Chuck E. Cheese is Da Debble, Bobby!

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Do any other parents out there have a strong dislike for Chuck E. Cheese? The one where we live is all about the tokens. When they first opened it was only video games and token rides and games.

We went to our two year old friend’s birthday this evening and it was madness. They finally added an animatronic Chuck E. Cheese in the corner and a very small indoor playground thingie at the entrance, but the whole place is small and packed.

It is a money pit. When I was a kid, it had alot more fun stuff that didnt’ cost tokens. Then my kids were so excited to have their tickets and when we went to cash them in it was massive chaos again. There was no line, so many people went in front of us and when the young girl was finally helping us she stopped and helped another person who had been there for all of five minutes. I asked her why she did that and she said “you said you were going somewhere.” I had just finished telling my son we were going home after this…LOL, but she still helped the other people. I had to take my kids out screaming and crying. I just had to get outta that place!

I can’t stand the place, it is all about training kids in gluttenous consumption. They are forced to be rude, as there are no lines and it is like a “fight for what you want” atmosphere. It’s sickening.

I just keep hearing Bobby Bouchet’s mom (From Waterboy) say “Chuck E. Cheese is Da Debble Bobby”
 
I can’t stand that place!!! My sister used to have her son’s parties there every year. Thank God he grew up. And those days are over. I made theme parties at home when mine were little and the kids all had fun.
 
Well, we go once or twice a year. I like it because it is a safe environment where I can let the kids kind of just go and not have to keep a constant visual on them. They check in every few minutes for me to hold their tickets. I haven’t found the line problem, it is usually very orderly and they do stand in line to redeem their tickets, depending on how busy it is.

I also use it as a teaching tool. They invariably never have enough tickets to get the awesome prize that they really want, and every time I strongly suggest they save their tickets from visit to visit and not spend them on the junk prizes. But they always spend it on the junk prizes that don’t even make it the 1 1/2 hours home. But there is hope, we went last month, and my 10 year old saved her 900 or so tickets till she can get the lava lamp she really wants.

I guess its like any other public place. Some people will expect polite behavior from their kids, and others let them be animals.
 
I used to work there! It was my first job, and I actually loved it at the time. I really enjoy kids, and I’m one of those useless parents that when a kid says something rude (or just plain weird) for the first time, I’m so busy laughing that it is hard to discipline them. Our CEC was huge, with two full game/ride rooms, one geared toward toddlers and young children and one geared toward older kids, plus a huge room separated by a half-wall for birthday parties. We even had a full size air hockey table. My favorite!

I have been to CEC’s recently and I have to say that they are making about half as much of an effort as they need to be to keep those places safe. They now have a stamp that they give to everyone in a group so that they can “check” when you leave to make sure that you have the right kids with you. The problem is that they don’t staff well enough to check thoroughly. When I worked there we had two attendants monitoring the games and rides at all times to prevent fights over rides. I was at one over Labor Day weekend and I didn’t see anyone dedicated to monitoring the rides and such. And at this one they had a huge slide/climbing kind of thing where kids could have been seriously injured had the wrong combination of things happened at the wrong time. Oh well, everyone trying to make a buck I guess.

Anyway, those places can definitely bring out the worst in kids, but if you go there and only get a meal deal with tokens and only spend those tokens, it isn’t too terribly expensive, although the food is definitely not the reason to go.
 
I just keep hearing Bobby Bouchet’s mom (From Waterboy) say “Chuck E. Cheese is Da Debble Bobby”
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:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

After a couple of hours in that place, the hallucinations resulting from bad food, caffeine, and screaming kids can really make it feel that way!! 😃
 
Thankfully, the one I took my kids to over Labor Day weekend sounds a LITTLE better than that!

The place was a zoo. I left with a humongous headache. But, I must say, the place must have been everything my 4 year old hoped it would be…she’s still talking about how much fun she had…and the 2 year old always chimes in with how much she liked the bus (one of the rides she enjoyed).

I think it’ll be a VERY few and far between experience for my children…
 
What I can’t stand about Chuck E. Cheese and other places as such are THE PARENTS—you see a group of them huddled gabbing and not paying attention whatsoever until little Billy or Janie cries that they got hurt then its everyone elses fault, Why was her poor baby was not supervised? The mother cries out.Then Daddy will speed dial the lawyer. Oh what a world we live in:rolleyes:
 
My kids are almost grown now, and there are two places that I never took them: Chuck E. Cheese and Toys 'R Us.
 
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CatCat:
I used to work there! It was my first job, and I actually loved it at the time. I really enjoy kids, and I’m one of those useless parents that when a kid says something rude (or just plain weird) for the first time, I’m so busy laughing that it is hard to discipline them. Our CEC was huge, with two full game/ride rooms, one geared toward toddlers and young children and one geared toward older kids, plus a huge room separated by a half-wall for birthday parties. We even had a full size air hockey table. My favorite!

I have been to CEC’s recently and I have to say that they are making about half as much of an effort as they need to be to keep those places safe. They now have a stamp that they give to everyone in a group so that they can “check” when you leave to make sure that you have the right kids with you. The problem is that they don’t staff well enough to check thoroughly. When I worked there we had two attendants monitoring the games and rides at all times to prevent fights over rides. I was at one over Labor Day weekend and I didn’t see anyone dedicated to monitoring the rides and such. And at this one they had a huge slide/climbing kind of thing where kids could have been seriously injured had the wrong combination of things happened at the wrong time. Oh well, everyone trying to make a buck I guess.

Anyway, those places can definitely bring out the worst in kids, but if you go there and only get a meal deal with tokens and only spend those tokens, it isn’t too terribly expensive, although the food is definitely not the reason to go.
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We enjoyed our Chuck E. cheese in Florida, it was huge with various rooms, the animatronic show in a restaurant area, a huge play area etc. It sounds like the one where you worked. This one is in one room and it is very tough to keep track of kids and they also have the stamp thing but not enough staff to check thoroughly yesterday. Ours is also located in one of the “bad” ends of town," so that might have something to do with it.
 
legeorge said:
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

After a couple of hours in that place, the hallucinations resulting from bad food, caffeine, and screaming kids can really make it feel that way!! 😃
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Not to mention worrying about them and trying to keep track of them, people trust the “security” a bit too much.
 
We don’t go there. It’s too loud, and we aren’t comfortable with the atmosphere.

I know the “debble” comment is just being funny, but we should make a distiction here, lest someone misunderstand. Parents who choose to take their kids there aren’t selling out to evil to placate their kids. You have to assume that other families just have different tolerances for noise, different abilities to observe manners in spite of what everyone else is doing, and make different choices about how to use their disposable income. But while Chuck E. Cheese is a choice that presents a few moral difficulties to navigate, it is not inherently a wrong place to take children, like a strip club or an opium den would be.

I say this because also it is very important to teach our kids not to look down on those who navigate the moral landscape in ways other than what we do. Judging what is and is not a near occasion of sin includes avoiding the sin of judging others, who undoubtedly find themselves faced with different temptations in differing degrees. If avoiding Chuck E. Cheese makes us think we are better than the rest of the world, we probably ought to just bop in once in awhile, for our own good. 😉

Likewise, we should teach our kids to encourage their friends whose families make stricter choices that we do, and not to argue with them. If they are trying to live a moral life and think Chuck E. Cheese presents an obstacle to that, they should be applauded for avoiding what so many others are able to indulge in freely. To do so without judging others requires both self-control and humility. We do well to tell them that we admire their good example, even if it is not directly applicable to our choices in the same circumstances.
 
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kaymart:
What I can’t stand about Chuck E. Cheese and other places as such are THE PARENTS—you see a group of them huddled gabbing and not paying attention whatsoever until little Billy or Janie cries that they got hurt then its everyone elses fault, Why was her poor baby was not supervised? The mother cries out.Then Daddy will speed dial the lawyer. Oh what a world we live in:rolleyes:
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Yeah, I agree. We were with two other families and we were all trying to keep track of our kids, especially following around the young ones, but most of the other parents were just sitting in booths. I guess with it being in one room (about the size of a McDonald’s) they might have felt like they could watch them from there. It was total chaos. My eight year old had fun, but she is the kind of kid who just loves life, so she can have fun anywhere. It was too much for my five yr old son and two yr old daughter, they were crashing after an hour.
 
I’ve only taken my 5-year-old there once, and he wasn’t too impressed. He had more fun at our local miniature golf park than there! :cool:
 
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BLB_Oregon:
We don’t go there. It’s too loud, and we aren’t comfortable with the atmosphere.

I know the “debble” comment is just being funny, but we should make a distiction here, lest someone misunderstand. Parents who choose to take their kids there aren’t selling out to evil to placate their kids. You have to assume that other families just have different tolerances for noise, different abilities to observe manners in spite of what everyone else is doing, and make different choices about how to use their disposable income. But while Chuck E. Cheese is a choice that presents a few moral difficulties to navigate, it is not inherently a wrong place to take children, like a strip club or an opium den would be.

I say this because also it is very important to teach our kids not to look down on those who navigate the moral landscape in ways other than what we do. Judging what is and is not a near occasion of sin includes avoiding the sin of judging others, who undoubtedly find themselves faced with different temptations in differing degrees. If avoiding Chuck E. Cheese makes us think we are better than the rest of the world, we probably ought to just bop in once in awhile, for our own good. 😉

Likewise, we should teach our kids to encourage their friends whose families make stricter choices that we do, and not to argue with them. If they are trying to live a moral life and think Chuck E. Cheese presents an obstacle to that, they should be applauded for avoiding what so many others are able to indulge in freely. To do so without judging others requires both self-control and humility. We do well to tell them that we admire their good example, even if it is not directly applicable to our choices in the same circumstances.
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Yeah, just a joke, I don’t really think Chuck E. Cheese is the Devil, I’m just a fan of “Waterboy” I hope nobody seriously thought that is what i was implying!

In case ther are any of you who aren’t familiar with the movie, It is about a Cajun college age kid who is a waterboy for his local college foot ball team. Kathy Bates plays his mother and she says everything she disagrees with is “Da Debble” She doesn’t want her son Bobby to play foot ball so she says in her Cajun accent “Fooseball’s Da Debble, Bobby.” All through the movie she is saying every little thing she doesn’t like is “Da Debble.”

Naw, I just think Chuck E. Cheese is a miserably loud and commercialized rip off… and we are a family who takes 10 day vacations to Disney World, so we have a high tolerance for that sort of thing!

Most of our friends go to Chuck E. Cheese so we certainly don’t criticize them for that, and it was a good friend’s party, it just isn’t our slice of pizza pie. It was just very unpleasant, but I certainly didn’t criticize their party, I’m not that rude! They were doing that enough on their own. The pizza was brought out an hour late, and they never did bring out the cotton candy or cake, so after asking several times, they finally just had to get it and take it home with them.

I just started this out as a lighhearted thread to see how many other members dred the Chuck E. Cheese experinence, not a moral criticism of anyone! I am sure we will go back for the next friends’ birthday party,(my husband refuses to go) I don’t think people who work at or go to Chuck E. Cheese are going to hell, myself included, I hope:whacky:
 
It is THE place for parties in our granddaughters’ social set. Their mother does not have a car. I am very happy to drop them off and come back for them later. The place drives me NUTS except for the salad bar and skee ball- when one can gain access to either.
 
My boyfriend takes his niece there every so often and I HATE IT! Even the food is bad. The pizza tastes like ketchup on ritz crackers. This past week we had her and he wanted to take her there. I told him that we didn’t have time to go (which was the truth) but I was glad I had that excuse. I never went as a kid, and I’m ok. I don’t think I will ever take my kids there either for the same reasons the OP gave.
 
I was there a year ago when my best friend’s daughter turned 4…in fact she’ll be 5 tomorrow!

The experience was mixed for me. I bonded with her and she calls me her, ‘uncle’. I let her win at EVERYTHING because she’s 4, but I wanted her to have a good time.

As for CEC, I HATED IT! It’s as if the kids RUN the asylum! I remember these places opened up in the late 1970’s and by that time I was already in my late teens. As for my experience last year, the pizza tasted like the Chef Boradee type with very little topping and the pop was weak.]
We got the wings and they really weren’t all that bad.

Then there’s the ‘mechanical band’…OH what a horrid sight! As a kid they love it, as an adult, you can just roll your eyes :rolleyes: and wonder, 'CEC can do better than this!" The part that was embarrasing was to actually ‘dance’ to the music! :eek: I was SO out of place, but it’s for my friend’s daughter.

All in all, you have to overlook some childish things, that we seem rather lame, for the love of a child.
 
Then there’s the ‘mechanical band’…OH what a horrid sight!
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My son and I took his 2 kids, 6 & 3 at the time. As soon as that “mechanical band” started up, the 3 year old started screaming in fear. We had to rush out of the place because he was so scared! His Mom said he had nightmares for months afterwards.
We never went back and that was 7 years ago.
 
I have no children, but I do have a 4 year old niece.
We took her to CEC this year.
It was chaotic and the staff seemed less than enthused to be there. My hubby used to work for Build A Bear as a party leader and he was very critical of how CEC was run.

But, did anyone notice the beer? Atleast in our town, CEC serves beer… I’m not against drinking or anything, but guzzling down beer at a kids place seemed just wrong to me somehow.
 
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