Hawaiian Birthday Party Ideas – Put the Tiki Spirit Into Your Next Luau Bash!

Need some Hawaiian birthday party ideas? A Hawaiian luau birthday can be so much fun. In fact, it’s one of the most popular party themes of all. If you’ve never thrown a Hawaii inspired birthday bash, let me give you some great tips. And just so you know, this theme is for all ages. Everyone from kids to teens to parents and grandparents can have fun with this one!

Types of Hawaiian Birthday Parties

The first thing to do is to choose your theme. There are many variations so it’s good to review the most common types of Hawaiian birthday parties to see which type you want for your celebration.

Hawaiian Luau: A Hawaiian Luau birthday is the most common of the Hawaii themes. It typically involves a Hawaiian style barbecue with lots of island flavor, flower lei necklaces, lots of flowing tropical wear, and sometimes even the requisite grass skirts and coconut tops of hula dancers!

Tiki Party: A Hawaiian tiki birthday party may have some of the elements above, but it typically has more emphasis on tiki decorations and elements. There will often be tiki torches, tiki head decorations, tiki head cups, and for a higher budget affair, a tiki hut complete with grass thatch roof for serving drinks.

Retro Hawaiian: A retro Hawaiian birthday theme is really making a comeback! Think 1950’s vintage vacation postcards and you’ve summed up this theme. The emphasis is on old-time tropical Hawaii. A common practice for this theme is to have it be a costume party where everyone shows up wearing vintage bathing suits and trunks. Decorations include things like old surfboard car images, weathered wooden signs saying, “This way to Oahu”, Elvis in Hawaii movies or records playing in the background and such.

Hawaiian Costume Party: This is one of the most popular types of tropical birthday themes. With a costume party, you decide what types of costumes your guests should show up wearing. There are different directions to go with this, and it can be incorporated into any of the other themes as well. Common ideas are:

Tacky Tourist: Where everyone shows up in their tackiest tourist outfits.
Hawaiian Shirt Contest: Gives everyone a chance to pull out their collection of tropical shirts.
Hula Dancers: Where everyone, guys and girls, dress up in hula gear.
Hawaii Beach: Required articles of clothing are beach bum shorts, flip-flops and sunglasses.

Hawaiian Birthday Party Ideas: The Planning Stages

The themes above will help you start choosing which direction to take your party planning. The best thing is many of the ideas are mix and match. You can blend all of the elements, or choose one specific theme to focus on. So now you’re ready to start planning the big celebration. Here are some ideas for activities and games for the party itself:

Costume Contest: If you’re having a costume party element a costume contest is a perfect fit. Consider these contest ideas, “Tackiest Hawaiian Shirt”, “Best Dressed Hula Dancer”, “Most Authentic Beach Bum”, “Most Worn Pair of Flip Flops”. Let your guests know in the invitation if there will be a costume contest, so they know to dress to impress!

Flip Flop Flinging: A game that is a lot of fun is a flip flop flinging contest. Head over to the dollar store and get $15 worth of flip flops. For the contest, there are different methods you can do. One would be to have everyone line up and toss a flip flop as far as they can. Then measure to see who got it the furthest. Another variation is to have an inflatable pool ring hung in a tree and have a flop flop toss to see who can get it through the pool ring.

Hula Dancing Contest: This is a classic. Have a hula dancing contest to see who the best hula dancer is! Variations would be who can hula the longest, who can hula the fastest while still looking like their hula dancing, who can hula the slowest, etc.

Hawaiian Birthday Party Ideas: Pulling it All Together

To get started planning, set yourself a budget and decide how much you want to allot for decorations, food, party favors and door prizes. Choose between 3 and 5 games to play. Make sure to have the instructions on hand for how to play if there are complex rules. If it is a kids or teenage birthday party you might want to add another 4 games as back-up plans. You’ll never know which ones they’ll race through in two minutes.

Also set up a time frame of events. You may want to switch out active activities with passive ones, alternating back and forth. This will keep kids from getting too hopped up and adults from getting too tired out!

I hope these Hawaiian birthday party ideas help you pull together a tiki-fantastic, luau good time!