This past weekend, we had a birthday party for our first grader at our local GlowGolf. The party turned out to be a huge success, but it did not start off that way. I had booked the time more than six weeks in advanced and put down a deposit to hold the date. When we arrived, there was another party taking place and it looked like our party sheet was not in their files, our information was erased from the appointment book, and they had no record of our deposit. Luckily, the erased appointment was still legible, so the gentlemen on duty, who was very apologetic, was able to accommodate us and even took a little off the total bill for our inconvenience. As luck would have it, the other party was scheduled to end right when our was suppose to begin. Still, we were not able to set up until the previous party cleared out, so we started our party about 20 minutes late. To someone like me, who starts planning her children's birthday parties months in advance, this hiccup was not a small one.
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GlowGolf provides glow bracelets plus tables and chairs for your party. At this location, I rarely see more than one person working out front at a time, so there was nobody to help coordinate the activities. We had 11 children altogether, so that was a good number for my husband and myself to handle. It is a dark place, plus there were no on-site restrooms, so if possible, I recommend having a third adult on hand to escort any children off the premises to use the restroom. I also had all the children and all the adults who were in our party wear lanyards so we could easily tell who was part of our group.
We started with a full round of mini golf. Had we started the party on time, we could have gone through the course twice, but we were worried about time. Each child had two tokens, so they could go through the laser maze twice. While inside, each child's friends could watch him or her on the monitor. The laser maze was a huge hit, even more so than the children being able to recharge their golf balls' glow themselves.
My husband could not resist giving the maze a try for himself. Also, some of the children were afraid to go inside by themselves, so we allowed those children to go in pairs.
Soon it was time for cake! We served this pull-apart Spider-Man birthday cake from Stop & Shop. It was made of 24 cupcakes, half chocolate and half yellow. We love the cakes from Stop & Shop and usually order a marble sheet cake with whipped, less sugary frosting. This was our first pull apart cake. It worked out great because we did not have to slice the cake to serve it, but when the children asked for seconds and thirds, we had to cut the cupcakes in half because there were not enough of them. All the children were exclaiming how good the cupcakes were. I usually have enough cake leftover for the parents, but not this time.
We took the photo below right before we had cake, since we knew the children would be plastered in red and yellow frosting soon enough . . .
Overall, the party was a huge success. The children had a blast. GlowGolf is extremely affordable compared to most of the other party options out there for grade school-aged children. I do not regret booking my son's party there, even with the initial confusion.
This article was based on my family's personal experience with the above-mentioned services and products, which were purchased by us. No compensation was received for sharing these experiences with my readers.
