The Staab Boys

10th Anniversary Cruise

We had a great time on our anniversary cruise... okay we could have done without the hurricane force winds on the first night, but other than that it was great.

The weather was not great in Orlando when we arrived, and it did not improve before we set sail. Once we were on the ship we headed to the Windjammer for lunch. Our table was next to Captain Ron. Little did we know at that point what an adventure our night and his would be.

The "set sail" party was to be inside. That was a bit disappointing, but whatever we were heading for better weather... right? Not long after we left port I started to feel nauseas. This was not normal for me, so we decided to head to the promenade... get my mind off of it... it was mid ship on deck 5... stable right? Not so much. People were way off balance. It became clear that this was NOT making me feel any better and if I was going to be sick I wanted to be in the privacy of my own room! I laid on the bed watching tv while Tony explored the ship.

Before long he returned as EVERYONE was told to return to their staterooms as it was the safest place to be. At this point I'm laying on the bed, often feeling like I was going to roll off. Rain was pouring down outside, thunder was crashing, lightning flashing and the winds had reached up to 118 mph! I will admit that at this point I was scared. I suppose it didn't help that I was watching E True Hollywood Story: James Cameron and they were talking about TITANIC! The ship was creaking just like it did in the movie!

At this point we decided to rent a movie... Horrible Bosses seemed like a better choice to get our minds off our current situation. By about 10:30 we were allowed to head to the dining room where they had pizza, sandwiches and drinks for people from the second seating. Most of the first seating people had prime rib! Not long after that things had started to calm... but it was still rough sailing... and we decided to go to bed. Shortly after midnight there was a knock at our door... crew members were being sent around to check on passengers... if you didn't answer they came in to be sure you were ok.

By the time we got up in the morning the sun was shining and the seas were calm. The captain informed us that the winds had been shifting from port to starboard and back again. This made it difficult to get the ship into the wind. He had steered the ship for over 4 hours to get this done. Winds were 3 times what had been forcast. Given the conditions, we felt the captain and crew did a fantastic job.

We did not realize the true magnitude of what we had been through until we returned to Orlando. My cousin Jane emailed an anniversary card to us and I replied with a thank you and brief description of the first night. She found articles and You Tube videos of the night and forwarded them to us. Wow! What a story!!