I’m nostalgic for the days my son enjoyed spending time with me at cec. His thrill of winning, and we always did the polaroid picture. He even went on the rides. For the poster, why dont you come an hour or so late so u can be there for cake? During the rest ofthe time the kids are scattered about the games.
Thank goodness, during the winters over the years, my kids had basketball season or Futsal/indoor soccer matches/training. If I had to rely on a CEC for a break, then I probably wouldn’t have kept my sanity. 
^ When they were 4-5ish? That seemed to be the CEC birthday party and play date age, before the age of organized sports.
YMCA classes and swim team. ? Lifesaver! 
We also had indoor playgrounds - without the gawdawful pizza, game machines, or giant rats.
^Exactly what Bunsen said. Between the YMCA, indoor soccer league and our local community recreation center, swim and tennis clubs, the 4-5 year olds were definitely covered here during the winters. Futsal came much later though.
Our community also has an excellent gymnastics center, which we utilized as well.
I can complain all I want about the place, the rip off games, the rat show but outside of the dancing rats, my kids did LOVE a couple of hours there playing the games. They weren’t into the climbing toys/slides so much (I was always nervous on of them was going to get stuck up there or afraid to come down) but Chuck E Cheese was the equivalent of someone giving you a bag of free quarters or whatever at the casino and saying “just go have fun! Doesn’t matter the results!”
I remember my kids deciding to pool and SAVE their tickets over a period of like two years. I had them stuffed in a box in my closet. I think they were convinced if they saved them they might actually get a decent prize. Can’t remember what they ended up with!
How about the old trick of when they pulled their tickets out learning to pull SLOWLY and you could manage to get a couple more tickets to slip out?
@sushiritto There was a gymnastics place near us that had a “parents night out” and for $5 you dropped the kids off for a couple of hours and they could run around and play in the gym (supervised of course). They even had it divided up into age ranges. This place was the first gymnastics place in our area to do this. Now there are several places and they all have a “parents night out thing.” Our kids went to this when they were little…
My best friend’s daughter had her 7th birthday party there and of course, her 4 year old sister came too. The problem? The four year old was terrified of giant puppet creatures and at the time, a mechanical Chuckie and crew out on a stage and sang. We discovered that the four year old had much louder lung power screams.
I also discovered a survival tactic of stopping at the bagel shop next door and buying a sandwich to sneak inside. I am really glad never to step foot inside one again!