To be annoyed play centre held a party at the same time as open session?

[Hohohoididnotgo]

I went to a little role play cafe today with my children. It’s only small so probably only capacity for about thirty kids. Fine except today there was a birthday party which was pretty much the whole centre. So after an hour or so of play pretty much every other child there went and sat at a table with food, balloons and cake and were playing party games.

I have had this before at soft play and obviously it happens but at soft play it’s bigger and less obvious and when the children go to eat and play games it’s in a separate room. This wasn’t.

AIBU? I felt a bit sad for mine as they’d struck up friendships with some kids playing and then they were left almost alone!

OP, you do realise that if they'd close it to the public for the party, you'd then be on here whingeing that you made a special trip there only to find it closed!

What do you want them to do?

Only have parties in the middle of the night when it's closed to the public?

replied to wrong person

Of course it's silly to have, say 25 party kids and 5 non-party kids in a venue. It's a shoddy way to run a party and unfair on everyone.

All this "life lesson" nonsense as well.

Successful parties don't have life lessons imo. Everyone just has a good time. It's a sign of a badly-organised party or one gone wrong if people have to console themselves that at least some little children will learn a "life lesson".

Did you pay for a play session that they didn't get, or got less of? If so, you are right to be annoyed.

Ah christ alive

Some people are offended by anything

How can you survive if you're this sensitive to nothing?

YABU

I had to explain to my 4 year old why she couldn’t stay at the extremely fun looking party that her 5 year old sister had been invited to on Saturday. She wasn’t best pleased, but then she got over it and we watched Moana.

That’s life.

Did you expect parent of birthday dc to invite your dc to their party?

I am sorry…I don’t get the issue!

there was a party which sounds lovely. Your kids made friends, again, fabulous. You were playing at a play center…great!

I mean…if the issue is that your kids weren’t invited. Meh. Please teach them that they don’t need to eat a slice of every pie they see! They should be excited for when it will be their birthday not sad coz they didn’t get to eat…They will have their turn?

🤯

92% say YABU and VVV entitled. Your DC got to play so what’s the problem? They didn’t get invited to a random’s birthday party. You need to explain, as their parent, that they can’t always get what they want. Distract, interact, whatever you need to do but not sure why you are having a go at the business.

Some times it’s good to be Jack and some times it’s good to be Jane.

It's a business. They have every right to have parties. Your son enjoyed himself. End of.

@Hohohoididnotgo
The whole playground probably wouldn’t be joining in on that though. So not really the same.

But you said every other child was at the party. Not every child apart from yours. Make your mind up.

I didn't attack anyone, I was simply saying that using the phrase 'so sad' in this context is totally OTT. And you can be shocked all you like - my point still stands.

Your swearing was uncalled for and your assumptions clear as day in the first few lines.

Assumptions about what?!

For clarity: it seems clear to me that OP's children aren't growing up deprived or neglected or living in poverty, and that they're lucky enough to have a mother who cares deeply about them (to the point where the mother is wound up about this situation unnecessarily IMO).
The use of the phrase 'so sad' about OP's children witnessing other children at party seemed OTT, as if they are poor little deprived urchins which they clearly are not.

@Hohohoididnotgo
For comparison, the role play cafe near me holds 60 people I believe and when you book a birthday party you have two options - whole venue hire or a group of up to 10 children. The reason for this is so that they don’t end up with the situation you’ve described, where you have a paying customer feeling as everyone else enjoys the party.

When you factor in that the 60 max capacity includes adults, children and babies, you can see that the number of children is likely to be close to 30 (one parent per child) and so capping the party to 10 children means that the party is not going to overrun the whole place, unless they’ve actually booked it as a private hire.

I don’t think it would have riled me up as much as it appears to have you but I do know understand the point you’re making, absolutely. I’m surprised more people aren’t seeing this from your point of view and it does feel like a bit of a pile on!

Also, for the record, business is not all about profit. Profit is obviously important but so is customer satisfaction which leads to repeat booking and word of mouth recommendation. That’s not complicated.

There can be no business without profit.

Customer satisfaction is only important in that it drives profit.
Profit is all.

I still dont know what a role play cafe is.

@DowntonFlabbie yes that’s true re profit. But the point OP was making was that accepting the party booking plus extra individual bookings may have increased profit on that particular day/ session but may not be a wise strategy longer term if customers, such as her, may think twice about booking next time and/ not refer a friend.

A role play cafe is where young children can play in a space with various set-ups such as cafe, building site, road, supermarket. They have cars, plastic food, supermarket trolleys and check outs, fancy dress outfits, etc., and children can go in and out of various sets role playing each activity. There’s also a cafe just adjacent to all of that where you can buy a kids packed lunch and a crap cup of coffee.

I cant bring myself to vote YABU or YANBU, kids have parties, the venue is within it's rights to hold them even though it's only a small venue, your kids(s) probably felt a bit sad at being left out, and you feel bad for your kids. Which is reasonable on both counts.
This is a life lesson here for your kids, they need to learn to be happy for others, and sometimes it doesn't all go there own way or they'll have a very embittered view of the world, as the grow up continually disappointed at not being the focus of attention

*AbitSceptical *

you make a good point here I think.

If a restaurant with say 100 spaces on 20 tables was booked out for a wedding would everyone here saying the OP is unreasonable think it would be fine if there was 1 table with 8 people on in a corner not part of the wedding.
I would find it very weird and rude of the restaurant and it’s the same here.

If you had arrived to find there was only one other child plus yours would you still be bemoaning the venue?