Inexpensive places to have birthday parties

Another thread got to thinking that it would be nice to share ideas for ideas to have birthday parties if you do not want to have them at your house. I have my Kindergartener's birthday coming up and he did ask for a party, so it got me to thinking where we could have it besides at our house. I live in a very small town so my options are very limited. I live about 15 minutes (next town over) from a McDonalds with a Play place and a little over an hour from a Chuck E. Cheese. I do not want to haul children around for many reasons, one right now that it is winter for us here so that includes slippery, icey roads. So I called our local Rec. Center to see what they have to offer. Normally they have a pool, but right now it is closed for repairs. Which is really ok with me since I do not want to have to watch a bunch of kids swimming-yes there are lifeguards but still. So I can for $37 rent a private room there that is big enough to hold up to 50 people for 4 hours. I can also bring in any food and drinks that I want. We can than have the kids run around the gym and play basketball or in the room that we will rent, we can use a tv and dvd player and watch a movie. I am pretty sure this is the route we will go for his party. It will be very affordable and I think everyone will have fun. I think I will be able to to it all for less than $100. Yes, still a little expensive, but not too crazy. Plus I do not have to scrub my house in order to have a party.

Call your local hotels that have pools and see what they do. My ds is invited to a party this Saturday at a local hotel. I just called that for prices just for the heck of it. $35 for 3 hours for use of their breakfast room. Than it is $1.50 per child to go swimming. Or if you stay at the hotel than you can have as many guests as you want come swim with you. So that cost would be whatever it is for one nights stay.

I figure since I live in a ver small town (less than 3,000) and I can come up with some birthday ideas that anyone can.

I didnt mean to bash McDonalds for those of you that live in the same town as one. We do not, so I dont want to mess with hauling kids over there or be a huge inconveneice (SP?) for parents to have to come drop off and pick up their kids. We did do a party at McDonalds once and it was very reasonable. We were able to bring in our own cake and decorations, plus paper plates. Since ours do not let people reserve the whole Play place, there will be other kids there and possibly another party. But for the food it was cheap. The kids each got a kids meal (cheeseburger/hamburger only, fries and drink)minus a toy for $1.50. Figure you will save a few bucks by using McDonalds napkins and silverware when you have cake. I think that we did our party for probably $50.00. Everyone ran around, had some food and went home tired.