Celebrating New Years Eve In Style

Some of you may have seen my brief live video of me on New Years eve. You may be thinking I have gone mad after seeing that video but it was actually a brilliant night! Normally I don’t do much for New Years Eve and my parents usually have a big party at theirs with lots of alcohol and food. With having Reid now and him being at a fun age we wanted to do something he would enjoy too. After having his 3rd Birthday party at Planet Leisure end of October, we absolutely loved the place and were excited to find out about their New Years party. The tickets were only around £25 each and Reid was free so it was a pretty good price with everything it included, so we thought, what the heck, lets book it!

Planet leisure is a super fun place based in Newton Aycliffe, Durham. You will find bowling, laser quest, roller disco, trampoline room, karaoke booths,Tex Mex restaurant and amusements there and it has a huge stunning party venue up stairs! We got to use the party area for Reid’s birthday but we couldn’t help thinking how brilliant it would be for a proper party there. It had it’s own bar, dj booth and a great big stunning chandelier feature in the middle of the room and a connecting room with lots of tables and chairs and a little stage.

The New Years party at Planet Leisure included all activities a tex mex buffet and party until 1am. I had only ever done the bowling there and also some trampolining for Reid’s birthday so I was looking forward to trying other things. We pre-booked to make sure we got to do what we wanted and they also made sure there wasn’t too many people doing things at once. I was worried about how busy it was going to be, especially since tickets sold out very quickly. We were assured that they limited how many people could come and I have to say they did keep to their word.

It is refreshing to see a business not try and push their luck money wise by trying to cram as many people as possible in. It was a very pleasant amount of people there and not once did I feel like it was too busy and apart from a short queue for the buffet there wasn’t any queuing for anything. All activities weren’t full to the brim with people and we even had a table reserved when we got there so it wasn’t a case of trying to find somewhere for us all to sit (there were 18 of us all went together!). It was all pretty well organised and we were excited to try out the activities.

We started out doing trampolining as that is one of the few activities you can’t do after having a drink (for obvious reasons). It was fun to feel like one of the kids, jumping around all of us oldies trying not to wee ourselves! We even tried to have a go at some tricks but all of us sucked pretty bad and we did have a good giggle. Luckily I had come prepared with some deodorant as I was a little hot to say the least after jumping around for half an hour! Little guy loved it too and he didn’t stop bouncing the whole time (I had to have quite a few breaks!). Even daddy, grandma, grandad and all of the family came on too!

The next activity we did was laser quest. Unfortunately little guy was too little for this so as grandma wasn’t too bothered about doing it, her and Reid went to the amusements. Laser quest was just so so much fun! There were only 18 of us in there with a few people we didn’t know so it was quite a small group. We watched a video and then armoured up! The room was really big and there were two levels, with an upstairs area. We ran around shooting each other and had a great laugh. I actually came 3rd which I was pretty happy about!

We then got to have the Tex Mex buffet after the first two activities which was good as I was starving and needed a sit down! There was so so so much food and it was all so tasty. You expect a buffet to be a bit dried out and not as fresh but the food was perfect no matter what time you had it. There was a great selection and I wish I could have eaten more! I did manage to fit a dessert in which I’d had before and loved, it certainly didn’t disappoint second time round. We got a few cocktails on the go now that we had got the more energetic activities out of the way and the party started.

After having food we then went on to do bowling which to be honest by this point I was starting to lag a bit. I had done so much already and started to feel really tired. I wasn’t doing well at all with the bowling and came second last but it was fun watching the kids have a good time. Reid did start to get tired too at this point as it was about 10PM which was definitely passed his bed time. He was starting to get cuddly and wanted his ‘baddy’ (blanket) to cuddle. We got his pushchair out at this point and sat him in it. He didn’t want to go to sleep as obviously there was so much going on so we told him he could just sit and watch everyone in his buggy and he seemed happy with that.

Our final activity that we did was karaoke in the booths. By the time we got from the bowling up to the booths little man had passed out in his buggy and that was him done for the night. It meant I could relax a bit and wasn’t worried what he was doing anymore. We just put his buggy in the corner of the booth and luckily he isn’t bothered by noise! We all got to sing a few songs but didn’t get as long in as we would have liked as it was getting towards midnight. We didn’t obviously want to miss the countdown so after having some fun in the booths we moved on to the party room. We got some more drinks and celebrated the clock hitting midnight.

We were all so tired by the time we actually ended up at the party upstairs. Mot of us stayed at down in chairs and felt unable to drink anything more. My mum and a few aunties got up and danced but there was no dancing for us. The only thing that was a shame was how quiet the party was. My mum was probably the only one dancing at one point and there wasn’t many people sitting down in the room with us. They were all probably really tired like us so no one really had the energy to party. I think a lot of people left after doing the activities and having the food so that is why it was so quiet.

The whole night really was fun and I would 100% do it again next year! The only thing I would change is my level of fitness! I need to get in shape by then to try and keep up! My favourite things were the trampolining and laser quest. I felt like a kid again and didn’t want to stop having fun. The food was amazing and you got so much for the price. The fact that everything apart from your drinks was included made it so nice and simple. We didn’t spend a fortune by we got to do a lot. We had fun as a family and we spent quality time with little dude. It was a great night and starting the new year by having fun with family was just the best start.

www.planet-leisure.co.uk