10th birthday party for ds

[ginx]

Any ideas?

He's a very physical boy who loves football.

Laser quest last year, football the previous year.

He wanted to go to Cadbury World this year but I can't cope with a few boys after chocolate. He is hyperactive enough without more sugar.

I've looked at paint balling - there is a place quite near us - that does parties for 8-10 year olds, but I was told it does hurt - anyone have any experience? I'm not sure other parents would be keen on this, and I certainly wouldn't want any boys hurt. We only want to spend about £120 maximum which does limit us. Most of his friends are 9.

I hate birthday parties!

[Guest55]

Airsoft is better [not painful,cleaner] than paintballing - is there anywhere near you?

[PurpleDuck]

Paintballing does hurt and can leave quite big bruises on children's delicate skin, even through clothing. They have padding to protect their chests/backs, and helmets for the heads and faces, but legs and arms are most likely going to get hit.

A few weeks ago we went to someone's go-karting party and all the boys enjoyed it tremendously. Another option for a very active boy could be an indoor rock-climbing and caving party.

I know what you mean about boys and chocolate and I fully share your birthday parties sentiments!

[kenyancowgirl]

Or laser quest (indoors) or outdoors (like paint balling but with laser guns - no pain!!) Be warned paint balling is VERY expensive - the base price is usually about £10 a head and includes 100 pellets per child - however, I can promise you they will be gone in less than the first game and you will either have to stump up or go home - last party my son went to the hosts ended up paying nearly £300 for pellets as they had invited about 20 boys thinking 100 pellets each would last the afternoon. Your £120 won't go very far with paint balling....

Are you looking for somewhere to do it for you, or would you run it yourself? I have done very successful parties based on TV programmes, The Cube or Survivor for boys around that age. Very cheap to run but time and effort required. Also done go-karting and rock-climbing - both very successful.

Alternatively, is there somewhere near you that does a sort of mud run? (We have a gym near us that does this)

[PurpleDuck]

Or laser quest (indoors) or outdoors (like paint balling but with laser guns - no pain!!) Be warned paint balling is VERY expensive - the base price is usually about £10 a head and includes 100 pellets per child - however, I can promise you they will be gone in less than the first game and you will either have to stump up or go home - last party my son went to the hosts ended up paying nearly £300 for pellets as they had invited about 20 boys thinking 100 pellets each would last the afternoon. Your £120 won't go very far with paint balling....

Yes, the prices are very steep. They lure you in with low package prices and follow with the extortionate prices of paint ball re-fills! The paint ball centres somehow know what their pellets look like, so they can easily spot it if someone tried to smuggle in cheaper paint balls bought somewhere else.

[doodles]

Not sure whereabouts you are ginx but DS recently went to one of these giant trampoline places that are springing up round here. He loved it, wasn't overly expensive either.

[Yamin151]

Anyone mentioned a trampoline place like this one? boingzone.co.uk

There are others around the country. They are FAB!

[Stokers]

Would you consider running it yourself, ginx, or roping in a few older cousins? For DS's last birthday (9)in December, we took him and a group of friends to our local fields armed with torches and glow sticks at about 5pm and played a variety of capture the flag/hide and it style games. Then came home to a fire pit (old BBQ) in the garden and made s'mores. Boys went home saying it was the best party, ever! Cost about £40 for the glow sticks.

[loobylou]

Would you consider running it yourself, ginx, or roping in a few older cousins? For DS's last birthday (9)in December, we took him and a group of friends to our local fields armed with torches and glow sticks at about 5pm and played a variety of capture the flag/hide and it style games. Then came home to a fire pit (old BBQ) in the garden and made s'mores. Boys went home saying it was the best party, ever! Cost about £40 for the glow sticks.

We did something very similar for ds's 11th last November. We went to the woods in the mid-afternoon but it was still relatively dark by the end! They were in teams - did den building, capture the flag, 50/50 etc - we found a site with a stream through the middle so that added extra interest. They then had a massive nerf gun battle (only hassle = collecting the bullets afterwards but we said they could keep the ones they found so that helped). We bought them backpacks from ebay for £1.50 each and they carried their nerf gun in that, whistles from ebay (10p each), nerf gun bullets also from ebay (500 for about £14) and some tarpaulin and rope for the den building (which we then kept). I also bought camouflage fabric and cut up strips which they tied round their heads and we used camouflage face paints. We gave them "rations" which they had to carry and we marched to the woods and then onto the car park at the end. They were extremely muddy (I got brownie points for bringing black plastic sacks for them all to sit on in their parents' cars!) but all said what a great time they'd had. I think some of them had never really gone for a muddy walk in the woods before, let along played in them!

[Angelcake]

As others, we've enjoyed kayaking, raft-building, climbing, caving. Laser-quest type things are also popular round here, along with swimming and roller-skating. Karting looked very expensive when I investigated. Depends partly on how many you would like to invite.