I went to the coolest (literally) birthday party I’ve ever been to last month. My son’s best friend at school turned nine,  and when the invitations dropped on the whole class to attend his party at the ice-skating rink, my kid hit the roof with excitement overload. I’ve always been reluctant to book birthday venues. Melbourne is spoilt for choice,and even though as there’s quite a lot out there to choose from, it’s still easy to get fed up with it and have a park party. But this was just too easy and it was something we hadn’t even considered.

Chatting to the other parents who were there, the general consensus was that it was increasingly more tricky finding the perfect kids party venue. Melbourne was warming up, choosing a great venue was getting tougher if we didn’t want the kids outside overheating. For a bunch of nine-year olds, the rink was an out of the ball park kind of new. We have to talk about the platters they bought out for party food- I’ve seen some great catering before, and some really health conscious food at parties, but this struck a perfect balance- they needed the good stuff to keep them going out there on the rink!

So what was so great about the party? This was no ordinary kids party venue. Melbourne shook! You’ve never seen kids so excited to move before. And the ones that weren’t great on the ice straight away got plenty of practise and encouragement. I’ve been to active parties before, but nothing like this. Even the parents that came along got free entry out on the rink too, normally at a party, the kids are the ones losing it laughing but every person at this party had face-ache from laughing so hard.

I’m actually planning to book the rink for my husband’s 40th birthday, he used to be really into ice hockey and I know there isn’t loads in the way of specialised birthday venues. Melbourne for the win! This will be a huge hit!