Chuck-E-Cheese is a pizza/games/party place that all children seem to love. This company combines food, games, prizes, and costumed characters to entrance and thrill its patrons under the age of adulthood. So it was no wonder that my own children love going there and thoroughly enjoy having their birthdays hosted there. Here, you will find pros and cons to help you decide if having your child’s next birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese is right for you.
Pros:
Nearly Unlimited Fun – Chuck E Cheese is filled with arcade-style games. There are games for the youngest toddler to the adult who accompanies the birthday child. Most children couple spend all day there. I say “nearly unlimited fun” because it’s fun until the game tokens run out. Then they’ll be begging for more, more, more. But until that moment, the kids will have a wonderful time playing every game under the sun. And all you’ll have to do is stand back and watch.
Dinner & a Show – With the birthday party package, all children get pizza, cake, drinks, and tokens. Not only that, but they are given a birthday show by Chuck E. Cheese, himself! Or at least the employee who unluckily drew the short straw on who has to wear the giant rat costume. The kids are entertained with music, song, and dance while being coerced up on stage to dance right along side the giant rat. You’ll see lots of laughing, jumping, dancing, and excitement.
Specials – If you have a Chuck E Cheese nearby, you’ve probably noticed coupons in your local paper for deals on pizza and tokens. Even if you’re not a coupon cutter, I highly suggest using coupons here. The Chuck E Cheese website even has coupons that you can print off to use. If you book your child’s birthday party online, you’ll even get extra tokens to go with it. Anytime we go, I always bring along a stash of coupons for extra tokens, another pizza, and whatever else that I think will come in handy while we’re there.
Goodies – At Chuck E Cheese everyone walks away with a goodie. The game machines spit out game tickets like water spraying from a hose. Sometimes you’ll only get a trickle and other times it’s more like a gush. Your child/ren can exchange their ticket collection for goodies/toys/things that will be broken as soon as they reach the car. The kids seem to like them though, and who are we to ruin their fun by telling them that they will not be able to rack up enough tickets for the rotating disco ball (which you could buy at the store cheaper than the ticket cost of the crazy thing)?
Dedicated Host/Hostess – Ah yes, the dedicated host/hostess is a nice touch to the Chuck E Cheese birthday parties. You have someone who will bring out the food, dish out the cake, run to get more pizza when it’s all gone, lead the children in the singing and dancing with the giant rat (of which I’m sure he or she is thrilled to NOT be the one in the costume), and all around clean up after you and the kids. I’d much rather have him/her cleaning up the mess when little Suzy spills her drink for the third time, than me.
Unlimited drinks – Unlimited drinks come in handy when you have a spiller (see the statement about little Suzy above) or when you have people who drink constantly. Me, well, I’m always good with one cup of anything, but the husband can down three in the time it takes me for my one. Of course, unlimited drinks could be a bad thing if the children discover how easy it is to run the drink dispenser themselves… all over their party clothes.
Free Invitations – When you book a birthday party with Chuck E Cheese, you can also email all of the invitees an invitation right from the Chuck E Cheese website. If that’s not your cup of tea (or cola, in this instance), you can also print off paper invitation to mail to everyone on your invitation list. No more running out of invitations at the last minute! Oh, and I particularly like how the Chuck E Cheese printable invitations let you inform the parents if they will be fed or not. That’s pretty handy when you only want to feed the party kids.
Cost – Now we’ll get into the cons of having a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. First off is the cost. The price of having a birthday party there can get pretty costly with the more children invited to the party. The party packages only come with enough pizza to give the kids two slices each and one birthday cake (kind of a small cake, in my opinion), so if you have some hungry kids you may end up having to spend out more money on more pizzas. Also, the party kids only get a small amount of game tokens to start out with. This is where the coupons I mentioned above come in handy. With my middle daughter’s 4th birthday party, I went in expecting to spend about $50 and left having spent well over $100. So be prepared to spend more than just the cost of the party.
Game Tokens Run Out Fast – Yep, kids can fly through game tokens in the blink of an eye. Then you’ll be surround by a group of begging, sniveling, little people begging for more. I hope you didn’t forget those coupons I’ve been talking about, cause you’ll need them.
Crowd – Depending upon what day of the week and time of day that you’ve scheduled your child’s birthday party, you may run into a crowd at Chuck E Cheese. Keep in mind that this is a popular place and people bring their kids just for a day of fun on the weekends. So you may be scanning a large crowd wondering where the head of your short six year old has disappeared to. I’m not a big crowd fan myself, so I try not to take my kids on crowded days/times. If that means a 3pm dinner, then so be it!
Age – We all know that kids eventually outgrow anything that they enjoy. Chuck E Cheese is no exception. I’ve found that birthday parties are much more successful if you aim for ages 4 – 8 years old. After that the kids will refuse to have fun, simply on the principle of the thing. But that won’t mean that your stubborn preteen won’t be right out there playing the video games alongside their seven year old sibling. They just won’t admit to having fun, nor will they request a birthday party there in the future.
Looking back on my list, you’ll see that the pros outnumber the cons. The kids have so much fun (and you won’t have to clean up afterwards), and that outweighs almost any con you can come up with. Chuck E Cheese is definitely a fun place, and they even have a salad bar for those of us who try to eat healthier than just pizza. So consider having your child’s next birthday party at Chuck E Cheese; they will love it!
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