The Shangri-la's Kiddie Carnival Gone Bad.

I never fail to go to this event. Every October, they have this Kiddie Carnival where Party Organizers, Photographers, Cake makers, Magicians and all the good stuff you want to have in your party whether a child or adult, are gathered under one roof and try to outdo each other. It is always a lot of fun and informative.

BUT...........

This year, the Kiddie Carnival has changed...for the worse.

Firstly, they charged P600.00 per person even if your kid is 1 year old. No one is exempted. If you are a Globe subscriber, you have a hundred peso discount. For this amount, you get in the Carnival, have a choice of spaghetti/mini burger or spaghetti/hotdog or spaghetti/fries and a drink. The food were served in an aluminum disposable plates with plastic spoon and fork. This is so wrong for me. I mean, this is a 5 star hotel. Paper plates and plastic utensils? The drinks were served in plastic cups.




At one point, the mini burgers ran out and the ticket holders who paid P600.00 didn't have a choice but to eat the spaghetti and hotdog or spaghetti with cold french fries. Seems unfair to me. After a while, the mini burgers were back but I think, a tad bit too late.

Ok, so the food was bad. Not only did it taste like food you can get in a fast food chain...no, I am sorry, I believe the food in a fast food chain is much better than the one I had last Sunday, the presentation was poor as well. It spelled CHEAP despite the entrance fee.

Secondly, as we entered, there's decorate your sweet bread station. The children decided it might be fun so they were given each a bread, icing and decoration. After wrapping it up, we decided to move on only to be stopped because apparently, there's a charge for each sweet bread that kids used. Hmmmmm, so basically, the entrance fee did not cover the activities inside. P50.00/bread which is actually only less than P20.00 in their outlet store. Now, you must understand that it is not the price that bothers me, it is the concept of every single move having a price tag to it.

When we entered the Ballroom, it seemed quite festive. Lots of people, booths and loud music. But when we visit each booth, I realize that the products are mostly crappy things. Not at all interesting and for sure, not worth the P500.00 that I paid for/person.

Sure there was a fashion show by Gingersnaps and a Horror Maze, but aside from that, everything is what I call W.O.T. (Waste of Time)

It became obvious that this whole carnival thing was not about finding good suppliers for parties. It was just all about the hotel making more money. They surely must have charged each company for a space and then in addition, they charged the possible clients of these company an entrance fee. The gift bag that you can get from each of the hotel's outlets had 1 bag of local chips, 1 piece of jellyace, 1 pack of biscuit.

The sorry looking booths.





The Kiddie Carnival has gotten OLD.