Blog

For my dad's 70th birthday celebration, we decided to have a party at Picnic Spot N at Santee Lakes in San Diego County. This spot is located at Lake #4. With a reservation here, I as able to have this spot from 6AM - 6PM for the day I reserved for.

I was really impressed with this particular picnic spot (Spot N) because it's on a little island. We crossed a bridge to get the area. I think with my decorations, it immediately wowed the guests coming to the party at this particular spot. It had a peaceful view of the lake and the birds.

Before I arrived, this is how it looked from a distance below. Contrast to the top picture of this blog post, I added and brought my canopy and attached some balloons and really made it look like a popping event!  You're allowed to set up your own canopy and attach balloons. I recommend calling the Santee Lakes Customer Service line to double check what's allowed because every spot has different restriction. However, the rule is you must take all your decorations and not release any of them by 6PM. You will need to be responsible to cleaning up all the mess as well. I brought my own pop-up canopy and decided on a gold/white theme for the balloons as this was a 70th birthday celebration and my invitation had a gold theme. Loading stuff from the car across the bridge to this spot is manageable. I recommend bringing a rolling wagon cart to transport your supplies from your car to the picnic spot so it could save you many trips from going back and forth.

The capacity for this Picnic Spot N is 25 people. We only had 16 guests at our party so this spot was perfect. We had a party in the middle of October so it was a very hot day! The canopy is an absolute must for comfort, especially for grilling and people hanging out. We ended up adding a smaller second canopy (not pictured) behind the front big canopy. It was a life saver for shade. I also want to recommend getting weights for the legs of the canopy. They're quite heavy but worth loading to bring to the party for the canopy. I bought these exact weights for my canopy and they have been so great for windy days to keep the canopy stable and not fly away!

There are many other spots available at Santee Lakes that has a bigger capacity for very big parties! On their website, they even have spots that allow 200 or even 1,000 people! I can see this being a great option for an outdoor wedding. You can view their Picnic & Parties Spots available on the Santee Lakes' website.