It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

On the Disney Magic that is. And what a catchy title for a blog post...

A funny thing happened on our way back to Orlando. The Disney Magic was marooned at Castaway Key, the company-owned island that’s a stop on cruises, due to the storm that swept down from the north.

We apparently stayed a couple of hours too long on our final stop because the captain bumped the ship against a post on the breakwater while trying to leave and we awoke Saturday morning to discover we still hadn’t moved an inch of the 226 nautical miles to Port Canaveral.

The company has to deal with a shipload of customers, most of whom would like to disembark, while having to deal with a shipload who’ve shown up for the first day of their cruise, only to be told to try again tomorrow. We have our staterooms, food, and entertainment, and the always hard-working room stewards returned everybody’s luggage to the staterooms by 8:00 a.m. Yes, it's another great day not to be involved in the travel industry.

While we were watching the movie Up in the big Walt Disney Theater the captain tried again twice full power to leave Castaway Key just awhile ago, around 3:00 p.m., but retreated to the dock yet again. He’ll try later.

With a great deal of help ashore (Thanks Kim!) we’ve managed to juggle various hotel, rental car, and flight bookings, and the seven Warners in this particular party will do fine if we manage to return to Port Canaveral 24 hours late.

After that, it could get interesting, especially for Kathy and Brian who’d planned a quick two days at home before flying to Buenos Aires.

Updated Saturday at 4:30 p.m. This time, the fourth or fifth try today, we threaded the needle and back out of the sheltered lagoon-type area into the still stormy open water in a maneuver that took the better part of a half hour.

We’re now on our way and should be docking in Port Canaveral around 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning, 24 hours late.