I recently organised a birthday party for my two children at a local soft play centre and would like to share the experience with you that you might be able to avoid the pitfalls that befell me

I will not name the soft play area as even though on the whole the experience was fun and the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves there were areas that I was not too impressed with and these are points that I have raised with the play centre on a one to one basis.

The first word of advice is that if you are planning on organising your childs birthday party at a soft play centre visit it first. In fact the best thing to do would be to shop about for the best deal. I went on the recommendation of a friend and in hindsight should have probably stuck with my local and well visited soft play centre.

Unfortunately, I, like probably a lot of parents will not consider the centre that they visit regularly as a possibility for their party mainly because it is too familiar and would not feel like a special occasion. It was only after the event when I was chatting to the owner that I found out that as I was a regular customer there that they would have given me a discount. Rats!

So firstly shop about.

Thankfully the centre we booked was a good size and the kids (all 20 of them) had ample amount of space to run about and play. The only gripe I had about it was that as the party was within the school holidays the main play area got quite busy and noisy though the kids did not seem to mind.

The room itself that the party was held in was excellent, filled with toys, brightly painted and not too many windows so there was less like feeling like monkeys in a cage as there is in some places.

The entertainment however that was laid on left a lot to be desired. I had got given the chance to either bring in my own or use the in-house one at a much cheaper rate and I wish I had gone with my initial instincts of hiring an excellent entertainer I knew of who does balloon shapes, puppets and tricks. I saw her at a friends birthday bash and she was fab.

The entertainment was okay but I could tell the kids were getting a bit disinterested and restless and needed a bit more to grab their attention. I had originally asked if they could put on a puppet show as the birthday boy loves puppet shows but they were unable to do it.

One of the things that swayed my decision regarding entertainment is the time allocated for it at party venues is normally much less than if you were hosting it at home and I have found that if the party starts to run behind schedule then it is the area that gets reduced down. So you can find yourself in the annoying position of paying an entertainer for two hours when the time slot has been reduced to an hour.

So secondly, check the facilities can deal with the level of party and be interrogatory regarding the party entertainment. It might be an idea if you have the time to ask if you can go along to a party to see what standard the entertainment is.

One of the areas that I did go into maybe too much detail was the food. As it is an area that I work in I expect a certain standard in food served, regardless of the fact it is served to children. In fact I have found that children can be fussier when it comes to meals than most adults yet the time spent on creating a childrens menu is a fraction of the time allocated to an adult menu.

Question: Would you return to a restaurant that served amazing and fantastic meals yet served up basic, boring and nutritionally deficient meals to your kids?

As a result the food was fantastic. There were all the major food groups and it all looked appetising and nutritionally beneficial.

So thirdly, be demanding about the food. It is an important part of the party and having good food shows you care about your guests and also it would annoy their parents if you handed back their children filled to the brim with sugar and junk food.

I also decided to go with the soft play centres own party bags which as most children will tell you are the most important part of the party! I did make sure I saw the items beforehand and was happy enough with what I saw though there were only two options (boy/girl) and there was quite a mix of ages which I felt needed to be covered in their range.

The reaction to the bags was average; not amazing, not bad, just average. I think if children get invited along to a lot of these parties where you buy standard party bags they have seen and received it all before. I spent a while last year sourcing unusual and educational party bag toys and was very happy with the results and got a lot of positive feedback from the parents.

It is more hassle and can be slightly pricier but building your own party bag as I did last year on this site can mean you can custom make the bag for the child. Also as this site offers you the capability to order in whatever quantities you want it makes it easier to order for not only boys and girls but for different age groups as well.

This was the first time that I had organised a birthday party elsewhere other than my house and even though I had been told it was a lot less hassle, I personally did not find that. There was defiantly a lot less tidying up but the actual preparation and time taken was the same or even more. I had to take time out of work to visit these places and any change of plan was hard to confirm as I talked to different people every time I phoned.

In fact I found it doing it this way to be slightly more stressful as the control had been taken out of my hands and as a self-confessed control freak I found that hard to deal with. I can see the appeal to a lot of people where you buy a ready made party package with less hassles and more fun and also helpful if you do not have the space to cater for a large group of children.

All in all, I think I will stick to home based parties and use the money to ship in bouncy castles and entertainers.