By Meredith Merchant_Ships | Leave A Comment
I’ve been researching the indoor party centers in my area, and I’m blown away by the cost per child! So long, Chuck E. Cheese. Hello, Digiorno!
What do you do when you have a cold or rainy birthday, and not enough money to rent out the skate rink?
Having the traditional home party is always an option. But sometimes you don’t want a horde of boys dumping out the LEGO bin and smushing frosting into the sofa.
Surely we can brainstorm some fun indoor locations that don’t cost a fortune:
- Community centers are often available without cost and may include access to a basketball court or gym for relay races.
- Public museums are great places for scavenger hunts.
- Arrange a cool behind-the-scenes tour. Ice cream plant? Candy factory?
- Go retro with a drive-in movie theatre or bowling alley.
- Rent a cabin at a state park for the night.
Remember, you don’t have to buy the Cadillac birthday package. Many of your friends may already have science museum memberships. Buy admission for those who don’t, and serve delicious homemade cupcakes in the designated eating area.
Do you know of any restaurants which offer great birthday deals? Where did you plan your child’s indoor birthday party?
Leave your ideas here or head over to Blissfully Domestic forums to discuss!
photo courtesy of Parents.com
ABOUT Meredith Merchant_Ships
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I’m taking my son and his friends to Action City (indoor arcade/go cart track/laser tag/ etc today. It will be complete madness, but I’m sure they’ll have tons of fun.
Having a party somewhere other than your home is worth the extra cost. I can’t stand having a party at my home with 20 boys running around it makes me a nervous wreck, I love your idea about the the basketball courts at the community center. Some of the church’s have gyms and I wonder if you made a donation to the church if you rent those, just a thought. And I love the picture..
We had a party once at our YMCA, it included a cake and an adult supervisor to help watch all the kids. Additionally, the kids could play on their indoor playground equipment and with all the toys. We bought a craft from Oriental Trading company and all around the kids had a blast! We didn’t even have to clean up!
We had a party at Krispy Kream. They have birthday party packages that you can pay for, but we arranged a free tour. They gave the kids hats and a doughnut. We went back to our house to open gifts and ate pizza. There wasn’t time to make a huge mess in our house and the kids had a great time! The only cost was the frozen pizza.
Our house isn’t large enough either to accomodate a lot of people, so we go other places.
We’ve been able to ‘borrow’ my church for functions — they have some great spaces and we are more than willing to clean up!
Most times, though, we’ve been able to go to a park and have parties (and the weather has been wonderful). The park we have chosen has a lot of great, well-maintained playground equipment and it provides big open spaces for all the kids to run, as well as picnic tables and ample space for everyone to sit and spread out.
Both of these options have been free!
The local community center was a hit for us. There was a cost per child, but it was MUCH less than anywhere else. They even had a choice of theme parties. Make sure that the gym is free at that time. We made our own football cake. The kids decided to play on their own instead of using the rec center’s game planner.
**Added bonus** Son1′s party was in August, in the south. A thunderstorm had blacked out 20,000 homes, so we wouldn’t have had any air conditioning or refrigeration at our house. The rec center had A/C, and we had finished baking our cake 1 hour before the blackout. God was gracious. The boys could be loud and rambunctious, without breaking a thing!
Family Fun has a website that starts our parties. We love making their theme cakes. We’ve had a simple circus party with home supplied magic tricks, a bathtub and rubber ducky birthday cake, and a race track cake with CARS movie candles on top. It is GREAT site for ideas. http://familyfun.go.com/parties/party-themes/
One more item. A 2pm party doesn’t expect pizza.
My dad works at a local radio station and I thought it would be fun to have a small party there for my 10 year old. I bet everyone has a friend or family member with a neat job where they can take a tour and eat in the kitchen or cafeteria!
My child isn’t old enough yet, but some moms here were just discussing this: the local church, and apparently some fitness centers do parties at reasonable prices.
Our gym actually holds birthday parties as well… It’s totally awesome! They have indoor playgrounds, and a water “park” outside.. My girls’ bday is in July.. so a water “park” is a huge plus…
After a difficult pregnancy and a premie, I found out that McDonalds is a very cheap place to have a birthday party. $55 for 2 hours, cake, food & goodie bags….By far the best party we’ve had was a rained out carnival. We ended up with 10 autistic kids out of 15 kids in the house instead of outside and we decorated foam doorknob hangers with foam stickers. Played ‘indoor’ carnival games. That party was 5 years ago and I have been at my friends homes and they still have those door knob hangers. Oh, Wal-Mart has the the cheapest ballons & cakes (the cakes do not look cheap people have asked me if I get them from our local bakery!)
Oh the McDonalds party price is for 10 kids!
we are combining my three boys birthday (one skipped his real birthday so he could do a half birthday) and renting out a swimming pool. it works out to be the same amount of money and what could be easier?
For my daughter’s 2nd birthday, we rented the gymnasium thingy at a local church. There was no cost because an aunt was a member of that congregation. There was a large, stocked kitchen, dining room with lots of tables, gymnasium for the kids to ride bikes, play ball, scream, run, whack the pinata and do other crazy 2 year-old stuff. It was wonderful. I totally recommend it. All I had to do was decorate a little, bring the party stuff and clean up. There were no worries with any staff hovering or fussing or worrying us. We had free run of the whole facility and had a great time.