Theme Night Spotlight: Wonderland
Theme nights are always a great experience aboard cruise ships. Bliss theme nights take it a step further, giving you great ways to explore your fantasies, get creative, or just have a bit of fun.
On the Bliss Wonderland Cruise in November 2026, we're kicking off the trip with "Wonderland" as the first evening's theme! Short on ideas? We're here to help. Have an idea we missed? Send it our way at Travel@ScarletCompass.com.
You probably know a few characters from Lewis Carroll's fantastic world, but let's head down the rabbit hole and find some variety. Wonderland gives you plenty of room to interpret the characters rather than reproduce them exactly.
You can get as involved as you want with this theme. Wear a T-shirt with a playing card on it. Add a pair of pink-and-purple striped cat ears. Go all the way with a full Victorian Queen of Hearts costume. It's entirely up to you.
Characters of the Wonderland world:
Alice: Keep it relatively simple with a blue dress and white pinafore. Nothing says your version of Alice has to be quite so innocent.
White Rabbit: Be on time for the evening with rabbit ears, a fluffy tail, a waistcoat (vest), and, of course, a pocket watch.
Playing cards
You've got plenty of possibilities here, including the King, Queen, and Knave of Hearts, as well as the Card Soldiers.
You don't even need to be a particular character. Anything featuring hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades connects easily to the theme. A playing-card shirt, dress, bodysuit, corset, or suit can get the point across without requiring much luggage space.
Chess Pieces: While black and white may be more recognizable to modern audiences, Lewis Carroll actually uses RED and WHITE chess pieces in Through the Looking-Glass.
Kings, queens, bishops, knights, rooks, and pawns
I'll admit that I'm not sure how you could dress up as a rook/castle, but I'd love to see your creativity!
(Just a note for the Wonderland purists: the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts are not the same character.)
Cheshire Cat: Don't disappear on us! Think pink and purple stripes, perhaps a tail and ears. A little makeup can easily add cat eyes, whiskers, or that enormous Cheshire grin.
Mad Hatter: Save the full steampunk look for its own theme night, but you'll definitely need a hat. Any hat. An enormous hat. Several hats. Be creative.
March Hare: If you love couples costumes and don't feel like being another White Rabbit, pair the March Hare with the Mad Hatter. Rabbit ears are the important part here, not a hat. While the March Hare is brown in the Disney adaptation, I'd say you're safe with just about any color other than white.
Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum: This may be one of the easiest couples' costumes aboard. Grab yellow shirts, red bottoms, and you're already recognizable. Add matching hats for extra pizzazz.
Talking flowers: There's an entire garden available for inspiration, including the Tiger-lily, Rose, Daisy, Violet, and Larkspur. Go floral, colorful, oversized, elegant, ridiculous, or some combination thereof.
Caterpillar: This one might require a little costume magic. Then again, you could always turn into a butterfly.
Still haven't found your character? There's also: Dormouse, Duchess, Cook, Gryphon, Mock Turtle, Dodo, Mouse, Lory, Eaglet, Bill the Lizard, Pat, Humpty Dumpty, The Sheep, The Gnat, and The Fawn
Paired characters: The Walrus and The Carpenter, The Lion and The Unicorn
Or Just Go Victorian
You don't need to dedicate yourself to a character at all.
Carroll's Wonderland was created in Victorian England, so you can pull from that period for your costume. Women wore fitted bodices, defined waists, full skirts, high necklines, and substantial sleeves. Men's clothing included waistcoats, frock and morning coats, cravats and bow ties, trousers, and top hats.
And sexy Victorian is absolutely a direction you can take this. Think corsets, bustiers, stockings, waistcoats, top hats, gloves, pocket watches, high collars, ruffles, fitted coats, and dramatic accessories. Add a few Wonderland details and you've got something that fits the theme without looking like you bought a character costume in a bag.
Pack Smarter
Steampunk gets its own theme night later in the cruise, even though it draws inspiration from the same historical period. If you're trying to save precious suitcase space, plan the two outfits together. A corset, waistcoat, top hat, gloves, boots, pocket watch, or Victorian-style shirt can work for Wonderland one night and become part of a completely different Steampunk outfit later. More room for whatever else you plan to get into aboard Bliss...
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