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!

You said I guess none of you have dealt with a determined toddler

I think if 25 out of 30 places are booked for a party - the venue should tell you. You can then make an informed choice.

If I were in the same position as soon as I realised it was a party of that many people I would have complained - asked for my money back (or part thereof) .. and left.

if you 'stayed for the full time and got ' access ' to the play areas with hardly anyone in them - then you have less to complain about. Even if your lo's missed out on a party tea..

For that size I’d have expected private hire and a closure tbh. Once you’ve got 25/30 being for a party it does change the dynamic. At some of the massive soft play centres it doesn’t really matter but when it’s so small it does make a difference.

Of course your DC don’t understand- so you explain and they learn. Your job as parent is to teach them how the world works.

Couldn't you have bought them something to eat at the cafe? Assuming they serve food? That might have distracted them.

I’m not totally clear on what you mean here. They were confused and a bit upset when everyone suddenly left the play area and was playing games and eating in the open space next to it. I’ve no objection to buying them something to eat but it wasn’t hunger that was the problem, it was the fact they were left pretty much on their own.

Wait til they get to school and you get upset that your child isn't invited to a party. What you going to do then? You need to get a grip, honestly this is madness!

It’s all about parallel play at 18 months/ 3 years. They aren’t making friends. They may not understand that they aren’t invited to the party but I’d be astonished if they cared for more than 30 seconds when actually there is less competition for the zip wire and they have the ball pig to themselves.

incidentally mine would have found that way too long at that age esp if it’s a small centre.

No idea why you’re getting a hard time OP!

At £30 no it’s not ok that it was hired for a private party and they didn’t tell you.

They absolutely should have closed to others, marked it on website/social media as such and am very surprised they let you in.

Really poor service from a small venue,

If they were confused and upset you could've, y'know, explained what was happening.

YANBU.

If a hotel had a wedding on, I’d want to know when booking.
If a restaurant had a huge group in, and I wanted a quiet meal, I’d expect to be told in case I wanted to go elsewhere.
So I think the cafe should have told you on entry that there was a party on, so you could have done something different instead.

So you want a business to lose money because some, a tiny proportion of parents haven't the capacity to distract their children?

I did a rough cal a few posts ago and a business could lose 3-4k a week on that format.

Needless to say they would lose business if not open to the public at predictable times.

Inviting the whole class would be fine. Inviting less than half of the class would also be fine (assuming you're not inviting, say, all of the girls except one or two).

But inviting 25 children out of 28 would be poor form.

Ffs I’m sure your kids will survive. Yabu

Had the venue not accepted other bookings though it would either have to only have parties for 30 kids, which is a lot and may put people off booking a party or committ to loosing out on £75 worth of potential customers (assuming its £15 per kid and the party was for 25 kids and the venue holding 30)

Also, just cos your kid was bothered, doesnt mean others would be. Some would love the opportunity to play themselves, with their sibling or parent without other kids.

I think yabu

Soft play centres ALWAYS have parties going on.
Open session means open session, even to parties.
YABVU.

But the party didn't affect the activity available for the op's children. The equipment was still available to play with.

Had the party meant that part of the venue was off limits then I would agree with you, but it didnt. They had everything available to them whilst the party was going on

Some kids would love it if they had the run of the place and not have to wait their turn for everything, focus on what they gained instead of what they lost! You didn't go expecting them to play party games, you went expecting them to play with the role play equipment. Which was still there and probably more of it was available for your DC to play with. Why was that suddenly not fun if that's what you went for? There were 3 kids and presumably at least 2 adults (you and whoever was there with the other kid), you weren't sending one child off to occupy themselves with nothing to play with.

I'd be cross that the soft play didn't let you know when you arrived so you could make an informed choice before spending £30. My daughter would love for all the kids to disappear so it wouldn't be a problem for her and we would buy a ticket. My son however loves making new friends so this wouldn't work well for him if I thought we might be one of only a few kids there. I'd like to know so we could go elsewhere with him.

Not saying the soft play shouldn't mix parties and public, I totally understand that they have overheads but I think it would be more transparent to at least have a sign up at the entrance before you pay.

It isn’t soft play, it’s basically role play equipment so toy doctors, shops, vets, post office and so on.

They might lose money in other ways though. When it happened with us, I didn't go back to that play cafe as didn't want yo risk it happening again. The other play cafes / play sessions we go to wouldn't do that sort of thing - they close to the general public at weekends so that people can hire the spaces for parties. Prior to that we used to go once or twice a fortnight and buy lunch and drinks. Another family there who were "left out", were also fairly disgruntled, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't return either.

Presumably because she had paid for the session?

I agree OP - it's a bit crap for your kids. But easily avoided in future. Just ask if there's a party on before booking.

But this place isn’t closed to the general public at weekends so clearly, a party is always going to be a possibility as weekends are popular for parties.

Plenty of people also wouldn’t be bothered about it and would be encouraging their children to take advantage of having the role play stuff largely to themselves.

It is neither possible nor desirable to shield your children from the knowledge that not everything that happens in this world needs to include them.