Movie Theater Birthday Party?

[WDWjen]

We had a party at Seaford Cinemas (i noticed you are from LI) last June. We timed it for the morning after the Toy Story 3 premiere so no one had seen it yet. It was awesome! 10 or 11am movie (cant remember exactly) so I asked kids to show up 1/2 hour early and I had bagels/juice and coffee for adults. Then we all watched the movie (loved it) and had cupcakes and sang happy bday right there in the theater. Greatest party ever. Each kid gets popcorn and soda during the movie. I brought a tub of goldfish for the toddlers who couldnt have popcorn. The staff at Seaford was great, I've been to a few movie parties there (that's where I got the idea) and I highly recommend it.

I cant remember exactly what I paid at Seaford.. but I've had a home party for my daughter (10 girls for fake sleepover) and between pizza and dessert and crafts I feel like I probably spent the same amount of $ per kid and then had to clean my house twice.

 

[Disney2NJ]

My daughter will turn 7 on January 10th. I can relate to everything the OP stated. We ended up booking a party at the grocery store! Sounds crazy but I found out that they do kids cooking parties. We got to pick the menu they will make. The cake is included. I think I'm going to get aprons as the "favor." I would have never known about this if a teacher-friend hadn't mentioned it. BTW--it's Shop Rite. I'm in New Jersey--not sure if they are in NY.

 

[mjkacmom]

Here where I am in NJ, movie parties are pretty expensive. The cheaper options are CEC (as low as $12 a child), and some bowling parties. Sometimes you can find gymnastics for less than $15 a child. Michael's also has reasonable craft parties.

 

[shoney]

Elwood theatre on Jericho Tpke..just east of 231 rents the whole theatre for around 300.00 and includes unlimited soda and popcorn. They set up tables under the screen. You can have up to 30 kids and the adults are free.

It isn't the best theatre around, but it is cheap! If you just want to go to a movie it is 5.50 a ticket, or 4.00 on Tuesdays. There is a 3.00 surcharge for 3-d.


I should mention that the theatre rentals are only at 4:30 during the week and 10 am on weekends.

 

[IndianaPrincess]

We had a movie party and it ended up being EXTREMELY cheap! Plus it was a huge hit with the kids and families and people still talk about it! I just called up my local $1 theater and they were fine with us having a big group on a random Tues (it was the 5:00ish showing of Ice Age 3 - I think there were two other families besides our party!) It was even 1/2 price day (so 50 cents a ticket) so I paid for entire families to come - we invited her entire class, her class the year before (she switched schools and all her friends were old class kids but I wanted her to be making new friends too) and some church friends. The kids all got a popcorn and pop snack pack ($2.50). The total was about $75! The manager said that we could open gifts under the screen until the next movie was starting so we have about 40 minutes after the movie.

I could not have asked for a better (and cheaper) option!

 

[PEANUT1]

I'm confused as to the concern of having children in in your home?

My daughters birthday is in Dec.. I priced a movie theater party last year and it was really expensive. I did a movie premier party at home and all of the parents and kids LOVED IT!!!!! This year we did a bowling party which was about 14$ per kid including bowling, pizza and drinks.

Personally, I think home parties are so much better...yes there is clean up but they are more personal and the kids really interact and play together while the parents socialize. Parties at those bounce places or chuckee cheese are a free for all and the kids dont really hang together.

 

[shoney]

I had another idea....Lazerkingdom and woodkingdom off of rt110 by adventureland run specials for their parties. Usually around 179 to 200. You can find coupons in the pennysaver. Google them! The girls usually love lazer tag as well!

 

[deedeecee]

We did a Toy Story 3 movie party this past summer. It was about $20 pp. We paid for child and parent, but that was our choice because the kids were little (most were 5 and under). The cost included the movie, a kid's popcorn/drink/candy combo and game tokens.
A friend just had a Tangled movie party for her daughter, but she specified on the invite it was a drop-off party, so she didn't host the parents.
I loved having a movie party (super easy!), but I think next time I would opt for just paying for the tickets and buying popcorn and drinks out of pocket. It would be cheaper and just as much fun.

 

[LadyBeBop]

One bit of advice. Make sure the movie theatre is open that day.

May seem silly. However, one year, I planned a movie party for my daughter (she was about 10 at the time). The plan was...she would invite about 6 to 8 of her friends, and we all would head out to a G or PG rated movie at the dollar cinema.

Day of the party...I was checking the newspaper to see what movie they'd be going to...nothing listed in the paper. I called the theatre..and they were closed that day.

It seemed the theatre shared a parking lot with our horse race track. And that Saturday was the day of the biggest race of the season.

I think I packed all six kids into the car, and headed to another dollar cinema 45 minutes away.

 

[summerrluvv]

Hi, I saw you were on LI. I did my daughters party at PJ Cinema in Port Jeff last year. $7.50 for a movie ticket, popcorn, and soda. Not a multiplex but shows all new releases. Staff is friendly and I felt they did a really good job. We had pizza and cupcakes at the pizza palor next store after the show. It was probably the most inexpensive party I ever had for my daughter.

I live near there and was wondering about their parties. Did the adults stay and if so, do you just pay the normal ticket price for them?

OP, not sure if Patchogue is too far for you, but Julie's Gymnastics does a great party. It's like $9.99 per child and you bring your own food/paper goods, or they will order pizza for you at $12 a pie. I did my dd's 2nd there and it was so much fun!! I did add the extra 30 minutes for $50 because I had a pinata I wanted to do, but that's totally not necessary. They play on the apparatus, they do have a bounce house, they do "sledding" down the mats, etc. Of course it would probably be tweaked a little differently for a 6 year old. The owner is really nice too.

A lot of the "franchise" movie theaters were really expensive when I looked into it for my son.

 

[summerrluvv]

Oh and another idea is a local performing arts theater. We did a party last year at Theater Three and saw the Peter Rabbit play. It was very inexpensive...I want to say $13 a child. I know a lot of the playhouses do them. There is a really nice one in Northport...the John Engeman Theater