Arizona Crayola Experience: A Parent’s Guide

Are you looking for things to do with kids in Phoenix?  If so, you’ll want to check out the Arizona Crayola Experience!  There are several attractions available there for kids, such as personalizing and wrapping a crayon and creating coloring pages from photos taken from a photo booth.  As a result of my family’s visit, I’ve compiled a Parent’s Guide to help you plan your visit, including ways you can save money by purchasing discount tickets to Crayola Experience Chandler.

Disclosures:  My family and I received complimentary tickets to Crayola Experience Chandler. All opinions, however, are my own. In addition, this post may contain affiliate links. If you click through and buy, The Cactus Chronicles will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for helping support The Cactus Chronicles.

Arizona Crayola Experience:  A Parent’s Guide

There are only a handful of other Crayola Experience locations in the U.S. so I was excited when I heard that a Crayola Experience was opening in my home state of Arizona.  So what is the Crayola Experience exactly?  It’s a place where kids – and adults – can be creative with all things Crayola!  Essentially, there are several different stations where guests can see their creations come to life on a big screen, on coloring pages, and more.  I compiled a Parent’s Guide to Crayola Experience Chandler in order to help you plan your visit as well as share how you can save money by purchasing discount tickets!

Location

The Arizona Crayola Experience is located in Chandler, Arizona, in the Chandler Fashion Center (which is basically a fancy way of saying a mall, lol).  Chandler has really grown over the years – it’s a city outside of the Phoenix area and for those of us traveling from Tucson, it’s nice that we don’t have to drive through metropolitan Phoenix to get there.  The mall itself is located near Loop 202, which means it’s mostly freeway.  Also, the Crayola Experience, while in the mall, is located near the food court and restaurants, so you can always make a day of it and grab lunch or dinner depending on the time of day you decide to visit.  It’s not hard to miss the Crayola Experience from the outside of the mall – just look for the brightly colored walls.  Crayons mark the spot 🙂

Age Ranges for Crayola Experience Chandler

This is always a tough call because I think this depends a lot on a child’s personality.  I do think that kids between the ages of 3-12 years old would get enjoyment out of the different attractions at this particular Crayola Experience.  I also think that kids don’t necessarily need to be extremely artistic to enjoy the experience.  For example, my son is 6 years old, and while he is more of a builder, he definitely still likes to color and draw.  My 11 year old niece and 7 year old nephew also accompanied us, and they also enjoyed it.  So it does appeal to a wide range of ages.  And while some of the attractions were geared more for older children (like You Design), I do think that younger children will enjoy learning how to wrap their own crayon and creating a ring or race car mold from wax from a crayon (more about the various attractions below).  There are also play areas for toddler aged kids, like Stomp & Play and Scribble Square.

Best Time of the Day to Visit and Length of Time to Visit

We arrived a few minutes before the Crayola Experience opened for the day and the timing worked out well for us.  When you purchase tickets, you select a time that you plan to visit.  However, there isn’t a restriction as to how long you can stay in particular areas.  On one hand, this is nice because kids can take their time at the various attractions, but on the other hand, lines for some of the attractions can get long.  While waiting in line, another mom told me that it’s less crowded at the end of the day.  It was very crowded around noon, so I’d say first thing in the morning or later in the day would be better, crowd-wise.

As for the length of time to visit, we ended up spending approximately 2 hours at Crayola Experience Chandler and we experienced most of the attractions.  But if you want to spend more time at the attractions, you can do so as well.

Arizona Crayola Experience Attractions

There are several attractions available at Crayola Experience Chandler, several of which are interactive.  Do you want to personalize your own crayon label and wrap your own crayon?  Or make a mold of a ring or race car out of crayon wax?  Or make your own coloring page or spin art?  You can do all that and more.  I’ve listed most of the attractions below, but my son, niece and nephew all agreed that their favorite was Wrap It Up!  We also really enjoyed Be A Star! and Melt & Mold.  My son and nephew also enjoyed designing a car in the You Design attraction, while my niece enjoyed designing a fashion model walking the runway.

• Wrap It Up!
• Be A Star!
• Melt & Mold
• Colossal Caddy
• Silly Selfies
• Drip Art
• Modeling Madness
• Rockin’ Paper
• Stomp and Play
• Meltdown
• Rainbow Rain
• Scribble Square
• You Design
• Activity Studio

Family Friendly Amenities at Crayola Experience Chandler

Because the Crayola Experience is geared towards kids, it has family friendly amenities, like a nursing room.  There is also a designated area to park strollers.  Our days of traveling with a stroller are over, but I do remember those days!  There are also snacks and drinks available to purchase at Crayola Experience Chandler, like pretzels, nachos, popcorn and Icees.  There are also restrooms inside the Crayola Experience, as well as outside, near the food court.

Discount Tickets for Crayola Experience Chandler

Tickets cost $14.99/person and tickets are free for kids under 2 years old.  However, you can save money and obtain discount tickets, priced at $12.50/person, to Crayola Experience Chandler by clicking here!  If you want to save even more money, you can purchase late pricing tickets at $7.49/person, but just know that late pricing only applies for admission one hour before closing.

Tips for Crayola Experience Chandler

Everyone (including adults) receives two tokens each once they enter the Crayola Experience.  The tokens can be used for two of the attractions – Wrap It Up! and Modeling Madness.  If you want to buy more tokens, you can do so – additional tokens cost 50 cents each.  There are other attractions available that cost extra, like a mining station, but we skipped those attractions.  There is more than enough to do with the attractions that are included in the price of admission.

Wrap It Up! was definitely the family favorite.  The kids loved that they could personalize the labels for their crayons and then wrap their own crayon.  However, I didn’t realize that the different stations had different colors of crayons – we just gravitated towards the station that didn’t have a line.  However, if you have a particular favorite color, definitely take a minute to walk around the stations and see if your color is available.

For the Melt & Mold Attraction, there are 2 different stations – you can either create a race car or a ring.  At the time of our visit, the line to create a ring was longer than the line to create a race car (I think because there is one less station for the ring).  So if you are short on time, that’s something to keep in mind.  My husband took the kids to another attraction while I held our place in line.

The Silly Selfie Station, another attraction, was fun.  You, or your kids, can choose different backgrounds to take silly photos.  Afterwards, you have the option to email the photos.  However, we never received the photos via email.  This wasn’t a huge deal to us, but I would recommend taking photos of the screen just in case you never receive the photo via email.

Final Thoughts

Crayola Experience Chandler is affordable as a family friendly activity, especially if you purchase the discounted tickets.  An ink cartridge for a printer costs more these days, and at the Crayola Experience, not only can you wrap a crayon with a label you designed (and keep it!), make a mold from wax (and keep it!), and create your own coloring paper (and keep it!), but you also do several other fun activities that make the visit worthwhile.

I also appreciate that while the attractions are geared for children, adults can also participate in the activities.  Not only that, but as a parent, it’s something that I’m also able to do with my son.  I only wish there was a location in Tucson, too!