4th birthday party locations?

[nutter13]

My DD is turning 4 soon and she wants a princess party. Any idea on locations for this, we don't want to have it our house, and we'd like to avoid Chuck E. Cheese. TIA

[twinnyme]

In our area I've seen some ads in local/free parenting magazines (the kinds you get at the supermarket) for salons etc. where they have birthday parties with a princess theme for kids - indoor playgrounds too. So I might suggest checking those kinds of places to see if you can find anything like that. For DD's 2nd birthday we had a party at an indoor playground and had a private room so we could use any theme we wanted (we used Clifford).

Oh, and Jump on In (one of those bounce-houses indoor facility places) has a "throne" for the child to sit in in the private room for the party. We've been to a couple of parties there.

[Ohana]

I've had some luck finding locations by googling my city + childrens party. If your city has a publication for parents, it's quite likely a lot of places are advertising there as well.

Other ideas would be to go to the local children's museum. Ours has party rooms that can be reserved so you can have your theme party. Huge bonuses are that there are tons of activities there to keep everyone entertained, plus it's not at your house so you don't have to do all the clean up!

[blondegirl]

We did my older DD's 4th bday at our community clubhouse/pool. But that was in FL in the summer! My nephew just had his 4th bday at a kids gym type place.

[HeatherFL]

Maybe in a teahouse? I've heard of a lot of little girl princess/dress up parties in teahouses.

~H.

[tgr68]

DD is asking for a princess party as well for her 3rd birthday in June. Since I will have a 3 month old at that time and don't want the pressure of getting the house ready, I've reserved a room at our local library. You might check your local library or civic center for community rooms, as they are usually pretty inexpensive on rental fees. I'm paying less than $25 for a room that holds 15-30 people.

[ManteoChik]

My friend daughter went to a Libby Lu party, although she was a bit older than your DD.

I had never heard of it before, but apparently Libby Lu is a store (kinda like a Claire's Accessories) that is geared towards little girls....not like Claire's where it has some funky stuff in there. Anyway, they have all sorts of things like hair stuff, and kids jewlery, etc.

They do Libby Lu Parties where the girls all come in and get dressed up and the staff does their hair and make up. They have different theme's like Princess, Hannah Montana, Rock Diva..etc.

www.clublibbylu.com

[mamax2]

Local book stores, indoor play gyms, tea house, a community events room at any sort of museum, rec or civic center, Build-a-Bear type places, bead or pottery studios. If you're in a warm location, an outdoor location like a park/playground.

I second the recommendation to pick up some local parenting papers/magazines and see what's offered. You might be surprised!

[suzubeane]

They do Libby Lu Parties where the girls all come in and get dressed up and the staff does their hair and make up. They have different theme's like Princess, Hannah Montana, Rock Diva..etc.I urge anyone considering this NOT to patronize companies whose main business goal is to make our daughters into little cosmetics consumers. And please don't think for a minute that's not their aim - chain retail stores are often related; Libby Lu is owned by Saks.

Even if you don't think the outfits there are too sexualized for young girls, there's not denying that stores like Libby Lu have taken an innocent game of dress-up and maximized and branded it for financial gain. And at what cost? (Here's (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032402188.html)an interesting piece on the Libby Lu experience.)

I don't know your reasons for not wanting to do a birthday party at home, but for years (starting at age four, actually) I made "tea party" birthdays for my daughter at home. Her friends (boys and girls) made "hats" from out of disks I got at a cake decorating shop. Then they wore their hats while they drank "tea" from little ceramic cups I got at the dollar store. (they were demitasse cups, I think.)

[emschwar]

This may be of more interest to boys than girls, but Noah's having his 4th birthday party at a local fire station. The price is fantastic too :)

[moderngal]

we went to a princess party for a 4yo at a dance studio. the b-day girl takes classes there, but they apparently rent out the place later in the afternoon (after classes) on weekends. maybe you could find a place like that?

[Kingdono]

Some of the local hair salons do parties like that. we have a snip it's which is a children's only salon.We also have a specialized grocery store (Stew leonards) that has parties. You could always do abowling party and just use pricess as the theme. A friend of mine is doing that with a build a bear party.