Lasting friendships formed on cruises

[Silkroad]

Thinking it might be nice to start a thread about one of the positive aspects of cruising, I’m asking people for stories about lasting cruise friendships.

 

I’ll begin with one of my own. In 2013, DH and I embarked on an Adriatic cruise on Silhouette. We’d had a very active roll call, and had met many people from the roll call at the sail away party.

 

Amongst the many lovely people we met on that cruise, we formed lasting friendships with two other couples. We were different ages, had different backgrounds, grew up in different regions, and had some different tastes, yet we bonded over the things we shared while respecting the ways in which we differed. The six of us had an amazing reunion cruise on a Reflection TA last year, and we’re having another on the first Edge TA next April. In the interim, separated by hundreds of miles, we keep up with life’s ups and downs via email, text and phone. What could be better than sharing joy and laughter with friends while doing something we all enjoy?:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

[Lastdance]

It is really all about relationships and not about the picky stuff that seems to be so appealing!

Michelle, you are so right about lasting friendships that come in all ages and differences...bonds can easy be formed on a cruise, but cruising again with friends met while cruising is the frosting on the cake!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Edited February 14, 2018 by Lastdance

[suzzek]

Our very first cruise was 1/2011 on Eclipse. We met a wonderful British couple on that cruise, and we became hooked on cruising. Every cruise since then, we have met at least one other couple that we bonded with and have stayed in touch with over the years. In June, we are planning a cruise to the Baltics, with a precruise in London with a couple that we met on a Med cruise. We also connected with them in FL two years ago prior to our cruises on different ships. We met another couple in 2012 that we vacationed with last year on their home turf. Cruising is so much fun, and we love the opportunity to meet new friends from all walks of life and places around the world!

[IndyBoo]

On a 2010 cruise we met a couple who live on the other side of the country - we’ve been cruising and vacationing with them annually ever since !! CRUISE BUDDIES !

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[OCruisers]

Over the years we formed lasting friendships with many we have met on cruises. Some have even stopped by our house to spend the night on their way to and from Florida. :D

[Fogfog]

While on the Eclipse on a Baltics Cruise in 2011...

Our family's dining table for the late seating was next to a lovely couple from the UK.

We became great friend's and keep in touch regularly through FB and have been trying to coordinate taking a cruise together. While we and they have cruised since-- we haven't been able to make the dates work--and are determined to do some in the next year to 18 mos. Can't imagine nicer people to travel with

[Deeliteful]

I have made many good friends on cruises. On one of my first transatlantic cruises, I became great friends with a table mate and we have cruised together about 6 times since. I have visited her in Vegas and Denver too. I also have a lovely friend in the UK I met on a cruise and we met for dinner a couple of times and still keep in touch on Facebook.

Another couple from Florida are still Facebook friends and a mum and daughter from Washington.

Love cruising 😎

[UKPete71]

We meet a couple from Nashville on a TA last spring. After doing the return TA in the autumn we flew up to Nashville for 4 days and hung out with them. It was great to be shown around by locals. We had a few things we wanted to see and they called it a "staycation" for them as they got to do some things they wouldn't normally. On the autumn TA we met two couples who will be on the same cruise as us later this year. It will be great to catch up with them again when we see them on board.

[Husky61]

Never formed a lasting friendship.

[Texed]

Thinking it might be nice to start a thread about one of the positive aspects of cruising, I’m asking people for stories about lasting cruise friendships.

 

Thank you very much for starting a happy thread. Yep, we still cruise with folks we met years ago. Hopefully, the thread will stay positive. :)

 

Never formed a lasting friendship.

 

Hopefully, you are joking, and keeping the thread positive. ;)

[bigbenboys]

We have met 4 couples out of 51 cruises that we have keep in contact with. One couple 1-1/2 hours from us by car. So far visited them 2 times and have a cruise booked with them in Oct 2018 Western Med. Next couple met on a Hawaii cruise and met up again with them on a Caribbean cruise. We are planning to visit them in Munich next year. Another couple we met on Millie in Asia Jan 2017. We are planning now to visit them in Nottingham, England and visit the Peak District with a stop in London to vist my best friend and see Patti LuPone in Company in the East End. The last couple we met on a cruise in South America. They visited us before their Alaska cruise. We visited them in Wales before touring the Cotswolds, Blenheim Palace, Oxford and Winston Churchill's grave in Bladon.

[cruzeluver]

In 2010 we were involved with a very active roll call for our upcoming cruise on Celebrity Mercury. The night before embarkation we met many from the roll call at a local restaurant/bar for a little pre-cruise meet & mingle. We hit it off really well with two of the couples we met that night and have done several cruises with them since.

 

We have also stayed in touch with a couple we met last year who live just a few hours away from us and hope to see them again soon.

[Orator]

There are so many wonderful people I've met on Celebrity cruises that I treasure as special friends. Many follow on Cruise Critic and I just want to say "Hi". However, there is one special story of a friend. I was on a cruise on Constellation and met a wonderful couple, Hal and Gabriele. We shared a friendship with Captain Tasos and met at his table. We would meet each night at the Elite Hour. One night Gabriele was sitting with a young man.when I joined her. Andrew, from London was traveling alone on his first Celebrity cruise. He was Diamond on Royal Caribbean. He expressed his loneliness at knowing no one on the ship and we immediately befriended him. Andrew has become close to both couples. He has stayed at my house in Boca prior to a cruise and met us in Amsterdam when we stopped at the end of a cruise and we look forward to seeing him in Dublin in May. We try to meet for dinner as a group when he is Ft Lauderdale, A friend is just someone on your cruise who you haven't met yet.

[nanofrog]

Over the years we formed lasting friendships with many we have met on cruises. Some have even stopped by our house to spend the night on their way to and from Florida. :D

We have also experienced this, and continue to do so. Nancy

[Miaminice]

Same here: going on our third cruise in four weeks with a couple we met on a South America cruise.

 

We met another couple on a Med cruise and met up with them in Florida for New Years twice already.

[disneydave]

On the Summit last November was involved with a group that had planned a poker - bar crawl. Met many fun folks but that meeting on the 1st day led to shared excursions throughput the trip, dinners together, crazy nights with trivia, silent dancing, and karaoke. 5 of the couples booking a cruise for the following year together. We have started communicating both as a group and individual couples, planned pre cruise trip so together and just having fun keeping up with each other. We are from all over the USA and Canada, all different backgrounds but just had fun together.

Dilly Dilly.

[Hlitner]

Over our forty+ years of extensive cruising we have made numerous friends (from several countries) that have continued to this day. We recently had house guests from the UK.....who we had first met on an Asian cruise over 20 years ago. Meeting people on ships is easy, but building true friendships is somewhat more difficult. In our case nearly every friend we have made (on ships) got its start in the MDR at dinner. We have always requested to share large tables (years ago when we did fixed dining and now with open dining schemes) and our dinner time is often the social highlight of our day. Over the years we have sat at many fabulous tables...and when you take over 2 hours for dinner and the only reason you leave is because you don't want to keep the crew in the dining room....that is a good thing.

 

We also understand why some folks love 2 top tables (we sometimes will ask for a 2 top in Open Dining) and that issue has been discussed many times here on CC. But a large table is one of the easiest ways to meet new folks (for better or worse). We have had a few lousy tables over the years, but with Open Dining (Select Dining, Anytime Dining, etc) it is only a single meal. On many long cruises we will make new friends during the first few diners....and eventually form our own table (which can vary from night to night).

 

One interesting conversation we had on our last cruise was how many younger (to us this would be anyone under 50) folks seem to have a difficult time socializing with strangers. One fellow diner pointed out that many folks spend much of their day on social media and do most of their socialization through a device. But when having to deal with strangers face to face, they often have no idea how to socialize and have a fun conversation. If true, it's kind of sad.

 

Hank

[Csardas]

Yes Hank, and rather worrying!

 

This is a really interesting thread. We’re relatively new cruisers, 2 and half years, but really love it. We met some great people in the smoking section on Oceania’s Riviera last year, frankly the only great part of the cruise( the people, not the smoking!) This July will be our first Celebrity cruise and I’m reassured by this nice friendly board. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and make some lifelong friends.

[C-Dragons]

We were on the Equinox Inaugural TA in 2009. We met a special couple from Wales who we continued to sail with every year after that until they finally had to discontinue cruising due to health reasons. On one cruise we did together out of Southampton they invited us to stay at their home. In 2010 we began to Skype them every Sunday and have continued to do so every week since. Over the years we have shared everything, they’ve become our “extended family”.

[TobyKnits]

My husband and I have 3 upcoming cruises booked and all of them were planned with other couples we met on past cruises. There are many more couples that I'd be very happy to bump into again; I always peruse my roll calls for familiar faces.

 

The same is true with wonderful Celebrity staff members - we have one bartender we befriended who invited us to visit his home when we were in Jamaica on our last cruise.

[Karynanne]

We have been so fortunate to have met many people throughout the years, because of our love for cruising.

One couple especially. We met through Cruise Critic, and have traveled together for the past 12 years. They are “family”. We share personal milestones with one another, and unfortunately, heartache.

Cruising is more than an occasional experience. It’s an opportunity to create life-long memories.[emoji5]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Taylor D]

In 2016 we met a couple on our Europe cruise, They sat at are table for dinner each night and they live in Australia we are from the Seattle area. We had so many fun nights talking and joking over what we did each day they were just the best. So the cruise ended in Venice and we said our good by's thinking we will never see them again but we did keep in contact with Facebook. Fast forward to last August and we get a message from them they are flying to Vancouver and would like to meet us in Seattle for a couple days so we met up and took them to there first NFL game Seattle versus San Francisco and showed Seattle now in the next couple years our plan to see them in Australia

[The Mommy]

On our next cruise in a couple of weeks time we will be on board with members of the roll call who we have met on previous cruises. We will be travelling with a couple who have become close friends after we met on a cruise to the far east and have arranged to dine with a couple from Texas that we met in 2013. We also have another close friend now that we met on a Caribbean Cruise.

Its wonderful how we can all share this common love of cruising and meet up again even though we live so many miles apart

[snow bunny]

Our 2009 Constellation cruise created some amazing and lasting friendships. We have cruised on several cruises with three of the couples from that trip. In 2015 one of the couples from Australia hosted us in their home before we got on a Sydney to Auckland with them and another 2009 alumni! This past summer we hosted them and our fellow 2015 cruisers prior to our Alaskan cruise that reunited one other couple from 2009 as well as some 2012 cruisers! We enjoy meeting people and sometimes you click and sometimes you don't. That is just part of life and a great side benefit of cruising!

 

snow bunny

[PatC]

We have met so many since 1992 but our "besties" have become like family and have even been to our family events over the years. In 2004 we met 2 couples and we are still wonderful friends. In 2006 we had a group of our own and met another group in Hawaii and that was it. Sailed many times with them and will do so again with one of them on April 1st.

 

Cruzlover, remember that 2010 cruise? Wow! Now Ryan is heading off to college in the Fall.

 

We have so many wonderful memories and will be making more with 20 of us on Edge next January. They will help us celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Now THAT'S friendship!!!!:cool::D:hearteyes:

 

Pat C