There were seven films made about the cruise that we went on in 2002 -- the feature, and another six short films.

I had this long-running plan of making a DVD and mailing it out to everybody. At least that was the plan for the last twelve years or so. But since it took me so long to get around to it, by the time I was ready, streaming video had advanced to the point where it made much more sense to post them online.

And of course, posting them online allowed me to give some background information, and mess around making a website, which I've always found very entertaining.

The films can be viewed directly on this site if your Internet connection is fast enough. But if it isn't, you can go to my Vimeo account where all these movies live, and download them, for a more reliable viewing experience.

So let's get on with it.

In 1980 my sister Janet invited our family on a cruise aboard the SS Norway.

The Norway was at that time the largest cruise ship in the world. There were fourteen of us wandering blissfully around that grand vessel, sunning, swimming, eating, and drinking like royalty.

I learned an important lesson about leisure on that trip: going on a cruise, as fun as it may be on its own merits, is far more enjoyable with a large, enthusiastic group of good-humored friends and family.

Twenty years later I learned that Disney had built a couple of cruise ships: the Disney Wonder and the Disney Magic. I hadn't been on another cruise since the Norway, and really yearned to recapture the experience that we had so long ago. To that end, rather than just book passage on the ship for myself, or maybe myself and a couple of friends, I booked the trip for twenty-two people. What could be better to recapture the fun of cruising with fourteen people, than cruising with twenty-two?

As it turned out, I was correct. Cruising with twenty-two people was pretty amazing. However, the Disney Cruise Line offered such great service, and such a great program for kids, and was such a beautiful ship, and such a fantastic experience, that I actually suffered a bit of regret on what was otherwise an ideal vacation. What I regretted was that my own family, including those who sailed on the Norway so long ago, weren't on board experiencing this with us.

When I got back home from this cruise, I looked over the video footage I had taken on board. Although I had been entertaining the notion of making a little indulgent film about the cruise, the footage was just inadequate. Too shaky, too boring, and too little of it.

I started to formulate a plan.

I would quietly book passage on the ship again, just Nicky Mouse this time, and get more footage around the ship, and around the islands. Then I could add that footage to what I already had, get this movie done, and no one would be the wiser.

How much would it cost for one guy to go on a cruise? Well, it turned out that I'd have to pay nearly as much as two people for one stateroom for one guy and his movie camera. So I might as well invite someone else right?

I ended up inviting fifty-two people, including most of the people from the SS Norway trip, and all of the people from the Disney trip. A few other members of our families and friends joined us, for a grand total of sixty-eight people.

What could be better to recapture the fun of cruising with twenty-two people, than cruising with sixty-eight?

I knew that I was going to invite these people. The members of my immediate household knew that I was going to invite these people. But these people didn't yet know that I was going to invite them.

As fun as it would be to call each family and invite them, I came up with a more ambitious plan.

Since this cruise was going to be filmed, the idea of inviting everyone with a film seemed fitting. I would create an invitation video with pictures from the 1980 cruise and film from the 2000 cruise. Then I would copy it to tape, and mail it to the roughly twenty unsuspecting households where these various people lived. The first RSVP for the trip was from Nancy, who received her tape on Aug 2, 2000.

I knew I wanted it to be a music video. At the time, I was a fan of Moby, and discovered a rather amazing, quite surprisingly dramatic song of his, called “My Weakness.” It seemed almost too dramatic for an invitation to a cruise. But the more I listened, the more I realized that it perfecly described what I was feeling about this trip.

The thought of bringing all these people together from different parts of my life, and somehow finding a way to get them all on this ship, was very significant for me. It seemed like a crazy thing to do. And it also seemed unlikely that I could ever pull it off. The concept of it meant so much to me. But it was going to be complicated, and amazing, and stressful, and fantastic. So yeah, it was dramatic.

This was the biggest thing that I had ever done. This was the biggest thing that I would ever do.

Shortly after returning home I began the task of going through the thirteen hours of video footage that we shot on the cruise. It was really tough shooting that much video when what I really wanted to do was just sit back and enjoy the cruise.

I should mention that I had a lot of help filming from my nephews Christof, Sean, and Jesse Whiteman, as well as Evan and Tyler Centanni. Without them helping, I would have missed even more of the cruise. And with their help we produced enough footage for a feature-length film.

I found a few clips that I knew were going to make the final cut, and threw together a short film to introduce The Cruise Movie project. I decided to at least announce the date that I'd be releasing the movie, even though that date was going to be quite a ways off -- over a year after the cruise. But I did want to show people a few clips and let them know that it was in progress.

With that in mind I made this short teaser trailer and released it on March 26, 2002. It was called "Flute" for no other reason than it included a piece of music that featured a flute.

After nearly two years of planning, the day of the cruise was finally upon us. Sixty-eight people boarded airplanes from all around the country and made their way to Orlando, Florida where we would stay in a hotel for one night then get bussed to the ship the following morning.

Everybody made it to Florida. No problems with transportation. No one got sick. No one had to bow out for any reason. Every single one of those sixty-eight people somehow made it to Port Canaveral, and walked onto that ship.

And that meant that I could begin filming The Cruise Movie.

I brought my own video camera along, and rented a second one so that we could get more footage, and sometimes get footage from different angles of the same events.

I handed the second camera over to my aforementioned nephews.

By nephews, I think I'm mainly talking about Christof here. I believe that he had possession of the second camera most of the time. Maybe one of the nephews will speak up and correct me if I'm wrong about that.

I asked these guys to grab as much footage as they could; and I also gave them an assignment of sorts. I outlined a couple of random interview ideas: questions that could be asked of multiple people around the ship. They did a great job, and got me all the extra footage that I needed.

And then I got all the rest. I walked around with either my video camera, my still camera, or both for the duration of the cruise. My nephew Tyler could usually be seen with a still camera, catching things I never would have had time to capture.

After the cruise was over, I spent fourteen months editing the movie -- some of the most fun I've ever had.

This year, I spent another few months making a new version of the movie. It's largely the same film, but I cut eight minutes out of it, and added quite a few subtitles where it was often difficult to understand what people were saying.

The film was originally called "The Cruise Movie." But I've changed the title to "The Cruise", since that's the term most of us use to refer to this trip.

About a month after the cruise, I took the video that I had made of Lisa performing at a talent show on board, and combined it with some clips from the cruise.

I originally released this short on April 22, 2000, on The Family website.

It was always assumed, and often promised, that I would release this video as one of the special features on the DVD. So it's fitting that it be presented here finally, at least as a special feature on The Cruise Films website.

This video was the menu used on the various DVD versions of The Cruise movie that I've attempted to create, including the one that was used to premiere the film for The Cruise Party in 2003. I've been asked why I chose this type of music for the montage.

It wasn't a spiritual statement. I hadn't converted to Hinduism. It's really just because I find Indian music very pleasant to listen to. And it seemed to relay the experience I had hosting the cruise, and making these movies.

The music in this video is "Shanti Mantra" performed by Ravi Shankar, the Russian Folk Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic and a sixteen member Indian ensemble.

This is an edit that I did of the video footage that Ken took on the cruise. I offered to look it over and see if I could whip it into shape.

I'm not sure when I did this, but I know that it was after I had already finished the first version of The Cruise Movie.

It features an excursion on a pirate ship that he took his family on in St. Thomas, a tour of the kitchens on the Disney Magic, as well as a celebration for Christie's birthday, among other things.

I never released this one online, but I did bring it over and show it to Ken and his friends in San Jose shortly after I finished it.

In December, 2004, long after I thought I was finished with The Cruise project, I was looking for some music to go with a video I had taken in a bamboo forest on Maui, and ran across this old favorite song of mine from Brian Eno.

The lyrics didn't quite fit a video about rain in a bamboo forest, but it did fit the idea of ships, and dreams, and memories. So I dug into the archives one more time, and made this tribute to my memories of The Cruise.

We sleep in the morning ... We dream of a ship that sails away ... A thousand miles away.