How to Throw a Personalized Birthday Party at Chuck E. Cheese’s

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Chuck E. Cheese’s . The opinions and text are all mine.

A few months ago we celebrated one of my daughter’s birthday at Chuck E. Cheese’s and the girls had so much fun that my oldest told me that same day that she wanted to celebrate her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese’s too but that she also wanted an outer space birthday.

She was worried she had to pick one or the other but I told her we could do an outer space party at Chuck E. Cheese’s! The excitement on her face was priceless and then I went off to Pinterest to find inspiration but since I couldn’t find much about throwing a custom party at Chuck E. Cheese’s I decided to write this post for those of you looking for ideas on how to customize your birthday party.

What I love about celebrating birthdays at Chuck E. Cheese’s is that they take care of everything. For years, I did everything for every single birthday and by the time the party day came I was so tired and overwhelmed that I barely enjoyed the party. That’s why I really appreciate that at Chuck E. Cheese’s I can just show up, and truly enjoy my child’s birthday. And because I didn’t have to take care of most of the details, customizing our party was pretty simple!

Since Chuck E. Cheese’s was taking care of everything, I was not only able to DIY our party but I was able to involve my kids in the planning process – which is always so fun for them!

How to Throw a Birthday Party at Chuck E. Cheese’s with a Custom Theme

There are many ways you can DIY your party at Chuck E. Cheese’s – you can make it as simple or as detailed as you want. I remember seeing a party during one of our visits that truly went all out. It was a Beauty and the Beast party and their whole set up was just breathtaking, not to mention their desserts looked almost unreal because they were so perfect.

I love that Chuck E. Cheese’s doesn’t have strict rules about this – you are allowed to decorate your table as you please, bring your own goodie bags, your own cake and another other accessories to make your party more personalized.

6 things you can personalize for your DIY party at Chuck E. Cheese’s

Start by sending out custom invitations

Instead of sending the free invites that Chuck E. Cheese’s offers we designed our outer space invite and send it to to all of our friends. We also encouraged everyone to come wearing a space themed outfit if they wanted to! It set the tone and expectations for my kid’s friends and they knew it was going to be all about outer space.

Customize your goodie bags

Chuck E. Cheese’s provides their own goodie bags if you book their Mega Super Star Birthday Package, which is what we booked because it includes pizza and drinks for the kids, unlimited all you can play (the main reason why we love this package) and it even includes include ice cream, helium balloons and collective cups.

So, even though our guest were going to get a Chuck E. Cheese’s goodie bag we decided to also make our own with an outer space theme. This is where the fun began, the birthday girl and I carefully chose every toy we put in the goodie bag, and she even picked the goodie bag itself!

I love involving my children as much as possible because I remember as a child how much I loved to be involved in the goodie bag process. Once we got all the toys my daughter assembled all the bags.

You can customize your bags with items that you buy, like we did, or if you’re pretty crafty you can DIY all the contents in your goodie bag. I have done this in the past but it’s a lot more work for me and it has less involvement for the children, which is why this time we bought all the items in the goodie bag.

Customizing the goodie bag was definitively the highlight of the birthday prep for my child!

Customize your table decorations

Chuck E. Cheese’s provides a table cover but we can also bring your own. Since I couldn’t find an outer space themed table cover, we decided to use the one from Chuck E. Cheese’s and add giant planets all over our table.

My kid was very pleased with how this turned out and it only took us a few minutes to set it up!

Bring themed cups and plates

Chuck E. Cheese’s also provides all the utensils you need to eat your food and dessert but we decided it would be even more fun to eat the cake in outer space themed plates! The staff is every accommodating and helpful – you are assigned to a party host and they make sure things run smoothly. So, when we go to our party we let her know that when it came time to serve the cake we wanted to use the outer space plates.

Customize your cake

This is a must if you really want your party to feel like a themed party! I am a baker but I am not good at decorating and after looking at Pinterest for cake ideas I realized I wouldn’t be able to pull off an outer space cake.

So, I did the next best thing: I ordered a blank cake from Costco and let the girls decorate with every outer space themed cake decoration I could find.

Not only did all of my child’s friends loved the look of the cake but my daughters were really proud that they decorated the cake! I think it’s very important to involve our children in all the prep, it makes them feel special and ads an extra magic touch to any party.

Dress your children with outfits that match the party theme

Lastly, clothes make a difference too! My daughters insisted they must wear outfits with outer space stuff so we found 2 different outfits that had stars and the birthday girl outfit also had a moon.

These simple changes made our birthday party feel like a personalized birthday party!

I’m all about making life easier and more enjoyable and what I love about doing a DIY party at Chuck E. Cheese’s is that they took care of all the important stuff while we got to enjoy the entire process of finding different ways we could customize this party and turn it into an outer space adventure.

To reserve your party at Chuck E. Cheese’s is as simple as picking a birthday package, a date, inviting your guests and showing up. You don’t even have to pay for the party up front, you just pay a deposit and pay for the rest later. This is great since a few days before our party we had 4 more children confirm attendance and we were able to easily modify our reservation to include them.

The birthday packages start at just $14.99 per child and can be upgraded to All You Can Play for only $3 more per kid, which is 100% worth, especially if you have small children. All You Can Play means each child gets a card and they can play all the games they want for 2 hours. The timer starts counting the moment they swipe the card so if you have guests that arrive late, they will still get to use up the whole 2 hours.

Since my children are little, this is great because they tend to start a game and walk away if they don’t like it. By having unlimited play we don’t have to worry about this or them running out of tokens to play.

And, I have to mention the Ticket Blaster because this seems to be the hit of the party! Every birthday child has a chance to win the Magic Ticket when they step into the Ticket Blaster. The Magic Ticket is worth 500 tickets redeemable for fun prizes but what’s really fun for the birthday kid, more than winning this Magic Ticket, is to step into the Ticket Blaster and try to catch as many tickets as possible. My daughter came out laughing and even found some tickets for stuck in her shoes -which, for her, was hilarious!

Right after we Ticket Blaster we had a piñata – as a Latina I really loved that they have piñata because I grew up in Costa Rica where piñata are a must for every party. The best part is that the piñata comes pre-filled so we didn’t have to worry about what to put inside of it.

And even though Chuck E. Cheese’s is meant to be a place for kids, the adults at our party started playing and had so much fun! My husband and a few of the other dads played against each other in some of the games and it was just hilarious to see them play just like the kids. So it’s truly a place where anyone can be a kid!

So, there you have it, simple ways you customize your birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s! If you have any other tips to throw a DIY party, let us know in the comments.