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Finding a fun place where teens AND parents have a great time can be tricky. I wanted to throw a fun birthday party for my new teen, but didn’t want it to cost me an arm and a leg, especially because he has a December birthday. We decided to try out Stars & Strikes, even though we had not visited it yet.

Teen Birthday Party at Stars & Strikes

Age & gender of child: Boy, 13 years old

Party Theme: Happy Birthday, with a Dungeons & Dragons cake

Party Location: Stars & Strikes (map)

Facility Rental Costs: We did the Extreme Party package. For all of our guests it was $208.00 total, but I used a coupon for $20 off parties that month. For that price each kid got:

• A game of bowling plus shoe rental
• Laser tag
• Bumper cars
• Arcade time
• Pizza & soda
• Plates, napkin, & cups
• Balloons in the birthday kid’s favorite color
• Paper party invitations
• Party hostess from Stars & Strikes

Number of Party Guests: 12 kids – because these were older kids, I encouraged parents to drop off and pick up after the party. We had ours on a weekday after school.

Invitations: My son sent a text invitation and also printed up a simple one himself to give to his friends. Stars & Strikes has paper invitations they can give you but we didn’t use them.

Decorations & Food

We didn’t get the private party room, but they are available. The facility is a great venue for teens – the whole place is so awesome it doesn’t really need extra decorations. They did provide a balloon bouquet and a hilarious balloon hat.

We enjoyed having a party hostess assigned to us – she served the pizza and made sure everyone had enough to drink. She also kept the party going to each activity and cleaned up afterward. My husband and I didn’t have to lift a finger!

The cake was made by my aunt – she is so talented and has made our cakes since my kids were babies. My son is into Dungeons & Dragons and wanted a 20-sided dice cake.

Favors & Activities

The kids bowled first and had a lot of fun. After that game they ate pizza and we cut the cake.

Our hostess then escorted everyone to the laser tag arena where the kids battled it out. After that it was a few rounds of bumper cars followed by some time in the Fun Machine grabbing arcade credits for the birthday boy. The rest of the time was spent in the arcade. They had giant-sized Pac-Man and Space Invaders, skee-ball, air hockey, and just about every game you could imagine.

Apparently 13 is too cool for favors, so we didn’t have any.

Party Pro-Tips

I’d definitely recommend a party at Stars & Strikes for teens. I didn’t have to worry about clean-up or serving everyone, and the party hostess wrangled all the kids. I actually enjoyed myself and wasn’t exhausted afterward.

There was so much we didn’t do at Stars & Strikes – they also have an Escape Room, a full-service restaurant, and private bowling lanes for adults 21+. My husband wants to have HIS birthday there this year!

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