Birthday Party - Hillside,IL

Dear A.,

Are you not providing the pizza in order to keep the price down? I think it might be considered tacky. If you were having a party at your home, you would have stuff to eat other than cake, even if it wasn't a whole sit down meal. Also, (this is the case in the CEC closest to our home -- the one on Ogden in Naperville) the space is divided up at CEC into the general area and the party zone, and kids who are in the party zone have the CEC employees sing, serve the pizza and cake, dance w/ Chucky, etc. It sounds to me like you would be skipping out on this and trying to handle the tokens, etc., yourself. There will be no place for your group to sit all together if you aren't an organized "party" -- the tables that accomodate large groups are all reserved by CEC for parties and you will be left with a collection of small booths which will be awkward. Monkey Joe's is very popular for parties -- we havent' been there yet so I can't discuss the layout or anything. My impression is that Monkey Joe's is geared toward your age group. Pump it up in Lisle is popular, but a 4 year old might find it big and not really age appropriate. Big Bounce in Naperville or Airtastic in Aurora could be good choices. At Airtastic, I know you can bring your own cake and use their party room and I don't think you have to buy any of their food, and they have a good-sized part of the building that is for smaller kids. I'm sure you can find all these places if you google them. Good luck!

Wow! That's quite a large group for doing something at the last minute and/or walking into somewhere and hoping there is enough room. I would definitely plan some place if you decided to have a party.

I don't think that it's tacky to just provide cake. A lot of people are cutting back and providing just cake at like 10am, 2pm-4pm or 7pm is perfectly acceptable. That said, we just had a birthday party for my son at Oberweiss and it was awesome AND cheap. We got the deluxe package for $9.95 a kid. They had a designated party assistant, games with toy rewards, a special toy for my son, a craft that they could take hom and they got to tour the ice cream factory, two people got to make an ice cream cone and they all got to make their own sundae's. Pretty cool. I would definitely recommend them if there is one in your area. If not, you might look into other ice cream places in your area. The cheapest package was $4.95 a kid.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

I do not think it's tacky to only serve cake, as long as it's not during a meal time. My girls have attended parties where only cake is served. They have also attended a party at CEC exactly as you're describing. I seem to remember, though, that pizza was served, but I could be wrong. At the age of 4, though, it may be harder to corral the kids yourself unless many of the moms stay too. Just get there early and do it on a weekday so you have a better chance of grabbing tables/booths together.

For other ideas, check out the online Birthday Party Guide at www.kidwinks.com. Here's the direct link to the guide: http://www.kidwinks.com/ForKids/6/KidsBirthdayPartyPlaces...

There are hundreds of places listed on kidwinks for birthday parties. If you become a kidwinks member, which is free, you can sort this list by distance from your house, so you can see what's closest to you. You can also read reviews from other parents.

J.

This may be a little far for you, but Wonder Works Children Musuem in Oak Park, is a great space. We are actually going to be doing my son's party there later this summer. It's not super expensive, and you can pick packages based on what you want. the kids can run around and they have a party room that you can rent for the hour. Our invitation for my son's party, says please join us for cake, and we are doing it at an off time 2:30pm. We are members,but I think the cost for admission of 30 people and the party room for an hour and paper goods was around 125-150, and you can bring in your own food.
Hope you find a great space.
Good luck
S.

i don't think anyone is going to chuckie cheese because the pizza is super yummy anyway--as long as you don't have the party during a mealtime and make sure and specify on the invitiation that there will be cake only, and no meal, it think it's just fine. i know park districts have good party options- especially naperville. my daughter is super into yoga and has been to a few yoga parties at Universal Spirit Yoga- you just pay for the yoga part and bring in whatever food/drinks you want. Kids have a blast and so do adults. nice and different, and still fun. good luck.

If you are providing something why is this tacky? You can check parks, churches, etc. whatever you are serving -cake only or whatever is what you are serving. If they need pizza or filet mignon they can get it themselves. I grew up in the day where we squished the twenty people in the house. Why is that bad? If you have ever gone to an indoor party anywhere everyone always stands in the kitchen anyway. Just declare your home a giant kitchen.