Here are Honey’s top tips

Party planning:

• Send out invitations 4-6 weeks in advance.
• Decorate all rooms to be used and entrance hallway.
• Ask everyone to help source props to dress the room.
• As everyone to ask their friends & family to see what nautical items they can borrow – its amazing how much you can get this way.
• Dress the rooms and table the day before. When hosting such a large party the responsibility of the food is more than enough to worry about on party day.
• Encourage characters to develop an accent for their character – its really funny, especially if the wine is flowing.

Food:

We had Stuffed Mushrooms for starters, Main course Mediterranean Chicken, couscous, Salad, Desert: Pavlova.

There are menu suggestions with every murder mystery – bit it’s always best to choose things you can prepare in advance if you are playing the game too.  And also things you’ve cooked before!

Drinks:

Sangria, wine, Cocktails – we used bottles of already made up ones from supermarket and put in cocktail umbrellas.

Room decorations:

We themed an adjoining room “The Flag Bar”. We got hold of lots of flags and draped around the room. We set it up like a bar with all the glasses, drinks, lemons, ice, and anything else associated with the bar. Sylvester was our designated bar man for the evening. Welcome drinks were served in the bar area.

Hallway –  we made a sign and placed at the bottom of the stairs with an arrow saying “Cabins”

Main room –  Named our restaurant The Rusty Pelican and made a large “restaurant sign” and stuck on a feature mirror.
We used royal blue material for tablecloth and scattered poker chips over the table. Silver and crystal creates an expensive look good on royal blue – I borrowed from a neighbour.

Bought a fake ship steering wheel on line and hung on a door. Bought a palm tree table decoration.
Using lining wallpaper we cut out two huge palm trees which stood floor to ceiling. Used childrens poster paints – brown and green – as cheap.

Made pretend portholes with sea views in the middle and stuck on walls.

Made pretend red and white life preserver rings and put on walls in dining area, bar and downstairs toilet.

Made paper seagulls and hung from ceiling as if in flight.

Cut out pictures of cruise boats from newspapers and blue tacked them to the glass of pictures around the room.

Used crime scene tape and put across a door so no one could enter. Above it said “To Swimming Pool”

Our own Captain Birdseye!

We used a tailors dummy and put on a table in the corner of the room. We put on him a white roll neck jumper. A friend of mine is ex Navy and lent their jacket and hat. We upturned a pot and secured it to top of dummy and put hat on top. Downloaded a picture of Titanic’s Captain – who looks like Captain Birdseye – enlarged it to A4 size, printed it and attached to the pot.

We placed the CD player behind him so when the recording played it seemed like he was speaking – each time it played everyone naturally turned to look at him – it was a real feature to the room and very very funny.

Well I think that’s it. Our night was excellent. We are now planning another and will do a review for that one too.

Good luck, plan early and share the preparation!

Thanks Honey for such comprehensive ideas, hints and tips!