Disney Magic and the Year the World Stopped Sailing
Do Not Give Up the Ship
The Disney Magic waits beneath the chalk cliffs while the world holds its breath.
White Cliffs, Stopped Ships
Looking at these chalky cliffs, part of the English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The Disney Magic is docked in the background.
Do not get too close, Sarah.
The Cliffs and the Cruise That Could Not Sail
White Cliffs, Disney Magic
Chalky cliffs facing the Strait of Dover and France, with the Disney Magic docked in the background.
Do Not Get Too Close, Sarah
The English coastline is beautiful, but those cliffs still demand respect.
Best of Vibes, Worst of Vibes
Pandemic England: perfect vision in 2020, with masks, distancing, and the global pause.
Do Not Give Up the Ship
Cruising paused, but the ship still holds the memory of movement.
The Best of Vibes, the Worst of Vibes
It was the best of vibes. It was the worst of vibes. We waited for 2020 to have that perfect vision. Nobody could predict what they would be seeing and doing this year: washing hands constantly, wearing masks, and social distancing because of the global plague.
Summer sailing in the Norwegian Fjords, the Baltics, or through Alaska's wildlife superhighway, Glacier Bay, moved onto pandemic event time. No one knew when it would end. It was Caribbean sailing season, but all fleets had come to a grinding halt until sometime in 2021.
Do not give up the ship.
Before Covid, After Stillness
Do Not Give Up the Ship
A Disney Magic video signal from the before-and-after cruise world.
The Year Began at Sea
I was an early adopter. Just not of anything I wanted.
Christmas and New Year arrived aboard the Disney Dream, sailing the Eastern and Western Caribbean. On January 1, after a mile around the deck, the sun rose against Caribbean blue. The year looked open, navigable, and almost excessively generous.
There were the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Grand Cayman, and Castaway Cay. Fireworks still belonged on ships. Crowds still felt ordinary. Wuhan was still, for most of us, just the name of a city in China.
Then I got sick.
Every symptom that would soon become part of the world's daily vocabulary seemed to arrive early for me. I had the works. At the time, of course, nobody aboard was talking about COVID the way we would only weeks later. I remember learning there were 54 passengers from Wuhan, China, aboard the ship. Make of that what you will. I certainly did.
The strangest part was Sarah. She didn't get it.
Her infection-control strategy was less CDC and more maritime common sense: I slept on the floor of our inside cabin. Nothing says luxury cruising quite like paying Disney prices to discover steerage in your own stateroom.
Looking back, the timing feels almost cinematic. We were sailing through the final days of the old normal without knowing they were final. Castaway Cay was still paradise. Airports were still gateways rather than checkpoints. A cough was still just a cough. The entire planet was about to retreat indoors, but we were still outside, standing on deck, watching the horizon.