This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

We arrived home late Sunday night after sailing 2,300 miles around the Caribbean under the lawless flag of the Mouse.

It was a grueling but successful voyage. We captured (purchased) an enormous amount of booty (souvenirs). Best of all, none of us were lost to scurvy, battle or over-flogging.

Only one of us spent any real time in the ship's brig. I had to endure an entire evening in our cabin with a Stephen King novel because of a comment I made during the mandatory abandon-ship drill.

Crew member: "… and then we safely wait for rescue, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Any questions?"

Me: "Yeah, when do we start eating each other?"

This so embarrassed Captain Wife that I was placed in durance vile for the remainder of that evening. I was released only when I agreed that we were on vacation and not everything that popped into my head needed to be announced to the public.

Other than that, it was a great trip. Any earlier concerns I had about a Disney cruise vanished in the face of great food, excellent service and lots to do.

One of my favorite parts about cruising with the Mouse is the ship's lack of tolerance for overindulgence in the grog. I don't believe drunks have any business being around children. Neither does Disney.

On other cruises we've had to endure the behavior of people who can't hold their booze, but there was none of that aboard the Disney Magic. They run a tight ship.

The only drunk I saw was in the boarding terminal. It was a domestic squabble between an angry wife and a slob of a husband who wouldn't stop sexually groping her in front their young daughter, my grandkids and several hundred other people.

The argument was in Spanish. I served my LDS mission in South America 40-plus years ago. However, before I could dredge up enough rusty mission Spanish to say, "Grab her like that again, you *$@%!, and your skull gets turned into a #*&@ bird bath," someone came and hauled him away. We saw him several times on the ship. He was always miserably sober and alone.

Other than that, things went amazingly well. I took a million pictures of my grandkids having fun, in which they indulged to the point of passing out early every night.

We sailed from Port Canaveral, Fla., and raided Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Mexico, and Disney's own island, Castaway Cay.

It was at Castaway Cay that I met my match.

My idea of time well spent at a beach is sprawled in a lounge chair and watching my grandkids play in the ocean. At Castaway, they secured inflated inner tubes to sit in while they splashed each other. It was my oldest grandchild who insisted I participate.

"We'll be the ships and you be the Kraken, Papa. Try to get us."

As with every other occasion in my life that turned into a painful lesson, I thought, "This will be easy." Instead, I learned how many grandchildren it takes to kick my @$$. Three.

Neck deep in the water, I circled their "ships" and tried to pull them over. The kids are older now. They came up with a defense that consisted of circling their ships together, screaming at my approach, and drubbing me on the head with the heels of their feet.

After an hour of this, a humiliated Kraken washed ashore and onto a lounge chair. My wife sprayed me with sun screen and patted my arm.

Her: "You made some great memories for them, hon."

Me: "I don't know about that. Just let me know if birds start splashing around on top of my head."

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley