Our Jungle Cruise Pun Party: All The Costumes & Food!

Get ready to roll your eyes, groan, and slow-clap your way through this post, gang, because our Orlando friends are punny PARTY ANIMALS:

... and I have all the pics to prove it.

In fact Christie & Robyn here made their entrance by kicking open the door, blasting music & air horns on their phones, and dancing through the house for a solid 2 minutes:


Later they exited the same way, haha.

I asked for costumes that were either "Jungle Cruise era adventurers" or puns, so our guests would have lots of options. Because our friend group is full of insanely creative artists, cosplayers, and designers, we had the full gamut of both, and everything in-between:



Traci here is a mashup of Jane from Disney's Tarzan and Imogen from Critical Role.

Imo-Jane.


I'll let you guess Bianca's costume:

Did you get it?

She's an Investi-Gator.

And she's investigating... IN-TRAP-MINT.

Though she was quick to point out:


... she's just a gumshoe.

If you found that painful, buckle up. We're just getting started.

Matt and Rachael explained they were "Jungle Cruise adjacent" with their costumes:

The Pirates ride is next to the Jungle Cruise one in WDW, so that's already clever - but it's not all! Did you notice the menus on his hat and her corset?

It's the Pie-Rates of the Caribbean. Matt's even carrying a satchel of mini-pies.

Y'all, Y'ALL. These crusty sea-dogs ARRR filling me up.

Then after they left, I discovered they left me a birthday gift:


The Pie Weights of the Caribbean.

(These are fancy ceramic pie weights, too. Almost makes me want to blind-bake something, Bake-Off style.)


Quick pun break for Thom's purr-fect JC homage:

Even I'd forgotten, but this shirt is actually from the Jungle Cruise ride queue!

via Disney Diary

 Even the fonts match!

Thom's a graphic designer by trade, so he also surprised us with these custom bottles of soda:

So good. Heck yes I'm keeping the bottles.

You might be wondering what costumes John and I wore.

WELL.

I came up with a pun for John that I'm quite proud of - and then he took the idea and ran with it:


He's modeled after the owner of Mystic Manor, for you uber Dizgeeks, but that's not the pun.

For the pun, you really need video:



(If you look closely while he's dropping fezzes, you can see his mustache fall off. Ha!)

Did you guess?


That's right.

He's a Fez Dispenser.

The purr-fect size for cats! 

The dispenser is just a tube filled with stacked mini fezzes, which you can pull out by the tassels:



I say "just" but this was a lot of work to make, and for a joke accessory, it turned out surprisingly cool! John covered a cardboard shipping tube with two kinds of scrap vinyl (one leftover from my Lady Vadore helmet, if you can believe it), then made the strap from an old leather belt. The patterned vinyl is solid black, so I dry-brushed it brown, then aged the brown accents with black to match.

And of course this was the perfect opportunity for a Princess Bride easter egg, so Fezzik gets a shout-out.

John also made his own fez and ascot, and then I helped with the mini fezzes - 10 in all.

As for me, I went the easier Skipper route with some thrift store finds:

My only regret from my Jungle Cruise days is I don't have any pictures of me on the job, so this was my chance, ha. Granted, my Skipper costume looked nothing like this, but the hat is close, and I always wore my hair in two braids like this.

And to really revel in the nostalgia, John suggested I wear my original name tag:

My braids covered it, but I knew it was there.

Another thing just for me: I had my plush frog friend tucked in my pocket:

I wore this frog hanging out of my pocket every day when I worked at Jungle Cruise. He's a bean bag, so I would toss him from hand to hand while waiting for bumps or a new load of passengers. I'm glad I still have him: a happy reminder of happy times.

Right, back to puns!

I bet you can guess Melissa's costume:

Hang on, maybe this will help:

She's the Backside of Water! And Stephanie there is the Bee's Knees.

These two run the Central Florida Slug Club, which you've heard me rave about many times.

Arielle and James ARE:

Pigs in a Blanket.

And appropriately, they brought many tasty treats:

These "Point in the End" Skewers were strangely delicious:

They're grapes soaked in Vodka and Prosecco, dipped in sugar and tangy citric acid, then grilled. Tangy, boozy, and sweet. Y'all gotta try it.

Another food pun, this time in costume form:

Tim is part of our Overwatch gaming group, and he mains Zenyatta the monk, so this tripped me up for a while. Did you guess? They key is the hot dog he's holding,

Ready?

He's "Make Me One With Everything."

GROOOOOOAAAN.


Here are some easier puns:

Kelsey is the Cat's Pajamas ("Are you kitten me?") with her Bee-otch Calvin, who's also the Bee's Knees.

Hey, Ken, are there rocks ahead?

If so, DON'T TAKE THEM FOR GRANITE.

:D

If you notice people wearing a bright green sticker, here's why:

Kari the Seal of Approval strikes again! (Also note Kelsey's cat-eye makeup. These costume puns are like onions, y'all.)

Action shot from I Wet My Plants:

And here Aron the Skipper attempts to scare off Melanie the Hungry Hungry Hippo with his epic finger guns:

Did I insist they pose like this? Yes. Yes, I did.

Kevin is a professional props master and maker, so I always look forward to what he and his wife Katie come up with. This year they pulled out ALL the stops, and much like John's costume, you're going to need video to fully appreciate Kevin's:



In order, that's Kevin trying to Tune-a-Fish, getting a wrong note, and using his pitch pipe.

Just... genius.

Katie also had layers to her puns, let's see how many you can guess:

This took me a minute. Did you guess?

She's a buck-an-ear.

Next one:

She wanted to be in the lime light.

Last one, I can't remember what I said to prompt this, but during our conversation Katie plucked this out of her pocket and declared:



"KNOT ON MY WATCH."

Kevin and Katie also brought punny foods:

Somehow it took me this long - 'til I was editing these photos - to realized the bread is shaped like a Z.

This one, too!

Aron & Melanie went all out on their "Sushi":

:D

Which looked like this:

Oh! And Karen went around distributing "Achieve-Mints" and "Encourage-Mints"

The Punny Mint Trifecta.

When Bianca saw Robin here come in - having never met her before - she yelled, "IT'S MY DAUGHTER!" and immediately demanded a photo together:

Robin had "Ginger" on her back, so we had to be careful.

You know.

Because Ginger snaps.

 Robin's boyfriend Luis was the most legit-looking Skipper of the night:

Shout-out to whichever of our friends did this, because it totally got John:

We heard from across the house, "Hey, who here is 'Dumble'? I found their name tag."

::pause::

"OHHHHHH COME ON"

:D

I don't have a photo for it, but I have to mention my punny music choices for the night:

- The Lion Sleeps Tonight

- Wet Dream (I'd never seen the video before! Hilarious.)

- Eye of the Tiger

- Jungle Gym, by Jack Johnson

- Wild Thing

- Roar, by Katie Perry

- Monkey (On Your Back)

- Tarzan Boy

- Karma Chameleon 

- Conga

- I Go Ape, by Neil Sedaka
- Dizz Knee Land

- Imagineer (Y'all will love this one)

- Wordplay, by Jason Mraz 

And finally, the last-minute addition I made to our drink cups that made me ridiculously happy:

You know.

Because they're Solo Cups.

"I say, GOOD SHOW."

(Both John's mustache and monocle are from Amazon.)

I'm leaving out a few costumes and foods because this post is getting way too long, but I think I hit all the highlights. I do hope this made you smile as much as I have writing it.

 Ahh, but wait, there's STILL more: our Jungle Cruise Scavenger Hunt! We hid visual puns all over the house, then sent our friends out to find the right ones to unlock a prize chest. I'll have all our clues, props, red herrings, and zany prizes for you next time, so be sure to check back.

Happy Friday, my friend, I hope your weekend is full of fun, rest, and happy surprises.

::HUGS::

*****

P.S. Oops, I forgot to mention one more punny game we played during the party:

A Game Of Cat & Mouth

Our friend Arielle gave us this last Christmas, and it was the perfect addition to the deck games... until one group lost one of the balls under the deck and spent the next 10 minutes fishing it out again with a paper straw and wad of poster putty, bahaha.

ANYHOO, imagine a game of pinball played with magnetic slingshots shaped like cats paws, and you'll get an idea of how easy, silly, and fast-paced this game is. Great for parties!

And here's one more, because while we don't own this game (yet), I've been assured it's friggin' amazing:

Puns of Anarchy

I think the photo says it all - and I'm mad I didn't know this game existed BEFORE the party, omigosh. MUST PLAY.