Grease Lightning Go Grease Lightning!
Tell me about it stud! I’ve always been a big fan of the movie Grease and thought a Grease Lightning party would be super fun. For my birthday, we celebrated the themed party in the Officers Bar on the ship. In order to have this party in the first place, I needed to get permission from the crew office to be able to rent equipment or decorate the space requested. This party request was approved quickly, providing me with lots of time to order decorations and notify my cast.
Costume preparation for this themed party was totally doable for male and females. Males could dress as greasers (jeans and a black or white t-shirt), while ladies could dress as a pink lady or a 50s high school girl (scarf tied around neck with a t-shirt and tight capris/knee length skirt). I knew I would be dressing up as Sandy in the final scene of the movie, and my fiancé Lucas would be dressing up as Danny, as he was visiting that cruise as a friend on board.
Thanks to Amazon, I ordered the 50’s Sock Hop Photo Booth Props Kit. Another item I order off of Amazon was a teal and sparkly gold birthday sash, adding a special festive touch to my Sandy costume. These items both arrived to the ship a few days before the party, at our main home port in Fort Lauderdale. I strongly advise to order mailed items 2 weeks ahead when living on a cruise ship. The security at Port Authority is usually very strict and sometimes even when your mail says it has arrived it actually doesn’t make it onto the ship.
Gathering my costume for the Grease Lightning party was pretty easy. I already had black leggings and had my fiancé bring my red heels and black off the shoulder t-shirt from home. For makeup I did a black smoky eye and curled my hair in a half up half down hair do. When I first arrived to the crew bar for the party, I couldn’t believe how many of my friends dressed up! My roommate did a spin on the theme dressing up as a gay greaser and one of our male singers dressed in drag as a pink lady, which were both so creative and awesome! The photo booth props really made a great impact on the party too, as many of my friends took photos together with them, getting everyone into the mood.
To inform my friends about the party, I created posters to advertise the event using Microsoft Word. The poster stated that the event was small get together to celebrate my birthday, also including the location, time and theme. I printed out a few copies and posted one in the area all the cast lived in as well as the crew events board. Overall, the posters a lot of extra work and where not needed but where fun to make.
The same day as the party I got off the ship to purchase a birthday cake, as well as some paper plates and plastic forks. The ship docked in Colón, Panama t hat day, so most of the employees in the shops only spoke Spanish. Due to not understanding nor speaking any Spanish, I had to communicate withe baker by drawing what I wanted on a napkin. It was a strange experience but in the end I was able to bring a birthday cake on board and share something special with my friends at the party.
I wanted to play the Grease movie on the flat screen TV in the crew bar, but was not sure if this could be done or would be allowed, so I decided to use music instead. I had originally download songs from the movie soundtrack but unfortunately, it was not enough music. The day of the party, I didn’t bring the USB stick containing the movie to the bar, because my hands were pretty full carry up other things, so I only relied on the themed music. I also invited anyone to plug their phones into the Bluetooth speaker and play whatever they wanted, which was defiantly a smart move. I am grateful a friend of mine plugged in their phone, as they had a great variety of tunes to share, which encourage a lot of dancing and singing throughout the night.
There was no such thing as a dance floor in the crew bar, so we made some space by moving around some chairs. I’m glad my friends got to let loose and enjoy themselves, especially because we were all going through extra duties with the GI outbreak on the ship. Overall, it was a great party and definitely a night to remember!