much more fear than children! That said, it’s a great activity for the whole family.
The children loved the stairway to heaven – a circle of round poles that you climb on top of, gradually getting higher before you jump off back to the ground. This isn’t open for the first five minutes and as soon as it opens it’s really popular with everyone queuing to have a try.
Can you spectate at Clip ‘n Climb?
At Clip ‘n Climb spectators can either watch from Costa Coffee or you can go in with the children, help and spectate without paying a fee. There are staff around to help clip on and off the equipment but with over 25 different activities you can imagine how busy they get. It’s nice being inside with the children, watching them and helping them on and off when they need it.
The indoor climbing arena is climate controlled making it the perfect environment to climb whatever the weather. I know that it will be a go-to activity over the winter and the children are already excited to go again! They love an action packed fun morning and this is perfect for that!
Clip ‘n Climb costs £15 per person for the climbing sessions. They run on fixed session times seven days a week with each session lasting 75 minutes. The 1hr 15 minutes session includes filling in a participation statement, an initial safety briefing and harness fitting.
You can book online or at the centre 14 days in advance – although this was reduced to 7 days when we initially tried to book. They also offer activities for group bookings and birthday parties. Find out more and check opening times over on the Places Leisure website and for reference the leisure centre address is: Grand Avenue, Camberley GU15 3QH
