My youngest child recently celebrated her 6th birthday. As most of you know, this is a prime birthday celebration age. You can’t get away with a small cake, some balloons, and an intimate family gathering like you can when they are only one or two. Nor can you order a couple of pizzas, stock up on soda, and give the birthday child and his or her friends control over the basement for a few hours like you can with your teenager.
Time For A REAL Party
Those golden birthday years spanning from the 3rd birthday through the 9th birthday, require a REAL party. At a minimum you need to provide food, fun, cake, and party favors. However, before you start planning this birthday extravaganza, you need to make a very important decision. Are you willing to invest several hours into putting on the perfect party? Or are you willing to pay someone else to do it?
While at-home parties give you an opportunity to let your creative juices flow, sometimes it is nice to let someone else take care of all the details (e.g. cleaning, setting up, entertainment, keeping the party on schedule, etc.).
Places You Can Book A Child’s Birthday Party
I searched high and low to come up with all the different places I could book for my daughter’s party, only to have her decide on Chuck E. Cheese before I’d even presented her options. So, I’m sharing this comprehensive list of all the different places where you can book a child’s birthday party so that all that research doesn’t go to waste. And because prices and packages vary widely from one location to the next, I intentionally left out those details. I have included links to some national chains though to give you an idea of what is out there.
- Children’s Theater
- Indoor Bouncy Facility (e.g. Pump It Up Party)
- Gymnastics Facility
- Craft Stores (e.g. Michael’s)
- Paint Your Own Pottery Store (e.g. Color Me Mine)
- Make Your Own Stuffed Animal Store (e.g. Build-A-Bear)
- Cupcake Bakery
- Pizza Parlor (e.g. California Pizza Kitchen)
- Chuck E. Cheese
- Fast Food Restaurant (e.g. McDonald’s)
- Ice Cream Shop
- Cooking School (e.g Young Chef’s Academy)
- Tea Room
- Photo Studio (e.g. Clix Covergirl)
- Farms (e.g. petting zoo, pumpkin batch, berry picking)
- Zoo
- Factory Tour
- Museum
- Educational Center (e.g. Mad Science)
- Movie Theater (e.g. AMC Theaters)
- Arcade
- Bowling Alley (e.g. AMF Bowling Alleys)
- Roller Skating Rink
- Swimming Pool
- Miniature Golf
- Public Park (with this option, you’d still have to do all the party work, but you wouldn’t have to clean your house for the party)
- YMCA
- Indoor Sports Facility
- Local Sporting Event
- Laser Tag
- Go-Karts
- Paintball
- Amusement Park
- Water Park
If you have other suggestions, please feel free to share them in the comments.
I threw my daughter a slumber party/pool party at a hotel. We chose home2suites for their larger rooms. The front desk staff was very accomodating amd allowed us to use the lobby area for the food and cake as it wasn’t allowed in the pool area. They even helped with the clean up and gave my daughter a card with a $25 gift card to cold stone. My daughters bday is in December so this was a great time
That is an AWESOME idea! Thanks for sharing it.
I had my birthday party last year at Benihana’s and it was a blast! No clean up required!,
I always take my kids you it’z!
These are great suggestions. My son will be turning 9 soon, and I have been racking my brain about what he would like to do for his b-day. It’s true that birthdays 3-9 are pretty much “the golden years” when it comes to b-day parties, etc, and so he’s right on the edge with that with him turning 9. He’s never been to Chuckie Cheese before, but I was wondering if he was too old for that or not at this point…so I was trying to look into other ideas. Thanks for the suggestions.
Hi Tanya, thanks for leaving a comment. 9 is a tough age with boys because they are so active, but not quite old enough to set loose on an activity like paintball. If you have a laser tag facility near you, that is always a big hit with that age group, as are the pizza places that will let the kids behind the scenes to make their own pizzas. Good luck!
I never really thought about it (because I don’t have kids) but you’re right, those are the ages where you really have to put some effort into birthday parties to make them fun for all of the kids and to give your child the birthday they want. I remember having my 7th birthday party at one of those “Kids Zone” kind of places and it was a blast! Not to mention they take care of pretty much everything. Definitely easier on parents.
Ah, some great ideas but wait until they reach 18. You may up doing something like this Alice in Wonderland party that we held for our daughter –
http://www.averycuriouswedding.com/my-blog/2012/07/my-entry.html
We made everything ourselves and it took months but is was such fun!!
I hope my daughter doesn’t see your comment, otherwise I might be calling you up for some help to pull together her next party! 🙂
What a great resource! I really want to do the ice cream shop idea. Sounds really fun for kids.
I couldn’t find a national chain that advertises parties but I did find several independent ice cream shops online that hold birthday parties for kids. Like the cupcake bakery, they let the kids pick all the toppings and they show them a behind-the-scenes look at the store. Thanks for your comment!
I like to have my husband take all of the kids camping for their birthday parties. It wears the kids out and has the added benefit of giving me free reign of the house (so nobody catches me marching while folding laundry).