So my old nemesis Irene – we meet again.

Irene and I have a history, you see. It’s the age-old story of boy-meets-hurricane/boy gets tossed all over the Caribbean/boy regrets ever setting foot on cruise ship.

We first met in October of 1999 when Amy and I and a group of our friends cruised on the Disney Wonder. Right into the maw of Hurricane Irene. That’s right, I said “maw.”

She reached top winds of 110 miles-per-hour, caused major damage in Cuba, the Bahamas and some damage in Florida. It killed three people directly and 18 indirectly. And in the end, it caused Amy and I to swear off cruising forever. It’s been 12 years and we have yet to take to the seas.

"Bleaaarrrrggggghhhh," he said.

I realize it was no one’s fault, and I highly recommend cruising with Disney. DCL did its absolute best to make us all feel better about things. And I know that someday I’ll end up back on board. It just hasn’t happened yet. And like most of life, I was able to see the humor in it all, thankfully.

Here’s a piece of my first book that best explains our experience on the Disney Wonder in Hurricane Irene:

I had a screaming headache, my stomach was threatening to disgorge itself of its contents, and my knees felt as if they were made of rubber. I opened my eyes slowly to see the face of Robin Williams staring back at me for what seemed like the nineteenth time in the last twenty-four hours.

Suddenly I could relate to Ernest Borgnine’s character in The Poseidon Adventure.

I was sick as a dog and rather angry that I was spending my time aboard the Disney Wonder—the company’s newest, most luxurious and finely appointed cruise ship—confined to our cabin. The movie Patch Adams played on a loop on our in-room TV. And the ocean just outside our window buffeted the ship as it lunged unevenly through the Atlantic.

We were sailing somewhere between Nassau and the southern tip of Florida aboard the Disney Wonder in the midst of Hurricane Irene. Any shore excursions had been cancelled—which was rather moot since we could not actually make landfall—and the captain decided we’d be safest riding the storm out at sea. The crew advised passengers to stay inside and avoid the upper decks due to the rough conditions. I contemplated this as I lay in our cabin, my body wracked by some Bahamian Voodoo Curse Sickness.

In October of 1999 we had been offered a fairly good deal to go on a cruise aboard the Disney Wonder—one of the two cruise ships that made up Disney Cruise Lines at that time.

I tried to keep a travelogue during our cruise, but I just didn’t have it in me to write the words “kill me now” after paying handsomely for the pleasure. Spending three days aboard a cruise ship and wishing you were dead most of the time isn’t how a trip is supposed to end up after months of planning. But it did.

Experienced cruisers or sharp-eyed readers might have picked up a key phrase just above: “In October of 1999.”

October is hurricane season. It’s also Idiots Cruise season. And October of 1999 was an active Idiots Cruise season.

Prior to the cruise portion of our vacation, we spent four bucolic days at Walt Disney World. We were staying at what was then known as the Dixie Landings Resort. Dixie Landings opened in 1992. It was divided into two sections: Alligator Bayou—rustic log-style lodges—and Magnolia Bend—built to resemble southern plantation grand manors. We spent our days visiting parks with no lines, eating at wonderful restaurants and having a great time. Our nights were restful and rejuvenating, ensconced in the resort’s Magnolia Bend section.

After returning to our room one night, we saw a news report that featured a weather alert. The volume was turned down, but the meteorologist was pointing to an unmistakable shape: a swirling mass of clouds just southeast of Cuba.

This was the night before we were to head for Port Canaveral and board Disney’s newest cruise ship. Watching the man on the TV point out the projected course of said swirl, I knew we were in for a rocky few days. But with our freight paid and Disney dictating our itinerary, we had no choice but to head for the coast, hold on tight, and make the best of things.

The Wonder was brand new, and had only traveled its Florida-to-the Caribbean route a handful of times. The schedule had us departing Port Canaveral late in the afternoon, arriving at Nassau early the next morning, leaving for the Disney-owned Castaway Cay in the middle of the next night, spending a day at sea and then landing back at home base.

In theory.

Irene had yet to impose her will on these well-laid plans. And what Irene wanted, Irene was going to get.

We rode a Disney Cruise Lines bus to the port, checked in, and boarded the sparkling, beautiful ship all within an hour or so. The Disney Wonder was the largest cruise ship in the area. Our room was much bigger and nicer than I ever imagined it would be, with a living room area, a bedroom area, two bathrooms and a very large porthole that measured about four feet across.

We attended the safety drill, and then headed up to the launch party. As we stood on the top deck, dark and foreboding clouds gathered in the distance. We consumed a few drinks, waved goodbye to people on shore, and began our trip through the canal and out to sea.

That night we had dinner together, met our server—Gordon, from Scotland—and decided to go see the film, Mystery Alaska, in the ship’s movie theater. This was good, because watching the movie took our minds off the increasingly violent seas now rocking the ship. The water level in our glasses at dinner gave away what was going on in the darkness outside. The waters on top of which we were now steaming were becoming more and more tossed. The outer edges of Hurricane Irene were arriving.

As we lay in our bed later, the hangers in the closet clanged back and forth and the sliding door on our closet slammed open and shut as the ship was tossed left and right all night long. I was beginning to feel a bit out of sorts.

The next morning we awoke to see Nassau pulling into view. It was dark, raining, and gray. Every land and sea excursion had been canceled due to inclement weather, which left everyone to their own devices. There would be no wildlife tours, no sailing over to the other side of the island, and no visiting the Atlantis resort just across the bay.

We headed into town to do some shopping, but soon abandoned that plan when we found that Nassau’s merchants primarily sold cheap t-shirts.

An earlier hurricane had just come through just days before, and the port was left with some noticeable damage. Roofs were scarred, trees were uprooted, and sand covered every street. Between the surly locals and the damaged structures, we very quickly had enough of Nassau.

Before too long we were back on the ship.

We grabbed some drinks and hit the hot tub just as the lightning began to move in. I didn’t mind, really, so we just quaffed our drinks and sat in the hot tub as the cold rain began to pound down on us. It was the best we could hope for, and being struck by lightning while holding a Mai Tai wasn’t necessarily the worst fate that could’ve befallen us at that point.

A few hours later I would’ve welcomed the sweet embrace of oblivion.

To make up for the canceled excursions, the captain ordered servers to begin a two-for-one drink policy. By now I was feeling a bit less than normal, so I thought double-fisting drinks would make me forget what was ailing me. Turns out that wasn’t such a good idea. Instead of being miserable, I was tipsy and miserable.

That night we did watch the live theater entertainment, which was great aside from watching it cross-eyed and ill, and then headed off to dinner at the Animator’s Palate. Since we were in port and not moving at all, this was the best night of the cruise. The restaurant’s décor starts out entirely in black and white, and ends with a flourish of color that imbues everything around with new life. It was a fantastic show and easily the high point of the entire cruise.

We returned to our room to find a wedding anniversary cake left for us by the crew. We didn’t have any utensils, so we took a few messy samples and then crashed out for the rest of the night. I was looking forward to reaching Castaway Cay and getting off the ship for a few hours. During the night the ship began sailing toward the next stop on our itinerary, so the rocking and churning began anew.

The next day we awoke to see the camera mounted on the front of the ship, which was beamed to our in-room TV, pointing to an island. The caption at the bottom of the image said “Castaway Cay, four miles.”

“Great,” I thought. “We’re almost there.”

Amy and I got ready, and then I sat on the couch to watch us pull in to the island on the TV. Only the caption read, “Castaway Cay, nine miles.”

We were going the wrong way. We were heading back out to sea—back out to the waves and the sickness where there would be nothing to do but become increasingly and sharply aware of the epidemic that was now sweeping through the ship. Someone had to tell the captain that somehow the ship had slipped into reverse.

Only seconds later we were given the announcement that because of the bad weather, today would be a “day at sea.” For me, however, this would be “a day on as many seasick pills as I could get my hands on” and “a day in bed watching Patch Adams fifteen times while I tried to become unconscious.”

One of the side effects of this twenty-four-hour period is that I now hate Robin Williams. He’s probably a nice enough guy, and he’s made some good movies. Patch Adams might even be among them, but having any movie play on a constant loop while battling the mysterious Bahamian Voodoo Curse Sickness would drive most people to acts of violence.

Whatever virus/bug/illness/voodoo curse sickness I caught, it had now fully set in. I was sick as a dog and didn’t move for the rest of the day. It would be easy to diagnose the malady as seasickness, but I don’t think that was the case. Years of recreational fishing off the New England coast made me familiar with the queasy feeling associated with bobbing in a boat in the North Atlantic. This was an entirely new experience. I believe it may have been an offshoot of Ebola with a dose of near-death thrown in and a bird-flu chaser. All I know is that I was looking for a light to walk into.

Instead, all I got was Robin Williams in a clown nose looking back at me approximately every two hours. The thought crossed my mind to get up and shut the TV off, thus ending the endless loop, but that would’ve meant actually standing—which I didn’t feel quite up to at that point.

Amy took the video camera up to record the now nearly thirty-foot seas that were assaulting the ship, and tried to make the best of things.

I have very little memory of that night, except that I refused to stay in our cabin and miss a meal since we had already paid for everything. I dragged myself to the dining room, sat with my head in my hands and prayed for death. I didn’t eat, but I felt I had achieved a small victory by at least taking my assigned, and paid for, seat at the table. I wasn’t about to let something as inconsequential as an incapacitating illness in the middle of a full-on hurricane keep me down.

The upper decks were locked shut and everyone was ordered to stay inside. Things only got worse. One blurry day, a night filled with blackouts and a difficult packing process later, we were back at Port Canaveral. We boarded a bus, got back to the airport and arrived home a few hours later.

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I’ve had plenty of friends who have had a great time on Disney cruises. And in retrospect, I don’t regret any of it. Let’s face it, it gave me something to write about in the intro to Chapter 9!

My friend Kevin – one of the few who escaped any kind of queasiness during the trip, swears Irene is hunting me down personally. I think he might be right.

Bring it, Irene!

(Dear Irene – I don’t really mean that. Please go by our house quickly and ignore it.)