Home > How to Survive a Trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s
Posted by admin on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
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American children are born with an innate desire to visit the land of Charles Eugene Cheese. My daughter was no exception.
For months, I turned down her requests with distractions and excuses. Then my best friend told me about how he never got to go as a kid.
This was my chance. I could be the coolest dad/friend in town and make two dreams come true in one fell swoop.
It was a nightmare.
Don’t go hungry
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Chuck E. Cheese’s is not a pizza place. They serve pizza, but calling it a pizza place is like calling a strip club a restaurant.
Food is not their specialty. You should not expect to eat and enjoy it.
Pack extra sanitizer
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There’s no telling what’s floating around in that ball pit. Try not to think about it. Just spray disinfectant at your kids when they run by.
Set low expectations for service
You know who works at Chuck E. Cheese’s? High school seniors, that’s who.
There’s nothing wrong with high school seniors, per se, but they haven’t really mastered the art of customer relations.
After breaking the first rule on this list, my party of three waited an hour for our pizza. The 16-year-old manager’s way of making it up to us: a bucket of free tokens so we could play more games. It was a move that really undermined me since we’d already been there two hours and I’d just told my little girl we were leaving after the pizza, which reminds me …
Have an escape plan
An open-ended trip to Chuck’s place is akin to a death wish. In order to avoid lots of kicking and screaming, set some expectations going in. Let your child know how long you’re going to be there.
Some kids will still put up a pretty good fight when time’s up. With that in mind, here’s a sneaky trick: tell your child you have to leave so you guys can go do something else equally fun for them but less soul-killing for you – maybe a trip to the playground or swimming pool.
Forget everything from your childhood
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If you’re like me, you have fond memories of the Rock-afire Explosion from Showbiz Pizza.
Well, either animatronic technology has taken a gigantic step backward or no one really cares anymore because the show Chuck and his friends put on is lacklaster at best. It’s almost as though they’ve been stuck in that dreadful place for years and have lost the will to live.
Don’t let the same happen to you.
Content by Carter P.
Well said Carter! If Chuck Cheese spent half as much on cleaning supplies and managerial training that he does on marketing, I might consider returning. I’m still trying to shake that Chuck E. Cheese Cough some time after my first/last visit.
Thanks for the “heads up”. I went as a child. And recall loving it. However now that I have a child of my own, I know that I will be on the other end and probably will not like it as much.