Little Gym Birthday Party?

[mama2galpals]

hi my dd is insisting on little gym for her bday. has anyone ever thrown a party there or have any feedback? dh took her to the one she loved.

thanks!
rita
mom to
olivia
stella
emma

[Andrea S]

We had Andrew's 2nd birthday party at My Gym (which is the same concept as little gym) and he loved it. We had kids from 1 year to 6 years old and they all had a blast. Some of it was organized, but most of the time they kids just played. We had pizza and cake. The kids did not take much time to eat.


Andrea
mom to Andrew 8/14/02
& #2 EDD 3/28/06

[kristenk]

This is a late reply but I was out of town and am going through all of the posts I missed while I was away! :)

Last month we went to a 2-year birthday party at The Little Gym. There was a pretty big age range of attendees and I think that was a little hard b/c the activities were fairly physical. For example, the activity leader was blowing bubbles for kids, but all of the bigger kids would race around and try to pop all of them and sort of ruin it for the littler kids who were just watching the bubbles and trying to pop them but not succeeding. I guess the activities just magnified the difference in the physical abilities between older and younger kids.

When we first arrived, there was open play in the gym area. After a while (maybe 30-45 minutes or so?), the leaders came and tried to do a couple of activities with the kids. I think there were some songs, bubbles, playing with balls, and playing "smack the cheese" (or something like that!). The more structured play lasted until it was time for cake. The cake was all set up in a different room and the little gym staff was really good at getting cake distributed and drinks poured, etc. After cake, the birthday girl opened presents. I think that the whole event lasted 2 hours.

I don't know how old your DD is, but I think that if she really likes little gym that she'd have a great time.

[mama2galpals]

thanks for that feedback. i am still debating it. this would be for dd's fifth bday party and most of the kids would be her age with a couple older or younger. i know exactly what you mean about the different age groups. i've seen that at other parties. the party sounds ok but i don't know why it doesn't thrill me. but she really wants it so i'll probably just go with it.



rita
mommy to
olivia '97
stella '00
emma '03

the truth can hurt your feelings, but lies can break your heart.


http://lilypie.com/baby3/030123/3/4/1/+10/.png

[nd93]

We did a Little Gym party for DD's 5th birthday last spring. All the kids were from her preschool class except for her 3 year old sister. It was great!! They take care of everything - serving the cake, writing down what gifts she got, clean up. I also had a 1 yr old so it was nice to not have to watch him and make sure the party was moving along. DH took pictures. It's a bit pricey (IMO) but the kids had a great time, and it was easy on the parents. You literally show up with the cake and that's it.

My only warning is with the invitations. You give them the address list and they mail them out. Sounds great, right? Well, it's a postcard and a lot of people thought it was an ad for Little Gym, not a bday invite, so we had quite a few people who did not know they were invitied. I ended up calling a lot of people (because some parents had told me they almost threw it out!) and so some people didn't come b/c they didn't know in time. I would ask about that, although when I told our LG about it they said they've never heard of that being a problem before. If I did a party there in the future I would ask to get the postcards myself so I could hand them out at school, or maybe send out our own invites and say a card will be coming from Little Gym.

[mabun3]

We had my son's 4th birthday party at the little gym and it was great. They the poster above said everything is taken care of by the gym staff. I loved that they wrote down all the gifts and who they came from so I could actaully pay attention to DS opening gifts. It was also nice that some of the kids played around while the gifts were being opened and not just sitting watching.

I also agree with the PP that I would get the invites and hand them out or do your own. They really aren't the greatest invitations.

Jack 2/21/01
Isabella 7/28/04

[Globetrotter]

I've attended three or four parties there, and I liked the way they were done. It definitely works better if all the kids are around the same age, but that can be said for most parties, IMO. Nowadays I split up the kid's parties according to age, for this reason, and also for crowd control ;) Those siblings add up fast!

I like Little Gym because it's enclosed. YOu're the only ones there, so it's more secure. They do everything for you, except you have to get the goody bags together, plus order a cake and food. You can choose to use your own decorations, if you want.

I'm planning my dd's bday there, and they've been so good to work with! I think their philosophy is to make it easy for the parents so we can truly enjoy the party.

Kris