cruise themed birthday ideas

[candhmama]

My dd's birthday is 3 days before we leave for our cruise so I thought it might be fun to have a cruise themed birthday party. I was trying to come up with ideas for fun things to do and thought I would ask here since there are some pretty creative people on here. She will be turning 12.

Thanks

[crusinmama06]

The invitations could be lanyards with "cruise cards" in them. ;) Just print all of the party info on a heavy card stock and stick them in a lanyard.

 

I've seen cruise themed parties in a magazine, thinking it was Oriental Trading. You could put up palm trees.

 

Then take some ideas from the kids camp schedules. What do 12 year olds like to do...karoke? Guitar Hero? Wii games? Bingo? :)

 

Have fun. I want to do the same thing for my kids when they get little older.

[Onessa]

My GS troop did this theme for our overnight a few years back. Cruisnmama's ideas are good. Some other stuff to consider:

 

Make a big life preserver (cut out foamboard into a donut and hot glue some lightweight rope around it - name your "ship" the S.S. Birthday or something) and as each guest comes "on board" to the party have them pose for a picture with the b-day girl -- print them while the kids are otherwise occupied (a bit easier now that they are 12YO) and post them for pick up as they leave.

 

Buy some funky shaped inexpensive plastic glasses and let them concoct their own non-alcholic drink treats -- generally my DD's friends love to make their own with unflavored carbonated water, those fruit syrups that they flavor coffee with, some crushed ice, and then decorated with cherries and paper umbrellas. (We live in Wisconsin of course, so we have different ideas about drinking, you might want to seriously think about this if any of the guests' parents may take offense to the concept of the "kiddie cocktail").

 

We had a "ga ga" ball tournement (a RCI Adventure Ocean thing -- I'd have to ask my DD or one of her friends how to play ga ga ball).

 

For a b-day, you can have a multiple course "meal" -- to make everyone feel special.

 

Have you decided whether it should be "formal" dress or beach wear (we did it in February in Wisconsin -- so the swimming suit theme was great!)

[candhmama]

Thanks for the ideas. Her birthday is in May so I have a couple months, but I am a planner so once I had the idea I wanted to run with it. I think I would probably do beachwear instead of formal. I also saw on family fun's website a cute beach bag made with towels and some cut flip flops with fabric tied onto them that I thought would be fun to do.