KAGAY-ANONS are in for a cool treat after SM City Cagayan de Oro Uptown opened its Snow Playground last Saturday, June 30.
Located at the mall's ground floor between its supermarket and department store, the snow playground is one of SM's ice exhibit that travels all over the country.
“We want to be the first in giving Filipinos the kind of activity that they want and this is a traveling exhibit. And we also want the families to experience snow, di ba kasi hindi naman nila nae-experience kasi walang snow dito sa (since it doesn't snow in the) Philippines so we want to give Filipinos that kind of experience,” Ivy Guantero, SM Public Relations head in Cagayan de Oro, said.
Guantero said the safety of the children is paramount with SM designating personnel to man and monitor the playground and to see to it that house rules are followed.
“We have people manning the snow playground. And we have house rules, it is also for their protection. And we also provide the boots so that they can wear it when they go inside. And then the parents naman can go inside to be with their kids,” Guantero said.
In accordance to the implemented house rules, the following should be observed when inside the snow playground:
- Wear pants/leg warmers.
- “Bring a companion” shall be for guests below 3 years old.
- Both guests (child and companion) should have paid the snow playground tickets.
- Customer must wear rubber boots with socks inside the snow playground.
- Follow and listen to our able playground staff at all times. You may approach any one of them for any incident.
- Smoking is strictly not allowed within playground premises.
- Sitting or climbing on the dasher boards is strictly prohibited.
- No food/drinks are allowed within the playground premises.
- No pets are allowed inside the playground premises.
- No hitting/kicking the boards.
- Eating the ice is strictly prohibited.
- Throwing snowball against other customers is not allowed.
- Customers with unsafe or disruptive behavior shall be asked to leave the snow playground without refund such as: foul language, spitting on ice, shitting/kicking/pushing other customers, and bullying other customers.
For P90 for weekdays and P120 for weekends, children and adults will be able to experience and play in the snow for 15 minutes.
According to Ed Baisas, the assistant mall manager of SM CDO uptown, they were able to produce the snow for the playground using a machine that turns ice into fine grain.
“Usually, para makaipon kami ng (in order to store) lots of ice, one time we bought as many as 80 sacks of ice and then convert it into finer grain. After that, yung (the) day to day operation is yung equipment namin para syang (it’s like an) ice maker. Meron kaming water supply dun sa equipment, yung water dun (We have water supply in the equipment) and it forms ice,” Baisas said.
He added that once the fine grain of ice or the “snow” is inside the playground, they are maintained at a certain temperature to avoid melting.
Aside from the snow playground, another part of SM's traveling ice exhibit is the ice skating which will be opened on July 20 in SM Downtown Premier, Cagayan de Oro City.