This is my 3rd pirate ship cake. You could eat everything but the mast poles and the characters. My nephew wanted a ninja fighting a dragon on the ship. We bought the characters at Target. There is a little red swirl in the water and that is a pirate hat floating in the middle of swimming sharks- ewwww! I used the nordic ware pirate ship pan but you have to add another layer of cake underneath because its not tall enough. I then add a 14" square under that for water. You can skip that if you don't need that much cake.