On the first full evening of last month’s second annual Steampunk cruise to the Bahamas, I found myself — in tuxedo and a World War I-era aviator’s cap — marching in a strange parade past the Deck 5 duty-free shops on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Explorer of the Seas. Strolling with me were 62 elaborately costumed Victorian re-enactors, including but not restricted to: a Gypsy minstrel playing the accordion, a princess in authentic Turkoman beads, a Russian submarine commander, an African explorer in safari gear, some mustached gentlemen in John Bull top hats and, in her tiara, a 60-year-old woman dressed up as Her Majesty the Queen.

I was at the back the procession and had a glimpse of the vessel’s other passengers, who, lined on either side of the parade, were busy taking pictures with their iPhones, no doubt thinking that we were staging yet another of the cruise ship’s many shows. Steampunk, if the term is unfamiliar, is a neo-vintage genre that, taking inspiration from science-fiction classics like “The Time Machine,” seeks to capture the 19th century’s pith-helmeted spirit of adventure and the whimsy of its steam-fueled innovations. Which is to say, not exactly what our fellow cruisers in their fanny packs had thought they’d find at the end of a day of frozen margaritas and stuff-your-face buffets.

But then, of course, that was the point. The Steampunk parade, organized like the outing itself by a company called Whodunit Productions, was not a show — at least not in the sense of a spectacle meant for others. Its 60 participants, who boarded the Explorer — which can take about 3,100 passengers — to spend a week with other lovers of spats and kilts and monocles and goggles, were simply exhibiting their plumage in a celebratory coming out at sea