Every year, the experts (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more commonly known as NOAA) make projections for the "hurricane season" — how many are anticipated, how many will graduate (?) from being just tropical storms, and how many of those will have names (that's bad).
And every year, as your guardians of all things that have anything to do with cruising, 
we relay that information to you at cruisingdoneright.com.
Until this year.
The projections for 2013 were bad. It was going to be the worst year in history, or at least a long time, whichever was shorter. Between 7 and 11 hurricanes, 13 to 20 tropical storms with names. Three or four hurricanes could be Cat 4, which is not a name but a strength. The lower the better.
Guess what happened?
Two storms with a name. Thirteen tropical depressions. Only one made it to land. Great year, the best since '82, or a generation-plus. The U.S. Air Force Reserve flew 435 hurricane re-con missions, the fewest since 1966.
Now we'd like to tell you that in our spare time we spend a lot of time looking into crystal balls and reading palms, and that the reason we didn't write anything about hurricanes in 2013 is that because we knew there wouldn't be any. But that's not true.
If it were, we would be crystal ball gazing and palm reading, not writing about cruise ships and cruise people.
Maybe next year…
Carnival Splendor
8 nights
January 28, 2014
New York (return): Port Canaveral, Nassau, Freeport
Inside: $329
Cost per day: $41
www.carnival.com