What Osso said ;-)
I was laugh at your Chuckee Cheese card story and about them calling you the Chuckee Cheese guy
I did stop laughing when you got to the other stuff, though. I know that's really gotta suck.
Chai wrote:Isn't Dave & Busters just a grown up chuck e. cheese?
All the kids from a decade or more ago have been brainwashed into going there.
It is, but it is much nicer, cleaner, etc. My kids (4 and 8) like Dave & Busters too.
Wer have been there 3-4 times always had a good time. Where else can kids run around , choose from a variety of games and eat on a hot summer day. I think you will like it when M is 4-5. Mine luv it. I am into letting kids be kids when appropriate. you can't expect them to practice Ettiquette there and I think you get what you pay for over there.
Think of how many families can have a decent Birtfhday party who otherwise can't afford such a thing.
luvmykidsandhubby wrote:I think you get what you pay for over there.
Ack! Don't even remind of the $42 we spent (wasted) there! Between food & drinks for all of us and the game coins. I think I'm so much happier with the $90 (for a family membership) we spent on an annual Zoo membership. A regular ticket costs about $16 per person. M & I have been to the zoo (with a guest each time and they are free with our m'ship level) at least 6 times. All through summer.
I think there are cheaper, more fun, less germ-y outing options where kids won't be running wild like banshees and there's no food squishing in-between your toes and and and.....
_Heatwave_ wrote:luvmykidsandhubby wrote:I think you get what you pay for over there.
Ack! Don't even remind of the $42 we spent (wasted) there! Between food & drinks for all of us and the game coins. I think I'm so much happier with the $90 (for a family membership) we spent on an annual Zoo membership. A regular ticket costs about $16 per person. M & I have been to the zoo (with a guest each time and they are free with our m'ship level) at least 6 times. All through summer.
I think there are cheaper, more fun, less germ-y outing options where kids won't be running wild like banshees and there's no food squishing in-between your toes and and and.....
Yep. Is there a kids museum near you? We had a membership for two years to our local kids museum and it was worth every penny. It cost about the same as two trips and we used it way more than that. Whenever the weather was too hot, too cold, or too rainy. Way more fun for the kids, way less chaotic, but still plenty of room to run around.
Oh yes! We're going to get a membership to this FABulous children's museum, the Please Touch Museum (.org) in Philly. That's the plan for the cold winter months. M loves loves loves it, and I just know it's going to be perfect.
And we sure milk our zoo m'ship. There're all kinds of rides including on a hot-air balloon (that just goes up & comes down), a pony, a camel, a train that the child can ride free on thanks to the m'ship (otherwise they each cost between $5-$10). And you get free parking ($10 otherwise). PLUS, this weekend, members get a free early hour walk thru the zoo (before it's regular opening time) and get to see all the animals brought out and walked about & fed and whatnot! Including new tiger cubs! (M'll LOVE this!) I'm posting ALL this info here because I'm sure zoos elsewhere have similar benefits that folks can avail of.
When I was a boy, Chuck E. Cheese's was the definition of sublime, stirring within me a mixture of awe and fear. My parents would only take my sisters and I to Showbiz, Chuck's ghetto cousin, where falling-apart animatronic animals lurched on the main entertainment stage, miming a wooldand jamboree, the gears spinning in their jaws exopsed each time they opened their mouths to sing. Horrifying. But every so often a friend held his birthday party at Mr. Cheese's, and I would submerge into that weird kid society where even the crazy ones with nervous tics and an affinity for setting fires were too young to be weeded out just yet. With them I would run amok in that parallel universe, that bizarre microcosm.
I can still smell that perfume of pizza and post-vomit carpet detergent. I recall jerk after jerk hogging the spinning UFO ride. Ski ball, whack-a-mole, a shitty stuffed nothing for a hundred tickets. Music videos on a movie screen. And say what you will about the pizza, if the make-your-own sundae satisfies you not, it's your own damn fault.
But no laughing child in a party hat could ignore the true test of mettle that would have to be endured before the family stationwagon carried him back to suburbia. An existential challenge separating future Borderline Personality Disorder cases from the rest of the herd. I'm talking about THE CHEESE FACTORY. Perhaps the Cheese Factory has been phased out since my youth, so to clarify, it was Chuck E. Cheese's reinterpretation of the catacombs, a human maze full of mirrors and dead ends, through which there was only room to crawl. How many weeping children I passed, their young consciousness cracked too soon! How many emaciated lads and lasses I left for dead! How many kid-ghosts, hungry for vengeance, whispered misleading directions into my ears!
O but I perservered, I was one of the lucky ones. I was meant to emerge and grow and live. To become a bored copyeditor effing around on the internet so that future generations may...something or other, and stuff.
Carpe diem, bitches. Carpe diem!
Sometimes I think Gargamel is Dave Berry's son.
luvmykidsandhubby wrote:Think of how many families can have a decent Birtfhday party who otherwise can't afford such a thing.
Chuck E Cheese is definitely not something I'd think of if I was responsible for planning an affordable children's birthday party. That place is expensive for what you get.
~~~
In the same way, I love Dave and Buster's, as long as someone else is paying.
Linkat wrote:Chai wrote:Isn't Dave & Busters just a grown up chuck e. cheese?
All the kids from a decade or more ago have been brainwashed into going there.
It is, but it is much nicer, cleaner, etc. My kids (4 and 8) like Dave & Busters too.
I never even knew what chuck e cheese was until I was in my mid 20's...I had a roommate who had just loved the place as a child, and said she actually went there a couple of times as an adult to play the games.
A few years later, while visiting a gf in michigan, I went with her because it was her son's birthday or something....I thought it was disgusting.
There's this Dave and Busters here, and I never knew what it was either. Never thought about it....Then, we had a job fair and used a room in that place for the interviewees. I remember everyone was given those tokens or passes or whatever for showing up.....weeee.....
I walked around the place once that evening and thought it was ridiculous.
My kids are 7 and 3 and never even had a traditional birthday party, when I say 'afford to' I think not only of Money but a mom who works 10-12hrs weekdays and does laundry and cooking and errands on the weekends.
now that I cut down my work to 60 % I can see what u are all saying. Yes If I had time to plan I would not plan it there. but it does not take any planning and that's worth a lot. MAy be the ones I have been to are cleaner, I am telling you we were at Denny's yesterday and I can talk about Smell and quality of food for a while. Even my 3 yr old complained.
Some nice birthday ideas will be appreciated. I dont want an all adults affair at home.
Luvmy--
What months were your kids born?
3 YO Girl June, & yo Boy Nov. For her we went to disney had a cinderella breakfast. I don't think she remembers though. But we got photos with cinderella to take care of ourselves. He wants a Ski birthday. I live in Florida. That one may take some planning. Thanks for asking Noddy.
luvmykidsandhubby wrote:3 YO Girl June, & yo Boy Nov. For her we went to disney had a cinderella breakfast. I don't think she remembers though. But we got photos with cinderella to take care of ourselves. He wants a Ski birthday. I live in Florida. That one may take some planning. Thanks for asking Noddy.
My son is 7 and had his first real birthday party this year. It was a pool party at the YMCA. He's been to a few other nice, low key parties. One was at a bowling alley and was very nice (they provide pizza, lanes and shoes, and goody bags, you bring the cake) and another was at a local indoor rock climbing establishment. There are a ton of things open to you -- especially with summer and fall birthdays. Both my kids have winter birthdays so it's not so easy.
FreeDuck wrote:luvmykidsandhubby wrote:3 YO Girl June, & yo Boy Nov. For her we went to disney had a cinderella breakfast. I don't think she remembers though. But we got photos with cinderella to take care of ourselves. He wants a Ski birthday. I live in Florida. That one may take some planning. Thanks for asking Noddy.
My son is 7 and had his first real birthday party this year. It was a pool party at the YMCA. He's been to a few other nice, low key parties. One was at a bowling alley and was very nice (they provide pizza, lanes and shoes, and goody bags, you bring the cake) and another was at a local indoor rock climbing establishment. There are a ton of things open to you -- especially with summer and fall birthdays. Both my kids have winter birthdays so it's not so easy.
We had a pool party too at the Y!
We did the same thing when SonofEva turned 12. His friends thought it was a hoot, going swimming in MARCH!!! (What a treat!)
Thanks Noddy You are so Kind. I already discussed with my husband last night. He was thrilled too. Tampa is 2 hrs away and we have his cousins in South Florida that we can invite.
As much as we stay away from each other due to work, my goal usually is to use these special occasions as family bonding time rather than cater to people we hardly know, but ironically since that means for our kids that they spend al ot of time with other people (such as their friends in extended day), they want to now include them. For my son's last birthday we went to the short Disney Cruise and I was so proud of myself until the day before the cruise he said " Just you and me and dad and my sister" What about my friends. I said, sorry son this is all we could do right now. In about 15 years you can take as many of your fiends on a cruise as you want.
Luvmy--
Quote: In about 15 years you can take as many of your fiends on a cruise as you want.
When you're all grown up and can go out in the great wide world to seek your fortune....
I used that line a lot.
