Hah, we were just talking about this last night. One guy’s kid really wanted a stuffed animal and they ended up with 720 tickets, which he said seemed to equal 72 cents. Kid was sad, so he offered to pay the difference and get the animal, which they did. $15 bucks plus 720 tickets to gt the teddy bear. (I’m not sure if he was kidding about the 720 tickets, maybe he was exaggerating).
Dennis
IIRC you can get beer there, but you’re limited to 2. It’s been a damn long time since I’ve been there, and I feel pretty good about that.
ETA: I see beer availability has been discussed. Any confirmation on the limit?
I took my niece to a Barney Live show. :eek:
If the manic energy and deafening noise level at CEC start to get to you, remember that you could be at a Barney Live show.
I am certain that C.E.C. has somehow managed to violate at least one law of physics with the amount of grease they can saturate into a single pizza.
Pro tips:
If your child is sensitive to noise, you may wish to bring earbuds for him to wear. They will cut the noise without preventing him from hearing conversations. You might want some too.
Both of you should have a healthy snack before going. The food is crap, but they take a really long time to cook it. I recommend protein as it helps dampen the carb rush/crash.
Stop by the dollar store before the party and have some little treat in your pocket that you know he will like. Then if he comes up short at the ticket counter you’ll have a prize to present to him.
Don’t expect the party count to include you - parents don’t eat unless invited to by the hosts.
Don’t leave your child alone in the game section or the bathroom. The trick is to be standing near but not over him. Bad people have been known to hang out there looking for lonely kids.
Bring a cup over to the counter when you buy your tokens. You should def hold them for your child, as older kids will steal them. Tokens are a great teaching moment. Help your child understand how many you have, and when he needs to really look around and plan what to use the last ones on. It’s a great starter for the concept of budgeting when they get older.
Take lots of pictures, and e-mail them to the hosts. They will love you for it!
I don’t think a party at C.E.C. is a optimal teaching moment for anything but greed. Chill, expect tears, watch your kid as you would in any public area. As others said eat ahead of time, and wash hands afterwards. No biggie. At home later pat yourself on the back as a fun parent. You will be ready for the rest of the birthday and school parties you have to attend. And then the teenage years arrive and that’s a whole other ball of wax. Oh, joy!!
They’ve done terrible things to Pac Man and Frogger, but Operation as an arcade game is pretty cool.
Many locations use a swipe card now, not coin tokens. Hopefully the party comes complete with a marker to write your kid’s name on his card because they all look identical and are easily shuffled around.
As a few others said, adults aren’t the target audience so maybe you won’t like it but Charles Cheese don’t care. I’m sure some kids hate their visit but they’re a distinct minority. Play a bunch of kiddie casino games, win tickets and save a few card swipes for the air hockey table so you and he can play a game or two together. Walking around, you’ll get a feel for which games offer some “experience” for your buck (tossing basketballs, shooting a water pistol, etc) versus those which are just “press a button, win some tickets, swipe it again”. Try to steer your kid in that direction so he’s not done in ten minutes. All party packages include ‘tokens’ for the guests; the cheapest gives everyone thirty tokens. The cards are reloadable though so if you want to toss another $10 your kid’s way, that’s an option.
Actually, they’re recently tried to appeal to adults, as in this commercial or this commercial. See also this article from Nation’s Restaurant News.
Full disclosure: I made pizzas at Chuck E Cheese in the summer of 1984, just after high school and before beginning college. I even wore the mouse costume a couple of times that summer.
I went to one of these last year (or the year before, I can’t remember). People are both overselling and underselling how terrible it will be.
Your 4 year old will probably be as okay as he is whenever he is in a group of kids at a new park, etc. My 6 year old was fine and seemed to enjoy himself. I think a lot of the arcade games will be too much for a 4 year old though. I can’t remember what 4 year old appropriate stuff they had, but I may just not have been paying attention to that. The pizza looks bad, but it isn’t for you, and almost all kids like bad pizza.
You, on the other hand, will be milling about for two hours with a bunch of other parents. For me, I was mostly just kind of bored. You say you’re socially awkward, so that’s probably your most likely outcome too. On the other hand, if you like these people then it might be nice.
I’ve done quite a few kids birthday parties now, and they’ve all been in some sort of “kid’s party place” (e.g. Chuck E. Cheese, indoor playgrounds or obstacle courses, etc.). They’re all the same for adults: there is nothing interesting to an adult about the surroundings, you might sneak in a slice or two of bad pizza but don’t count on it, and your enjoyment solely depends on the quality of conversation with the other parents.
I recall an old WSJ article about frequent parental fisticuffs.
Found it (probably paywalled, sorry): Calling All Cars: Trouble at Chuck E. Cheese's, Again - WSJ
Hell, next time you’re being waterboarded by a nation/state’s intelligence service remember they could really torture you by making you watch Barney.
You guys really need some perspective. Yeah, we went to Chucky Cheese for a party. Years later, I took her to an Nsync concert. I got a beer when we went to Chucky Cheese.
Yea, a crap party for adults, for sure. A step up from a home backyard party. Your kid will probably like it and beg you mercilessly for the next few years to go back. We used to do it for report card rewards. You can pick a slow Tuesday afternoon for that and it’s less noisy. The thing about the party is if you sense your kid is overwhelmed or unhappy you can always beg off and leave. Don’t sweat it.
I was about to describe it as Dave&Busters for kids hyped up on sugar instead of drunk-assed but basically this. Early on the pizza wasn’t terrible and some of the animitronics weren’t terrible (Dolly Dimples was actually kinda funny in the “lounges”) but this is 30 years back and I’ve been told its all gone downhill since then.
Since you’ve apparently been to it in more modern times, do they still have the animatronics? I had heard they were retiring them. When I was a kid, I know they were not why I went. I watched them once, to figure out how they worked, but then just always played the games and ate the pizza.
I mean, it’s a pizza arcade. They weren’t uncommon. I went to Chuck E Cheese because it was a bigger one than the normal local ones, meaning there were more games to play. Sure, I watched the animatronics once, to figure out how they worked, but the kids are too busy playing to sit there and watch, and the adults would rather be watching pretty much anything else.
Screaming children
Loud games
Parents + Beer
Terrifying Animatronic Animals
Sounds like my idea of Hell. I’d be overwhelmed by the noise and lights and too much everything and want to leave in very short order.
Fair enough. I was referring more to the overall “room full of flashing lights and noisy kids” thing but at least they don’t want you to gag on their food 
No! And I was super disappointed! I’m not a frequent Chuck E Cheese customer by any means but a few months ago we popped into one with our seven year old. It was my first time being in one in at least a decade if not longer and the first thing I noticed was that the robot jamboree was gone and now they just had a big television with this lame 3D depth effect that showed cartoon characters interacting with kids. Not the kids in the restaurant really, more the kids on the television. There was a party or two going on and none of the kids spared a glance at the screen as they ate pizza and returned to gambling on Whack-A-Mole. I thought they’d at least have a dude in a Chuck E Cheese outfit come out but didn’t see anything.
Yea, my kids gave two FFs about the ‘show’. They went for the games.
But another thing, The Lil’wrekker hated that place, she never wanted to go there. She is fair gamer too, or was in her pre-teen years. She liked buffet joints like sizzlin’ or Chinese buffets. Strange kid, liked a bargain I guess.
Her sibs often claim she was born old.
If your kid is shy, you could always play skee-ball with him to start out. Skee-ball is always fun.