Hawaiian Dinner Cruise (Or Not)?

Who: Adults, 18+
Objective: FriendSHIPping, fellowSHIPping, missionary efforts, unity, etc.
Budget: $125
Flyer: (I don't have the original flyer, but here is what it said)

Ahoy all adults!

Come aboard the S.S. Fellow-Ship and join us for a

Hawaiian Dinner Cruise.

May 9th,

Board at 6:30pm, from the East Dock

Feel free to wear your Aloha! attire

It'd be a shame to miss this one on "porpoise"!

*brought to you by Save Our Souls (S.O.S.) Cruiselines

Set-Up: The cultural hall was set up and decorated for a Mexican Fiesta. Doors were kept closed. The chapel overflow area was set up to resemble the inside of a river boat. I had arranged ahead of time for a few of the YW to dress in Hawaiian wear to welcome each guest with a lei. I had arranged for one man with a nice "radio voice" to be our "captain" and had given him a script ahead of time, and I also had some Hawaiian music on CD to play on the overhead speakers.

Special Instructions: Prior to and during the welcome of the "passengers", no one that is in on the secret is to let on that this is anything but a "Hawaiian Dinner Cruise". Have the Hawaiian music playing on the speakers until you have enough "passengers" arrive to get started. After the opening prayer, Our “captain” gives his on-board announcements, welcoming them aboard the SS Fellowship, and tells them to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride, and that soon we will be docking for a wonderful Hawaiian Dinner. The “stewardesses” (YW) brought a cart through with Tahitian Treat drinks (aka Ginger ale & Fruit Punch). After the drinks were passed out, the captain then made the announcement that due to a tropical storm, we'd have to reroute and he advised them that we'd be docking on the Mexican Riviera. But not to fear, he had radioed ahead and our Mexican Fiesta will be ready! Then we had everyone exit through the “emergency exit” – which was the curtain/partition. We had a taco bar set up along with fruit salad. We already had Hawaiian and Mexican decorations from previous activities, so we just used those to decorate the various areas accordingly.

Turn-Out:We had about 65 people sign up, so I planned for 100 tacos, cuz I figured some would eat two. We still had foil and foil pans left over from Christmas, so I didn’t have to buy any of those. We used them to heat up the tortilla shells and pulled them from the oven as needed.

We bought 10 pkgs small flour tortilla shells (“taco” size, not “burrito” size), 12 lbs ground beef, 12 packets dry “taco seasoning” mix, 6 small cans refried beans, 3 heads lettuce – shredded, 3 medium/large onions, 4 cans dice tomatoes drained, 5 cans sliced black olives, 1 lg tub of sour cream, 7 bags (14 C) shredded cheese, 1 bottle of red hot chili pepper sauce, 1 large thing of salsa, 2 bags tortilla chips. For the fruit salad I bought 7 big cans of fruit cocktail, 3 boxes instant vanilla pudding. I just emptied all of the fruit juice into a big salad bowl and then added the instant pudding mix in with a wire whisk. I let the pudding sit in the fridge about 10 minutes, the folded the fruit in, covered it tightly with plastic wrap and let chill until dinner.

Total in attendance: about 55

Because of Cinco De Mayo being so close I got all of the food on sale, and ended up spending $112. We already had plenty of paper products in our storage closet, so I did not have to get any of that stuff.

Oh - and you can get all sorts of "scene setter" like the one here.  Just google "Cruise Ship Scene Setters".