Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City

Kansas City is a great place to throw a memorable birthday party for your child. I'm a Kansas City native and mother of two young children, and my goal is to keep my kids' birthday parties as stress-free and inexpensive as possible. Let's compare five popular children's birthday party venues in the Kansas City area, focusing on the Johnson County, Kansas, area in particular.

Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City: Powerplay Family Entertainment Center in Shawnee, Kansas, is an awesome place to hold a child's birthday party. My seven-year-old son gives Powerplay a million thumbs up. Every kid loves arcade games, go-karts, laser tag, bowling, and mini-golf, not to mention an indoor tilt-a-whirl!

According to Powerplay's website, you can reserve a party room for $75 (non-refundable deposit) and choose from three birthday party package options: the Deluxe Birthday Party Package for $189.50, the Ultimate Birthday Party Package for $269.50, and the Big Kahuna Birthday Party Package for $499.50. Each package is priced for up to 10 kids, including the birthday child (you may pay extra to add more kids). The Deluxe Birthday Party Package includes all of the following: one hour in a private party room; a host/hostess assigned to assist your party for one hour; two large pizzas; two pitchers of soft drinks (including refills); cups, plates, napkins, and forks; an ice cream cake; a Powerplay T-shirt for the birthday boy or girl; and Power Cards for all the kids with three attraction choices and 20 Power Points. You may pay extra to add on items like goodie bags or themed mylar balloons to any of the party packages, or to upgrade your party room to get a bigger space.

Powerplay's Deluxe Birthday Party Package includes three attraction choices. The kids will have to choose from the following: Go-karts (for kids 46 inches and above); bumper cars (for kids 44 inches and above); bowling (shoes are included); laser tag; "Cosmic" mini-golf; Kid's Zone (which includes a train, moonwalk, and huge climbing area with slides, similar to a Burger King's Play Place); tilt-a-whirl; "Rascal Rocket"; and "Carnival Swing." The Ultimate Birthday Party Package gives kids six attraction choices, while the Big Kahuna Birthday Party Package gives kids all of the attractions.

For $55 more, you can give your child's birthday party a theme-there are 12 themes to choose from, including Disney Princesses, Batman, SpongeBob, Dora the Explorer, and Star Wars. If you add a theme, all the cups, plates, and napkins in your party room will feature your chosen theme, and you'll also get themed goodie bags, balloons, and a candy-filled piñata.

If Powerplay sounds great, but the birthday party packages are too expensive, don't worry! I recently had my son's birthday party at Powerplay, and did it without buying any of the birthday party packages. According to the Powerplay employee we spoke to, most of the party rooms aren't busy on weeknights (including Friday night). So you are able to walk in with your own birthday cake and reserve a party room on the spot, as long as rooms are available. We paid $49 for a single room on a Friday night, and were upgraded to a double room free of charge. We opened birthday presents and ate our cake in the party room, and then handed out Power Cards to all of the kids.

The kids will need their Power Cards to play arcade games (they swipe the card instead of using tokens for most games). Most arcade games cost between 1 and 5 Power Points. The big attractions mentioned earlier cost between 9 and 26 Power Points (go-karts is the most expensive).

Each Power Point is worth 25 cents. If the kids are able to live without go-karts, a $10 Power Card is probably enough to keep one child entertained for one or two hours. Younger kids will be content to spend all their time in the Kid's Zone, which only costs 12 points. When their Power Points are all used up, kids can cash in their tickets earned and pick out prizes in the Ticket Redemption Center, where they'll find all the usual arcade prizes: candy, plastic army men, stuffed animals, lava lamps, etc.

Powerplay is located in Shawnee, Kansas, at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Pflumm, next to Hobby Lobby. For more information about Powerplay, or to take a virtual tour, visit their website: http://powerplaykc.com/. To reserve a party room, call (913) 268-7200, extension 104.

Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City: Wonderscope Children's Museum of Kansas City in Shawnee, Kansas is a fun and educational place to hold a child's birthday party. My son attended a birthday party at Wonderscope when he was in preschool, and had a blast. I personally feel that Wonderscope is best suited for children under the age of 8.

Wonderscope Children's Museum of Kansas City is home to many permanent, hands-on children's exhibits: Artworks (a room stocked with every art supply imaginable); H2Oh! (a brand-new water exhibit); Healthy Kids (where kids learn about the human body); Lego Ocean Adventure (where kids can build with Legos and climb inside a submarine to giggle at the microwave and potty made out of Legos!); Raceways (with thousands of golf balls and hilly racetracks to roll those golf balls down-good luck dragging your child out of this room!); and Small Wonders (a play area for babies and toddlers up to age 2). That covers about half of the museum. My son's favorite rooms in Wonderscope are the pretend grocery store and the astronaut room.

According to the museum's website, Wonderscope's birthday party package costs $180 for Wonderscope members or $200 for non-members. The birthday party package includes all of the following: admission to the museum for 12 kids and 10 adults; 24 decorated cupcakes; 24 juice boxes; napkins; a Wonderscope assistant to help in the party area; T-shirt and hat for the birthday child; and 2 hours of play time-90 minutes to explore the museum and 30 minutes to celebrate in the special birthday picnic area.

Wonderscope Children's Museum of Kansas City is located at 5700 King in Shawnee, Kansas, right behind the Splash Cove public pool. To schedule a birthday party at Wonderscope, call (913) 287-8888. For more information, visit Wonderscope's website here: http://www.wonderscope.org/.

Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City: Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead in Overland Park, Kansas, is a delightful, inexpensive place to have a child's outdoor birthday party. The vegetable and flower gardens are beautiful, and kids will love looking at all the animals, feeding and petting the goats, taking a ride on a horse-drawn wagon, exploring the dairy barn and schoolhouse, mining for treasure, fishing in the pond, pedaling the tractor tricycles, zipping down the big barn slide, cooling off inside the Kanza Indian earthen lodge, and much more!

The Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead is open April 1^st through October 31^st. If your child loves farm animals, and is lucky enough to have a birthday between April and October, consider a birthday party at Deanna Rose. According to the Deanna Rose website, the birthday party package costs $90, and includes the following: two-and-a-half hours in a reserved "party corral"; a T-shirt and souvenir hat for the birthday child; and 14 tickets for wagon rides, fishing, mining, or pony rides.

There are 10 party corrals (I would call them "fenced-in picnic areas") to choose from; each one accommodates approximately 40 party guests and includes a picnic table that seats 25. The picnic areas are nice and shady, and located far away from the stinky pig sties. You may purchase brown bag lunches for $4 each and additional tickets for $2.50 each. You're allowed to bring in your own birthday cake and additional food, and you may also decorate your party corral.

Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead is located at 138^th and Switzer in Overland Park, Kansas. For more information about Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead, or to reserve a party corral, go to http://www.opkansas.org/_Vis/Farmstead/index.cfm or call (913) 895-6390.

Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City: T-Rex in Kansas City, Kansas, is the most exciting kid-friendly restaurant in town. The food is not cheap (or exceptionally good), but you're paying for the experience as much as the food.

It's not every day that your children get to dine next to a roaring, animatronic dinosaur, or watch a volcanic eruption while sipping their soda. Little dinosaur-lovers will have a blast exploring T-Rex, which houses several large saltwater aquariums, a "Paleo Zone" where kids can dig for dinosaur bones (for an additional charge), a "Build-a-Dino Workshop" (which is exactly like Build-a-Bear, but with dinosaur stuffed animals), and dinosaur gift shop. Don't forget to go upstairs to see the woolly mammoth!

T-Rex offers three birthday party packages. According to the T-Rex manager I spoke to, the basic "Prehistoric Party" package costs $15.12 per child, and includes: kid's meal, drink, souvenir hat, sundae, and goodie bag. For $17.82 per child, you get the "Prehistoric Party" package, plus a trip to the Paleo Zone, where the kids can dig for bones and play computer games. For $23.78 per child, you get the "Prehistoric Party" package, plus a trip to the Build-a-Dino Workshop, where each child will get to "build" his/her own golden T-Rex stuffed animal; the birthday child will also receive a souvenir dinosaur that the other kids can autograph. If you'd like to add the Paleo Zone activities onto the Build-a-Dino activities, it will cost $2.50 more per child.

T-Rex is located at 1847 Village West Parkway in the Legends at Village West shopping center in Kansas City, Kansas. Call (913) 334-8888 for more information, or visit the T-Rex website at http://www.trexcafe.com/.

Best Kids' Birthday Party Locations in Kansas City: Public parks are a very inexpensive birthday party option for Kansas City kids who have warm-weather birthdays. I'm most familiar with the public parks in Johnson County, Kansas; my two favorite local parks are Shawnee Mission Park in Shawnee, Kansas, and Antioch Park in Merriam, Kansas.

For $40, Johnson County residents can reserve a medium-sized park shelter at any park in Johnson County for half the day (7 hours). We reserved a shelter at Antioch Park for my daughter's birthday, and had a great time. Antioch Park, located at 6501 Antioch Road in Merriam, Kansas, has a cool "town" with kid-sized buildings (and a jail!) that kids absolutely love, several recently-updated playgrounds, the best swings, and a scenic pond. If the kids don't wear themselves out on the playgrounds, they'll enjoy feeding the ducks and geese their birthday cake crumbs!

Shawnee Mission Park, located at 7900 Renner Road in Shawnee, Kansas, has a lovely lake and beach area where swimming is allowed in the summer. Or you can rent a boat or go fishing (with the proper permits) or horseback riding (you'll have to bring your own horse!). My kids love scaling the lookout tower, which offers a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

Shawnee Mission Park is also the home of Theatre in the Park, an outdoor theatre that produces four family-friendly live shows every summer. Plays such as "High School Musical" and "The Wizard of Oz" are sure to entertain kids and adults alike. What a fun way to celebrate a child's birthday! Theatre in the Park tickets are reasonably priced: $8 for adults, $6 for children ages 4-10, and kids 3 and under are free. Go here to browse this summer's scheduled plays at Theatre in the Park.

For more information about the Johnson County Parks and Recreation District, visit their website here: http://jcprd.com/index.cfm. To reserve a park shelter in a Johnson County park for your child's birthday party, call (913) 831-3359.

As you can see, the Kansas City area is full of great locations for children's birthday parties. This article has focused on kid's birthday party venues in the Johnson County, Kansas, area. If you live in Kansas City, Missouri, and still don't know where to hold your child's next birthday party, check out this related article: "Fun Places for a Kid's Birthday Party in Kansas City, Missouri." Please note that all prices quoted in this article are subject to change. For the most up-to-date information, please visit the websites or call the phone numbers provided here. I hope your child has an excellent birthday party!

Sources:

Personal experience

http://jcprd.com/index.cfm

http://www.opkansas.org/_Vis/Farmstead/index.cfm

http://powerplaykc.com/

http://www.trexcafe.com/http://www.wonderscope.org/