Clara's birthday at Planet Play

On each kid's birthday, he/she gets to choose where to go for dinner.  It usually ends up being Chuck E. Cheese.  Since Clara's too young to choose I thought of taking advantage and choosing sushi, Chin Wah, La Puente, or Cafe Rio.  But we had a City Deals certificate for 4 buffets and $50 in play cards (we bought this for $32) so that's where we ended up.  Okay so it used to be called The Incredible Pizza Company.  Now it's Planet Play, which I think is a much better name so you realize there are games and things along with the pizza.  However, it has been bought out by the Pizza Pie Cafe so the name will be changing yet again.  And they are no longer honoring Incredible Pizza Company certificates or coupons.  Makes me wonder how long they'll be honoring Planet Play certificates/coupons?  Glad we used it, just in case.

So their salad portion was decent.  Not the largest selection, but enough.  They did have quite a good variety of pizzas, and they weren't bad.  Not good, but not bad either.  Better than Classic or Chuck E Cheese, but not up to Papa John's and The Pie.  And the only breadsticks they had were flavorless cheesy breadsticks, no plain ones.  They also had a pasta section where the noodles were al dente and the worker put a single serving in the boiling water to heat it up for you.  Then he gave a plate with noodles and you pour a sauce on it.  Really?  Might as well have the pasta already cooked in warming chafing dishes or something.  Or do the whole thing--let the customer choose the noodles, vegetables/spices (garlic, mushrooms, pesto, spinach, etc.) and sauce and have the worker actually prepare the dish.  The very best thing here was the dessert pizza.  They had Oreo, cookie dough, strawberry, and cinnamon.  They also had mini chocolate chip cookies and soft serve ice cream.  But for kids you can't go wrong with a buffet, especially one with lots of pizza!

Then we headed off with our play cards.  I do like the concept of swiping a card rather than carrying around and inserting tokens and then collecting tickets that print out.  Much cleaner and simpler.  However, I would never go there paying full price.  The arcades, go-karts, and mini golf were way overpriced.  And the bumper cars, that my kids were MOST excited for, weren't working.  Both kids were too short to drive the go-karts by themselves so Brodie drove and they took turns riding.  A single rider is $4.50 and a double ride is $5.75.  It lasted for less than 5 minutes.  However, we only  paid $32 for dinner and the play so it was worth it.  The kids enjoyed riding around with dad and waving and smiling at me each pass.

 Then we played some of the basic arcade games everyone has.  They did have more motion types than some other places.  Then the kids wanted to play mini golf.  It was $3 per person and the holes weren't very far away.  We got both kids through in about 15 minutes.  But the dark room with black lights was kind of fun.

Then we went and got some cheap toys with the "tickets" they earned.  The two older kids had a blast and Clara put up with it very well.  Happy Birthday to Clara!  I'm not sure if anything will change with Pizza Pie Cafe, but as is I would definitely go again for $32.  But not for full price.