Children's Party Ideas: Pirate Party

Go overboard with our ideas for pirate games, decorations and treats

A pirate party is one of the most popular options for a themed children’s birthday bash, with a veritable treasure chest of games, costumes and food to pick from. Here’s our guide to sailing through your little pirate’s party… 

Pirate Party Invitations

When you send out the invitations, supply a map with directions to the party. Make them with the birthday boy or girl for a fun craft activity: dip them in cold tea for that authentic faded tinge and add some piratical riddles and drawings of skull and cross bones. Most importantly, make sure ‘X’ marks the spot for the venue! You could also save yourself a job by using these invitations that double up as pirate hats.

Top tip: For an alternative kind of invite, dress up the birthday boy or girl as a pirate and make a short video in which they ask their friends to join them on the ocean waves for the party – send the video via WhatsApp and add all of the important information (date, time, location etc.) in an additional written message.

Pirate Costume Ideas

The invitations should make the dress code clear. Ask guests to dress in their finest pirate attire, and have some spare pirate hats, eye patches and foam cutlasses on hand for any landlubbers who need a little help getting into character on the day.

Shiver the timbers of the pirates you have on board by setting up some games for them to play. Adapt some traditional party games to fit the theme. Pin the Tail on the Donkey can become Pin the Eye Patch on the Pirate and What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? turns easily into What’s the Time, Mr Pirate? A treasure hunt around the house, garden or park is a sure-fire way to raise the excitement levels – read our top tips for organising a brilliant one here. For more treasure hunting, fill two chests or boxes with sand and bury a selection of wrapped sweets, toys and other trinkets in them. Two teams then have a minute to dig out as much treasure as possible, with the winning team the one to have collected the most items.

Top tip: A piñata will ensure a smashing time is had by all, too. The Party Pieces store has a few piratical options to pick from: treasure chest, and a parrot. Chocolate coins would make for the perfect hidden treasure to fill your chosen piñata with!

There are so many options available for making sure your pirate party looks the part. We’ve got a wide range of tableware and decorations, including Treasure Island skull plates, napkins and straws, treasure map table covers and place mats. A pirate banner and this pirate ship centrepiece will be excellent finish touches to your nautical party scene. Shop the entire pirate range here.

Top tip: Don’t just decorate the inside of the venue, but make the entrance as pirate-y as possible, too. Get your child to create some signs saying ‘Pirate party this way’ and ‘Danger! Pirates inside!’ to stick on your front door, and team these up with our ‘Arr!’ pirate balloons or Personalised Inflated Pirate Balloon Bunch.

The birthday boy or girl will absolutely love a personalised pirate cake  – just pick your photo and message, and whether you want chocolate or vanilla flavour. For the party food some creative labelling will do the trick. Breadsticks can be called ‘peg legs’ and fizzy fish sweets can be named ‘shark bait’. Push carrot sticks into circles of cucumber for ‘pirate swords’ and make a fruity pirate punch for the kids to drink. Try this mixed fruit punch or, for a tropical twist, these mango and banana smoothies. Serve up the party food in these fun pirate ship food trays.

Sticking a film on towards the end of a kids’ party is a great way to round things off - and bring a bit of calm to proceedings. Captain Hook’s star turn in Peter Pan makes the Disney classic an obvious choice, and Muppet Treasure Island is also great fun. For older kids, Hook, a live action version spin off of Peter Pan, is an entertaining watch, and there’s always the Pirates of the Caribbean series to fall back on. Aaarr me party hearty!