Universal Experts - Birthday suggestions for 12yo 1st timer?

[quantumottle]

My daughter will be celebrating her 12th birthday during our first trip ever to Universal in December (her actual birthday, not just "close to" her birthday). I've read about the birthday button, but are there any other suggestions for a special birthday memory?

It doesn't even have to be in Universal, anything close by would be great too. I just need to find something special as this will be the biggest birthday ever for her.

Thanks.

 

[melbiel]

We're in the same boat. My daughter will also be turning 12 while we are at Universal.

 

[rstout01]

We are going for my son's 11th birthday in January. Ollivander's is a must. I may schedule a character breakfast for his birthday (or some kind of special meal) and have also considered the Blue Man Group.

 

[quantumottle]

That makes three of us...

I didn't think about Blue Man Group, thanks fior the suggestion. I am a little surprised there are no other ides posted. I'll keep looking and post here if I find anything interesting.

 

[RMulieri]

We are celebrating our DDs 11th birthday in Jan at the parks.We are planning on letting her choose the restaurant and doing a night of mini-golf at citywalk

 

[christophfam]

Universal sells these great birthday hats that we bought my daughter when we were there for her birthday. It is shaped like a top hat with candles sticking out on top of it. That baby got her SO much attention. The TMs were great all day. That hat was hard to miss!!

We hit Hard Rock for her birthday lunch and Mama Dellas for her birthday dinner. Both were great and she received special desserts and even a special song from mamma. We also ran over to Publix and bought her balloons and a cake. She had a great birthday trip.

Found an old post with a pic of her hat -

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2406590

 

[sarah49]

The blue man group were fab. We went for my daughters birthday and she loved it. X

 

[quantumottle]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
Please keep em' coming...

 

[stazmatic]

How did the birthday trip go?
We are celebrating our daughters 10th birthday in a couple weeks and looking for suggestions!

 

[myxdvz]

DD also just decided that she wants to do WWoHP for her 10th birthday.

We will be there 2/27-3/1 so her tickets will still be a child ticket and her birthday is on 3/2 (Monday is a school day so we're back home)

I am booking us a VIP tour for this trip on the Saturday (crowd calendar says Moderate) and doing it ourselves on Friday (supposed to be a slow day).

 

[goofy4wdw2]

My daughter is begging to go to Universal for her 10th birthday, too..so funny! We celebrated my son's 5th at Disney so she's hoping for a vacation over her birthday plus she's so excited to check out the Harry Potter areas.

 

[quantumottle]

How did the birthday trip go?
We are celebrating our daughters 10th birthday in a couple weeks and looking for suggestions!

We had a wonderful time, especially the birthday girl. However, we really didn't do much specifically for her birthday. We did get her a birthday button that Universal offers, which got attention from many people wishing her a happy birthday (also a free birthday sized butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron, which was a nice surprise).

By far her favorite thing we did for her birthday was a video made at Shutterbutton's in Diagon Alley (it's inside Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, did I spell that right?). They dress you in Hogwarts robes and have you perform in front of a green screen, then later they add wonderful backgrounds from WWoHP and display it all in a sort of living photobook. They give you an online link to the video for family and friends as well as a metal case with the DVD inside to take home. She absolutely loved it!

If you're not familiar with Shutterbutton's, CLICK HERE for an example of what I'm talking about. It cost 70 bucks, which sounds expensive until you're on vacation and realize everything costs triple what it would in the real world.
=)

BTW, we thought we found the perfect birthday surprise for her, we considered taking her to the Cirque du Soleil show (I know, it's on Disney property rather than Universal) but the show was closed for the Holidays - which my daughter thought was a good thing as the performers got to go home for Christmas.