By Eileen Drennen
Hunting for the perfect location for your daughter’s 14th birthday party can be a challenge. Especially when it seems like you’ve seen them all.
“I think we’ve used every venue imaginable in Atlanta,” said Christine Price of Brookhaven. “Every year we have to come up with a new place – we’ve been everywhere.”
So when a brochure for the Astor Holiday Rink at the St. Regis Atlanta in Buckhead arrived in the mail, she suggested her daughter Nicole shelve the plan for group laser tag – which they could do anytime – in favor of an activity that seemed more related to December weather.
Not only did Nicole see her point, Price said, so did all their guests. Everyone who was invited came, and excited RSVPs came in faster than ever.
And when the celebrants convened Dec. 4 on the seventh floor of the luxury hotel on West Paces Ferry, to skate, sip cocoa and toast their own custom s’mores over a roaring fire, it was a birthday party like no other.
“I had no idea about the rink at the St. Regis,” said Kennesaw State freshman Taylor Goode, one of their guests. “It was really cool to expect a big rink – and then reach this cool, smaller rink.”
It was intimate, she added, great family fun and “probably the best” location they’d ever used. Not that you’d know it from driving past “You could never tell a place like this was right smack in the middle of Buckhead,” Price said.
The rink, which was made by the same company responsible for the skating rink at New York City’s Bryant Park, features a 30-by-50-foot skating surface under a gauzy white canopy bedecked in hundreds of tiny lights. The rink is open daily, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., through Jan. 5 at the St. Regis Atlanta, 88 West Paces Ferry Road. Reservations are recommended (www.stregisatlanta.com or 404-563-7900). Skating costs $30 an hour and $18 for anyone younger than 16. The price includes skate rentals.
Other places to skate:
The Rink at Park Tavern, Piedmont Park (corner of Monroe Drive and Tenth Street). $15 per 3.5-hour session, includes admission and skates, though helmets, gloves and pads are extra. Open daily through Feb. 14. 404-249-0001
Centennial Olympic Park. Open daily, including holidays, through Jan. 30.
$7 admission; $2 skate rental (for 90 minutes). 404-223-4412.
