BounceU Chesterfield Overview
I had so much fun at the birthday party at BounceU that I would consider having my birthday here.
At the very least, I will pressure my young children to always come here over Main Event.
I have been to a dozen plus birthday parties around St. Louis over the past several years, and this is by far my favorite as an adult if you can't tell. It was more organized, less stressful, more fun, and quieter than just about any place I've been.
I had to physically remove myself from Slick City. Main Event gave me a headache. Climbing places, the kids need help, so you can't chat.
BounceU blew the competition out of the water and fixed all of these issues. Each party has individually timed slots in each room. There's no blaring, pointless background music. And the kids can do every event without killing themselves.
Depending on the package, food is included, and the kids have two chaperones the whole time.
Best of all, the parents get to bounce around, too.
All The Things To Do At BounceU
I went to BounceU for my four-year-old son's friend's birthday party. It was the day after my son's birthday.
Don't get me wrong, I had fun at my son's party, but BounceU was better.
When you first get to BounceU, you have to do the waiver dance. I have no idea what the waiver said, but I made sure to opt out of emails.
After that, the kids met their two chaperones; we had Dory and Starburst. I'm 99% positive those weren't their real names, but I have no idea how to ask a 17-year-old girl what her real name is.
They started with a five-minute video that explained the rules. The four-year-olds did a surprising job of sitting still and pretending to hear what they were saying before being ushered into the first room.
The way it works is that BounceU has three parts:
A first bouncy room
A second bouncy room
A lunch room
You rotate from one room to the next for 35 minutes as a group, and you are the only group in any room at any given time. The birthday party has the room they are in to themselves which is absolutely fantastic as an adult. You don't have any concerns about where your kids are or what they are doing. You know the collective group will have an eye out and that they can't escape.
It's so much better than having to chase them around an open auditorium setting.
And then you can take off your shoes and bounce too!
The First Bouncey Room
The first bouncy room had maybe five or six different inflatable bounce houses of different shapes and sizes. They included:
The best inflatable in this room, in my opinion, is the giant slide. You're supposed to go down on a piece of cloth, and you get some serious speed. My son's favorite was the obstacle course, where you had to jump from big ball to ball.
You get 35 minutes in this room until you're moved to room two.
The Second Bouncey Room
The second room is anchored by the spider climb but has several other bouncy houses, including a race house and a flag climb.
The spider climb wasn't a bounce structure; it was a 5-level climbing net with incredibly slack interwoven rope. It was surprisingly hard to climb, As an adult, I was able to do it after some struggles, and I'm relatively athletic. There was no way the five-and-unders were going to ever get up that thing.
You probably need to be a coordinated seven-year-old to have a chance. My uncoordinated seven-and-a-half-year-old got stuck in the rope halfway up when he went there for a birthday six months ago. He fell through one of the levels, got stuck, and needed his friend's dad to get him out.
When you get to the top, there's a giant inflatable slide. Because my little four-year-old had no chance to climb it, we took his socks off to climb up the slide. You're not technically supposed to do that, but he made it out alive.
This birthday party paid the extra bit for the balloon drop. They have a big set of balloons all piled up in a net, and then they count down and drop them down on the kids. That's a $39 add-on for those considering it.
My little guy was sweating and beet red at the end of the 45 minutes or hour of running around. He had so much fun.
All the kids loved it.
My favorite here was the flag mountain. You were given a flag like from flag football and had to run up an inflatable mountain and stick it as high as you could. Took some strategy, but I got it to the top.
After 30 minutes of fun, it was off to lunch.
The Lunch Room
The lunchroom feels like an old-school cafeteria without the lunch lady. Instead, you can order the pizza add-on for $89 to get dominos, coke, and goody bags.
The main event here, though, is the Birthday Kid's Throne. It's like a plastic Game of Thrones throne for a little kid. To be fair, I also wanted to sit in it.
You have to provide your own cupcakes or cake as part of the deal. The host got cupcakes from the Cup and they were legit delicious.
And finally, if you spring for another $29, you get a montage of pictures from the event. The host paid for that, too, and it was fun to watch the kids cheer all the videos along. They have videos and pictures of adults going down the slide too.
BounceU Hours, Pricing, and Details
Open every day but Thursday.
Pricing stars around $300, but expect to come in closer to $400-450 after tax with add-ons.
BounceU Parking
Parking is super easy in the dedicated parking lot. It's in a big warehouse of other types of jumping places and sporting things.
