How to have better party times

Who doesn't love birthday parties? For children, nothing could be more fun than having a good birthday party. But some parties can be different, like having it on a boat, at a pottery club or even combining various themes. Friday looks at some birthday treats in Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Birthdays are special days, made so by the effort, thoughtfulness and money invested in them by your near and dear ones. In the hurly-burly of modern life, sometimes caring gets substituted by money, and love by lavishness.

Sometimes, junior comes back from a party with the 'same-old-party' air rather than one of happy exhaustion. Could it be coincidence that those birthday parties happened to come out of pre-packaged party schemes? Where a paid assistant tries hard to gird up fun and gaiety by dishing out the same old jokes, and fills in time with predictable party games? Basically, what it meant was an assembly-line or stereotyped birthday, just the same as Tina, Meena, Zia and Zaki's or whoever's.

So, Friday asks some parents about great party ideas. Some of them they've done themselves, others they think would be great ideas to follow through but regret that they haven't really had the time to do it themselves.

Janet Thompson, mother of four