Thoughts on pvt Childbirth Ed Classes?

First time around I did a 6-week course of one evening a week at the local early years centre. It was free. There were 12 couples in the group, and 4 of us plus 2 from the subsequent group formed a coffee group from it that is still going 21 months on. It was a relatively good pro-natural course. The CBE was awesome, but the diverse interests and needs of the group meant I didn't actually learn much (I'm already fairly well educated on birth).

I ended up with a fairly distressing birth for DD - not the homebirth I'd planned - and wanted to be proactive about getting a better birth this time. As part of that, I paid for 3 sessions ($45/hr for 3 x 1 hr sessions) with a CBE with just me. DH came to one session. It was about working through some of the distress that lingered from DD's birth so I could approach this one in a better frame of mind than I was earlier in pregnancy, and coming up with some techniques for coping with various things in this labour so that even though we don't know what will happen, we can at least try and keep some control over how we respond to them this time. I also had a couple of chats with my previous CBE which pretty useful, and free - she's funded by the DHB I think. I'll let you know in a month or so if it's worked

I've just gone through Parents Centre CBE classes, so round $200 including Parents Centre membership. I found the group environment good as mentioned above as people asked questions that you hadn't thought of. Also our teacher was very accomodating if we wanted further details about a particular subject we could contact her after the class. Between this and our midwife I feel that it is enough preparation for the first time, as most of it is unknown when you have never given birth before. It was good to be in a group of other couples at similar stages of pregnancy too as you don't feel quite alone in what is happening to you.
I can see the benefits though if you had a particular issue with needles, hospitals or a previous birth that didn't go well, that you might want to have one-on-one sessions to talk through your concerns.