Earlier today I spent 1/2 hour working out a delivery route that would keep all the customers happy, everybody wants to be first delivery and everybody wants to be last collection.  We have to be very strict about this – you get one or the other not both, we can’t deliver every castle at 8am and pick them all up at 7.30pm – the round usually takes a couple of hours, if you want it later its an overnight hire for an extra £25.  The route needs to be circular – otherwise the deliveries take even longer.  Thats why we ask what the party is for, kids parties we try and deliver early, that keeps the kids out of your hair whilst you are getting everything ready and they are usually all bounced out by 6pm.  Family parties we deliver later.  Of course if we have any hall bookings in the middle of the day we have to deliver them at set times, TBH we don’t much like having a hall booking if we are busy morning and evening – for us it just means the whole day being in and out in the van.  This is tomorrows route – as you can see its 2 hours of driving for 5 deliveries and a 60 mile round trip!  We keep all of our bookings under 15 miles away, we do that for a good reason, otherwise we would never get round.

Once the delivery route is worked out we phone all of our customers to give them a 30 minute delivery window.  We are good like that, when a customer books online with us we call them to confirm, then send a postcard, then call them the night before their booking.  You know where you are with us.

And so to deliveries – our first tomorrow is at 8am and our last at 11 – if we are lucky!  The castle we picked up wet a week ago might need a clean as we deliver.  We ask all of our customers about access but that doesn’t mean we get a proper answer.  A lot of people have steps up to or down to their garden, others give you access through the house but they haven’t moved anything to let you through, others say they have garage access but when we get there they take 15 minutes to clear a path!  Then there are the gardens, some need poop scooping, normally just a little but occasionally a lot – we don’t do that but again have to wait whilst the customer does.  Then there are the people who haven’t got the money and nip out whilst we are delivering – then they are not back and we are waiting to give safety instructions….

We keep a reliable van, which costs in maintenance and insurance, not to mention diesel.  Our castle insurance premiums have rocketed again this year because of the fatality in Harlow.  A fatality on a giant slide (nothing like our small castles) being run by a travelling fair (who have different safety regulations) on a day when we had CANCELLED our hires because it was too windy.

Oh yes the great British weather.  Remember I said castles weigh upwards of 70kilos?  They can weigh a LOT more soaking wet.  They are also difficult to roll soaking wet (packing them up is more of a workout than loading the van!) and if they are wet for more than a week they start to go mouldy, that means we have to put them up at home, dry them and then roll them up again – unless it rains every day and then we might need to hire a hall to dry castles in!

Last week a seam split in one of my castles too – this happens sometimes, luckily we have a good local repairer so just have to drive it to him and collect it a few days later – and pay him of course.  Once I put up a castle only to realise a mouse had chewed through it in the store – luckily I had another castle in the van, albeit not the one the customer wanted.

Then there are problems, castle has packed up as the blower has stopped – out we go to customer and replace blower (or usually fuse as they have turned on 2 blowers at once).  Lights in dome not working, out we go to replace.  Problem with dome speaker – out we go.  Castle split seam?  Off we go with another castle.  This is fairly regular over the summer and we always turn up with a smile and sort the problem.  A couple of weeks ago I put up a castle wet, which just looked wet and when it dried it was filthy – had we realised that we would have cleaned it when we delivered, as we had picked it up deflated the week before and didn’t realise we went back out to clean it.

So all this is what your £65 gets you, great customer service, insured castles, reliable – timed deliveries, problem solving and a great castle for your party at a fraction of the cost of hiring an entertainer.

What does it get me?  A few frantic months of the year where I make some money, a year round business to look after, insurance bills, van costs, storage, repairs, website design, social media marketing and a damned good workout.

Roll on the winter……

So come Saturday the ground is still squelching and the forecast is for rain and more rain.  One customer cancelled, one went ahead and the awkward person (me) was having a party (hence why we hadn’t taken many bookings) .  The customer who went ahead was a pub and he left the castle down Saturday and when we picked it up on Sunday it was in good dry condition.

My garden looks like I hosted Glastonbury and these are the inflatables out…

I would not have blamed a customer for the mess these were in- it was unavoidable but I would have had a LOT of extra work to do if I had picked these up like this.  I would have had to get them into my garden to inflate, clean and dry which is considerably extra work to that which I normally do AFTER a hire – also being able to get them up in my garden is hard as its weather dependant.  Big companies have lovely warehouses where they can dry/clean castles indoors but us smaller ones have to wait for a dry day.

What happens if I don’t dry the castles?  If they don’t go out within a week they start to get mouldy.

What happens if I don’t clean the castles?  Customers would be pretty annoyed if I turned up with a filthy castle.

Luckily I have one regular pub hire where I can happily deliver a wet/dirty castle and clean it when I deliver, this is because I drop the castle off hours before any customers arrive to use it.  Luckily I also have a big garden.

When you have a castle booked – remember keeping them in good/useable condition is part of the fee you are paying.  I have to have insurance, get repairs due to wear and tear and spend days cleaning/drying castles.  I need to run a reliable vehicle, insure, fuel, repair and tax it.    When you consider all of that paying £65 for a full day hire on a small castle is quite reasonable.

In recent months I’ve done three emergency bouncy castle hires in South Woodham Ferrers, one a charity fundraiser who had been promised a free castle, then told 2 days before that they couldn’t have it….Second a football funday who had the same problem….lastly a party in the leisure centre where they rang to see where the castle was and the bloke had hired it out for more money to someone else.  We DON’T do freebies (we support our local events annually and as a small business can’t afford to do much more) and we DON’T do cheap – the prices on our website are what you pay.  What we DO is honest, reliable, quality service.

When you book with us we send you a written confirmation of your booking.  We call you the night before to confirm again and give you your delivery window and collection window.  We turn up when we say we will (or call if we are running late – usually due to the weekly re-runs of the Tour De France in the lanes where we live….).  We deliver clean, safe equipment and secure it properly – giving you clear instructions of what to do in case of bad weather and how to avoid accidents from overcrowding.

Why am I restating all this?  Well on Saturday we had a call from a mate in the business checking that we hadn’t got a castle over Maldon way, he had heard that a castle had not been properly secured and a child had been injured.  A little while later the woman who had hired this dangerous castle called as she WASN’T SURE WHERE SHE’D HIRED IT!  If you hire from us you know who we are, you have our confirmation card, a bundle of leaflets and our name or number on the front of all the castles.  Oh and of course you’ve met me and Christine – people tend to remember us two women delivering the castle, especially as one of us currently has bright pink hair!

Yes I could offer a castle to someone for £40 but at that price I’d soon have worn out, poorly maintained castles as I couldn’t afford to get them fixed!  I’d also be worn out and poorly maintained from the physical work involved in castling, and I’d not have the money to get me fixed!  I know that for a lot of customers money is tight but you can still hire a castle and put on a kids party in your own garden and have change out of £100 – far cheaper than going to any venue for your party.

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

Pictures of all of our hires can be seen on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BouncyParty

We now have 12 bouncy castles and three sets of soft play for hire – in the winter season we are also going to offer XBox Kinect parties – we bring the console, kinect, games and a projector for giant screen gaming – in you home or a hall.

Whilst the weather is this great everyone should consider having a bouncy party!

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

A sneak peek of our latest addition to our range.  Some rather annoyed feathered friends who are after some green pigs……

These will be added to our soft play lineup at the deluxe price of £100 or as a deluxe party package (with any of our children’s castles) for just £150

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

In gardens this isn’t a problem as the anchor points are staked into the ground – preventing any lifting.  In halls this isn’t a problem as there is no wind and a few sandbags simply stop the inflatable bouncing around the room.  But on hard standing it is a problem.  An inflatable has at least 4 anchor points and its nigh on impossible to carry enough weight in a van to safely anchor them.

Hence my horror today when I saw an inflatable slide in a public shopping centre without any visible weights – merely tied to a building behind it with nothing to stop the front of the inflatable lifting in the wind.

I ask you – what is more important, your kids having fun or being safe?  If you ever see a castle or other inflatable on hard standing have a quick look to see if its safely anchored.  If not, walk away – maybe even report the operator.

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

Our Toddler castle/ball pool was on a bouncy castle hire in Chelmer Village, where many of the gardens are tiny and oddly shaped and really a 10 x 10 castle was all that would have fitted!

We had a bouncy castle hire in Maldon for our first outing with our princess bouncy castle – this time the garden was huge but the gate was the smallest I had ever seen!  Not wide enough for our trolley I had to throw the castle through and shove it to squeeze it in then climb over with the trolley sideways.

Off to a bouncy castle hire in Woodham Ferrers with a slightly damp castle – which soon dried out in their open garden.  Mind you this one came back muddy as it was the dive and tumble which encourages lots of running around and they managed to churn up the damp lawn!  Glad that one wasn’t out the next day.

Then over to a bouncy castle hire in Pitsea – for our netted adult in a wonderful neat garden.  The only problem here was dragging it though a deeply gravelled drive.   I have to say I expected this one to be dirty the next morning but it was clean (& wet) which was great as it went straight back out!

I barely got back from my morning hires before I was off to a bouncy castle hire at Champions Manor Hall, South Woodham Ferrers – this time the party castle and the soft play package for a first birthday party.

Most of our Sunday hires cancelled due to the forecast but the one that went ahead was for the netted adult and the access was a sod!  To get to their garden you had to go through a utility room which had three doors to get through, all offset and about an inch wider than our trolley.  Luckily the customer helped push the castle through which was rolled a bit large due to it being wet!  Despite the rain they got to bounce till about 3pm.

I’ve ended the weekend tired and with 2 castles in need of washing/drying and I’ve still got one on my driveway from last week.  ROLL ON THE SUMMER!  I say.

So remember if you want to hire bouncy castle or soft play we will be there on time with a smile on our faces.   Just one more reason to book your bouncy castle hire from Bouncy Party – the only bouncy castle company run by a Mum & her Mum!

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh, Hatfield Peveral, Witham and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

bouncy castle hire benfleet

Then we dived up the A12 to a bouncy castle hire in Springfield – another happy customer taking advantage of our larger 15 x 12 bouncy castle at the same price as a 12 x 12 bouncy castle – just £60!

bouncy castle hire springfield

Then another bouncy castle hire in Springfield for a 12 x 12 just fit.

bouncy castle hire springfield

Then it was off too a bouncy castle hire in Maldon – where they also had our birthday arch, out for its first hire this year at just £10 .  The customer and her little princess were really pleased with it – certainly makes a statement.

bouncy castle hire maldon

Then over to a bouncy castle hire in South Woodham Ferrers for a 2nd birthday party.

bouncy castle hire south woodham ferrers

After that it was a well earned rest for the bouncy castle lady before bringing most of the castles home in the evening.

Sunday was a day and a half with both collections and deliveries to fit in.  Although the forecast had been dire and we’d already had some cancellations.

First thing we were back at one of our regulars – The Chequers Pub in Billericay.  As it was St Georges day the following day they had our England Adult castle for their St Georges day family event.

adult bouncy castle hire billericay

Then back again for a bouncy castle hire in South Woodham Ferrers. After a quick dive into Chelmsford to pick up the castle!

bouncy castle hire south woodham ferrers

Now if I thought that weekend was hard…..along came REAL weather this weekend.  I had to cancel a LOT of hires but I allowed the Billericay Rugby Club to have the castles they had booked for their fun day.  I knew that this was going to be a wet bouncy castle hire when I got to Billericay and it was already raining and muddy.  I knew that I would be picking up muddy castles at the end of the day.

bouncy castle hire billericay rugby club

And boy was I right – it was lashing down at 5pm when we collected – the castles were soaked and muddy so I set too with some towels and got all the worst of the mud off before deflating and packing away sodden bouncy castles – I was so pleased Mark came to help – otherwise I might still be there, probably sobbing in the middle of the pitch!  I was soaked from head to toe and covered in mud at the end of it.  My van was filled with wet castles and mats.

Come Sunday and it was still lashing down, with weather warnings in place for both flooding and high winds.  No reputable operator will do an outdoor bouncy castle hire in those conditions.  The rain is a hazard for slipperyness (I figured the rugby club lot were used to sliding around on pitches.) and the gusting wind is a hazard for all – castles can lift off even when anchored in those conditions and I’d rather disappoint some kids than see them injured.  I reminded all of my customers that there are school holidays coming up when they can get a 2 day hire for the price of 1 – at our bargain weekday castle rates which start from just £35.

I did have 2 indoor hires though – the first one was a repeat customer at Trent Road Hall Chelmsford.  They regularly have our 15 x 12 castle in this hall but today it was soaked and muddy so I let them have our penguin slide combi instead, not a perfect fit but with 40 children coming a 12 x 12 would have been a poor substitution.

bouncy castle hire chelmsford

Then our second indoor hire was a soft play hire and bouncy castle hire at Hadleigh Methodist Church.

soft play hire hadleigh

bouncy castle hire hadleigh

What a brilliant venue it turned out to be with a wonderful fire exit I could back the van up to and unload straight in without even needing my trusty sack barrow.

Without the cancellations today would have been our first hire for our princess bouncy castle – fingers crossed with the weather and she’ll be out next weekend!

So remember if you want to hire bouncy castle or soft play we will be there on time with a smile on our faces.   Just one more reason to book your bouncy castle hire from Bouncy Party – the only bouncy castle company run by a Mum & her Mum!

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh, Hatfield Peveral, Witham and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

princess bouncy castle hire

So remember if you want to hire a princess bouncy castle then our princess bouncy castle hire is perfect for your little princess.  Just one more reason to book your bouncy castle hire from Bouncy Party – the only bouncy castle company run by a Mum & her Mum!

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh, Hatfield Peveral, Witham and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!

Our 12 x 12 party bouncer was on a Bouncy castle hire in Melbourne, Chelmsford.  As ever with a 12 x 12 it fitted but space was a little tight by the edge of the step so I left an extra mat to protect it.

Bouncy Castle Hire Chelmsford, Melbourne

Next up was a handy local bouncy castle hire in South Woodham Ferrers.  We do a lot of South Woodham Ferrers bouncy castle hires – we know the area well and are familiar with all the halls and venues.  When you book a bouncy castle hire in South Woodham Ferrers with Bouncy Party you know you are in safe hands.  As with many gardens in South Woodham Ferrers the access was interesting but the garden was spacious enough for our penguin side slide combi.

Bouncy Castle hire South Woodham Ferrers

Then off to a bouncy castle hire in billericay – this billericay bouncy castle hire was an interesting delivery with the access being more like we are used to in South Woodham Ferrers but the castle was a perfect “just fit” between the decking and the flowerbed!

bouncy castle hire Billericay

Our final drop was a bouncy castle hire in Writtle.  This Writtle bouncy castle hire was for young kids with a big garden and they had chosen our netted 13 x 13 adult castle which maximises on both bounce space AND vision.

bouncy castle hire Writtle

We finished up the weekend with castles on our lawn and driveway for drying – remember if you hire any bouncy castle in Rettendon or Battlesbridge you get a 10% discount for being super local!

bouncy castle Rettendon

So remember if you want to hire a bouncy castle then our bouncy castle hire is perfect for weekdays in the school holidays – we even travel a little further afield than usual as weekdays are quieter.  Just one more reason to book your bouncy castle hire from Bouncy Party – the only bouncy castle company run by a Mum & her Mum!

We cover Wickford, South Woodham Ferrers, Rettendon, Billericay, Stock, Ramsden Heath, Ramsden Bellhouse, Downham, Chelmsford, Springfield, Melbourne, Boreham, Broomfield, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Rayleigh, Hatfield Peveral, Witham and surrounds! See our Bookings page for full details of our coverage!