There’s so much to celebrate at SeaWorld… conservation, beauty, marine life, family. We enjoy it so much that when my son suggested a SeaWorld theme for his birthday party we were all for it! And the icing on the cake was, well, the cake!
I started out by baking two half sheet cakes in one flavor, and three 8-inch rounds in another (so chocolate lovers could have their favorite, and non-chocoholics were good to go, too). Not sure how a person does not like chocolate, but who’s to say?!
I made a strawberry filling for the yellow cake filling and a chocolate ganash for in between the chocolate layers.
The fondant was store-bought and I added blue food coloring until I got the just-right ocean-y feel! Meanwhile, a friend of mine helped by whipping up a batch of buttercream frosting. (Thanks MW for everything!) We had two bowls: one was for the blue color, and one was for white.
I rolled it out and covered the 8″ rounds that were now filled and stacked. Once the two large rectangles were similarly filled and layered, I covered that part of the cake with the blue buttercream icing. Then I placed the fondant-clad round off to one side, touching both a long and short side of the base cake.
The sides of both the round and base cakes were given a fresh garnish of additional white icing, just piped on really thick at the base. Then I put a fork into the blue gel food coloring I’d used to color the fondant. I pressed it into the white and made a wave-type of motion and… voila! The dark blue mixed with the white to create a pretty realistic wave, if I do say so myself.
Since I’m not a professional cake maker, I couldn’t sculpt the whale, penguin, and dolphin out of sugar or gumpaste or chocolate or any other edible product for that matter, I simply used three of my son’s “Little People” characters and made waves around them.
What was awesome and edible were the sharks, “baby” penguins, fish and rocks that completed the look. (Thanks again MW!) Purchased at a candy store, these little jimmies added dimension and were absolutely delicious. (I could eat a bag of the chocolate rocks right now!)
After pushing the gummy sharks into the sides of the “wave area,” covering the “ocean floor” with rocks, and placing the bright-colored fish into the “foam” of the water, all that was left was to write happy birthday. I used some more of the fondant and cut the letters with plastic alphabet shape cutters.
We had a “baby pool” filled with stuffed dolphins and whales. We even created a “Penguin Encounter” (as per my toddler) where all his penguins and puffins could line up and the people at the party had to walk by “real slow” so they could pretend they were on the conveyor belt.
“Daniel is Three. Celebrate with the Sea,” stated our invitation. Everyone had a “whale of a day” and ate lots sea-themed foods and ocean-blue punch. We then had our cake and ate it, too.
SeaWorld Mommy 
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My son is turning 3 in December and we live like 5 minutes away from Sea World. He really wants a shamu party. Can you please give me some ideas? Thanks.
We did a lot of games based on the park (the kids took turns throwing stuffed animal puppies through hula hoops like the trained pets do at “Pets Ahoy”). For a Shamu party, you could do a Put the Whale in the ocean game where you print out a photo of your favorite whale, then create a “Sea” of blue with an island, an ice berg, a cruise ship, etc. Kids, blindfolded, could try to put their whale in the “blue sea” while avoiding the pitfalls. For that age, I’d also have coloring pages (who says they have to be black and white!). I also like to add educational activities. Whales mainly eat fish, so if you have two buckets you could have the kids toss things into the buckets (sorting). One bucket could be what Orcas DO eat. One, what they wouldn’t. Fish magnets, stuffed animals, plastic fish from a toy kitchen kit, or even cut-outs would work for the fish. Other play foods would be the “foods Shamu shouldn’t eat” bin. That could easily be re-worked for a relay race if the kids were old enough.
Sounds like you all will have a lot of fun! Wish your son a Happy, Happy Birthday from SeaWorld Mommy!
Fantastic!!!! So inspiring…I have 3 little ones that love SeaWorld as much as their Mom does!!
flippin’ awesome!