Our 20th Anniversary Cruise: A Comedy of Errors at Sea

When my wife Sarah turned to me at dinner on our 20th anniversary and said, "Let's do something spontaneous," I should have known we were in trouble. I booked us a seven-day Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Equinox for the following month. I'd read all the reviews. I knew about the elegant AquaClass accommodations, the Michelin-trained chefs, the French-Riviera vibes. This was going to be the trip of a lifetime. The universe, apparently, had a different sense of humor. Our first sign of trouble came before we even boarded. I'd meticulously planned our arrival, calculating drive time, parking, and buffer time like some kind of cruise obsessed mathematician. What I didn't calculate was Sarah's last-minute decision to "refresh her cruise wardrobe" at Target. This meant we arrived at Port Miami with exactly forty-seven minutes before all-aboard time, sweating through our carefully chosen cruise wear before we'd even stepped foot on the ship. As we rushed toward the security checkpoint, Sarah's phone died. Completely. Wouldn't turn back on. We stood there, phones out, looking like a couple of idiots while our entire reservation was locked in hers—digital room key, dinner reservations,…