Note to self from long ago: Do not cruise the high seas on New Year's Eve.
It was the lesson I took away from Irwin Allen's 1972 flick "The Poseidon Adventure," in which revelers aboard an aging ship are celebrating the turn of the year when a tsunami rolls the improperly ballasted vessel upside down, eventually killing all but several people whose efforts to escape carry the plot.
But there I was anyway, celebrating the arrival of 2012 not just once but possibly up to three times on the only cruise of my life, braced by the knowledge that the Disney Wonder was neither aging nor likely to be improperly ballasted.
There was always something mystical about the ocean to a kid raised in the Midwest, where a cruise meant an afternoon up and down the Mississippi River on the old Admiral excursion boat.
My previous maritime experiences remained within sight of land, and mostly in stays aboard the original Queen Mary, moored permanently in Long Beach, Calif., as a hotel and tourist attraction. I weathered her storms and other travails only in my imagination.
It was, in fact, that ship whose bridge doubled as the Poseidon's in the original movie (it has been remade a couple of times since) and whose structure was replicated in the model used for filming.
New Year's came early on the Wonder, a floating playground for kids, with the New York "ball drop" televised live to a roaring crowd in the atrium at 10 p.m., ship's time, to accommodate somewhat reasonable bedtimes. It was celebrated again at midnight. Technically, we may have experienced the event again at 1 a.m., by sailing through the Mexican Riviera from Mountain Time to Pacific Time before the clock struck midnight again.
That gave a tsunami three shots at us. When the last passed quietly, I put away the deck diagrams I had been studying upside down.
Of course, our own disaster already occurred five days earlier, before we even left port in Los Angeles.
Wife/shipmate Karen and I emerged from our stateroom into crowded commotion in a corridor where we were quickly forced against a wall. The door closing behind us caught her pinky finger in its hinge, breaking off the bone and spurring a very helpful cabin steward to lead us on a bloody dash across about half the ship to its well-equipped hospital.
The doctor was still evaluating the damage when the lights went out for what seemed like a long time, although it was probably just seconds. The examination continued under the flashlights he and I carried. (The electrical hiccup did nothing to affect Karen's finger but did ding our wallet by causing a computer to bill us twice for sewing the digit back together; the error was discovered, then corrected.)
The next day, an antibiotic given as a precaution (on recommendation of our almost-doctor son Chris, back home) made Karen quite sick, cutting short our brunch at the vaunted extra-cost Palo restaurant on the fantail.
Karen forged bravely forward through that week, attending activities aboard ship and in ports of call as well as daily medical checkups that eventually led doctors to send us to a hospital in Cabo San Lucas to double-check for complications. Bad news could mean a hasty flight back to the United States. We got good news, from confidence-inspiring physicians in a well-equipped facility that it looked like it opened yesterday.
We were so grateful that it was hardly worth mentioning how I wrenched my leg later the same day when a box, used as a step, tipped over as I stepped off a tour bus.
On the plus side, we avoided seasickness and both actually enjoyed the ship's motions. The food was fantastic, the weather wonderful, the entertainment enticing and the scenery spectacular.
By the time we docked, I realized that my worry about peril from a wave of water had been misplaced. What I should have feared was danger from a wave of people and a self-closing door. But those, of course, would not make much of a movie.
Despite our drama, I join Karen in giving my first cruising experience two thumbs — and seven and a half fingers — up.
