Patong in the middle of the afternoon is not quite recommended for small children. Since 2:00 PM the sand is too hot to walk on barefoot, the temperature can be around 34 degrees, and in the wet season the sky opens without much warning. A lot of families cannot stand the heat and go back to the hotel room. The best thing is Jungceylon in Patong, the mall directly opposite Bangla Road and about a five-minute walk from the beach.
That is the part most first-time visitors get wrong. The mall’s family attractions are not one block on one floor. They are spread across four zones and two levels, and they are pitched at very different ages. A soft play area for a two-year-old will bore a nine-year-old within ten minutes. An electric kart track is not for a toddler. Sorting the afternoon by the age of the child, rather than by whatever you see first, is the difference between two good hours and a lot of complaining.
How the mall is designed
Jungceylon is divided into four themed zones: The Jungle Zone, The Bay Zone, The Garden Zone and The Botanica Zone.
Most of the children’s attractions are on the third floor of The Botanica Zone. Two more are on the ground floor of The Garden Zone, and the electric kart track is on the third floor of The Jungle Zone.
The mall is open from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM every day. Beach or pool in the morning, lunch, then indoors from about one o’clock which is exactly when the heat and the rain might be storming over Patong.
Where should you take a child under 5?
Under-fives need soft surfaces, low speeds and short distances. Two places at Jungceylon fit.
- Kidzooona (The Botanica Zone, 3rd floor): An indoor soft play area with ball pits, role-play sections and padded climbing. It is designed for the crawling-to-early-primary end, so a toddler can be put down and left to move around without a parent hovering over every step.
- Carousel (The Garden Zone, ground floor): A carousel ride on the ground floor, a few doors along from Robocoaster. It is the right speed for a child who is still nervous about anything faster, and it is short enough that a two-year-old will happily go around twice.
Pairing these two is the standard under-five afternoon: an hour at Kidzooona on the third floor of The Botanica Zone, then down to The Garden Zone for a carousel ride and something cold. Abidin roti & ice cream rolls and Mister Donut are both on the same ground floor.
What is suitable for a 5 to 10-year-old?
This is the age that gets bored fastest, and it is the age when the mall is the best place for parents. Three options, in rough order of how long they will hold attention.
- Froggy’s Fun Park (The Botanica Zone, 3rd floor): Arcade and family games. Good for a child who has outgrown soft play but is not yet interested in sitting still for two hours.
- Robocoaster (The Garden Zone, ground floor): A robotic arm ride on the ground floor, next to Carousel. It is a single-shot attraction rather than an afternoon, but it is the one children talk about afterwards.
- SF Cinema (The Botanica Zone, 3rd floor): The full cinema, on the same floor as Froggy’s Fun Park. Phuket cinemas normally run at least one English-language family title with Thai subtitles, but check the listings on the day before you commit two hours to it.
As a shopping mall, Jungceylon has clear, defined boundaries, making it easy to find young children if they wander off. It is also a very safe environment with comprehensive CCTV coverage and on-site tourist service officers.
Where do you take a child of 10 and up?
Older children need something a bit more exciting.
- Power Drive Karts (The Jungle Zone, 3rd floor): An electric kart track on the third floor. This is the only attraction in a different zone from the others, so parents need to put it into the plan.
- XD Theater (The Botanica Zone, 3rd floor): A motion-seat cinema with short rides rather than full films. It is ten minutes per round, which makes it useful for filling the gap before dinner.
Older children are also the ones who will actually want to shop. Flying Tiger on the ground floor of The Jungle Zone is an easy stop, cheap, odd, and everything in it is under a few hundred baht, so a small budget goes a long way.