Have you had Proof that it really is a "small world" after all?

Ruby Princess sail away from Venice in 2010. Topside and noticed a Ohio State polo shirt. We talked and learned we lived in the same small town, only a mile or so apart. Had never met before - haven't seen him or wife since.

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Many years ago we were walking around Venice, Italy with our family and all of a sudden we looked up and we saw a friend we knew from college and had not seen in many years.

Last year we were walking past another cruise ship docked in one of the Alaskan Ports on the way back to our ship. I thought I heard our names being called and looked up and it was our neighbors who live a couple of doors down from us.

It is a small world.

Keith

We live in a small city in WI. On one cruise we stopped in Grand Cayman. We took a taxi over to the turtles. Once done, wr hailed a taxi to go back to the ship. Anothet couple asked if they could share a ride with us. They lived in the same citu as we do.

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On a trip to NYC we met one of our councilmen at Juniors. We even have the news article to prove it!

 

DD studied in Rome for several years, then comes home to do an internship (very backwards, I know). Hears her co-worker Skyping with someone. Turns out the 'someone' was one of DD's Roman friends.

 

Sailing primarily out of the West Coast we have run into many people: neighbors, children of friends, coworkers, relatives we want to avoid :) ,people we've previously sailed with on other lines but out of SoCal.

 

 

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Hi SadieN

I read this post last night at my granddaughter Sadie's First birthday party

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A number of years ago my husband and I were driving home from Florida and stopped for the night in Pennsylvania.

We briefly spoke to a couple in the hotel elevator and when we later encountered them in the lineup outside an Outback Restaurant we asked if they would like to share a table.

It turned out that they were returning from their winter home in Florida and they remarked that they were friendly with a couple from our city who also wintered in their community. We all had a good laugh when the couple they were referring to just happened to be our neighbours across the street.

On our President 7 Yangtze River Cruise in China we met a gal travelling with the University of Cincinnati who graduated Bay High School near Lake Erie with our daughter

In Sedona we were hiking and encountered a Pink Jeep tour- one of the passengers was in DH's golf league back home.

At a polo match in W. Palm Beach we ran into an acquaintance from Cleveland!

It's always amazing what a truly small world it is!

Two: aboard the Splendour of the Seas and a couple needed a place to eat their lunch on embarkation day. I walked over and invited them to share our table.

I told him my name and he said I think I know you, you sent me a letter from the HOA for mildew on the side of my house. I did, he had it...

In January I saw a college girlfriend from 40 years ago. They were on our floor, a few doors down. Over the next seven days we befriended them and my wife scolded me for being mean to her as a teenager. I'm 58...

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We ran into our across the street neighbors, who were traveling in China at the same time, on the Great Wall of China.

Northwest Airlines had just started a DTW to Beijing nonstop, with great introductory fares, so it wasn't that strange that we were in China at the same time....but, still makes a good story.

Ran into someone I work with -- same country (Russia), same city (St. Petersburg), same museum (Hermitage), same ROOM of the Hermitage. What are the chances? If you know the Hermitage, you know how big it is. We were both so surprised, as neither of us knew the other would be in Russia, let alone our itineraries!

On our very first cruise, I spotted a TV News Celebrity from our area..

On a POA Hawaiian cruise we were walking through a lounge when someone started calling my name. It turned out to be a former pastor of our church. And to make it even more "small world" he knew we were on board since by some coincidence our tour tickets had been delivered to his cabin by mistake. He said as soon as he saw the names on the tickets he knew it was us.

Not cruise related but when I retired I moved from the DC area to Delaware. I met a new neighbor and mentioned my hometown, and turns out she grew up in same small town, and had been a close friend of my brother, even called him by an old nickname from elementary school days. She and my brother are in their 70s now and hadn't seen each other in about 50 years.

Just thought of another one - not really cruise related, but very strange, maybe more 'Twilight Zone' than "Small World". A number of years ago, we visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. DH had been in the Army and had lost track of a close buddy after he had gone to Vietnam, hadn't heard from him in over 30 years. He looked up his friend's name on the wall and was very relieved to NOT find his name there.

About a week later after returning home, the phone rang - it was the Army friend. He explained that for some reason he had been thinking about their Army days and had taken the time to research and track down my husband online. The small cruise connection - he and his wife were then living in Astoria, OR, so the following year we were able to meet them and spend a day together when we did a cruise that stopped there.

The proof for us is where we can fly, often for as little as $500 -$700 USD. Just about anywhere in Europe, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, China, even Australia.

Amazing. Could imagine affordable travel like this 20 years ago. This, and the Internet is what has made our world seem much smaller.

We have had several "small world" experiences but two really stand out. In 2006, on a TA cruise we went to the M&G for our roll call. My husband and I started to mingle but eventually separated and went in different directions. A few minutes after going our own ways I hear some very loud singing and realize that one of the singers was my husband who had just run into someone from his HS, Brooklyn Tech, and they were singing the their school song. Now the weird part, after my husband introduces me to his new friend the new friend introduces me to his wife who turned out to be a girl I went to school with in the Bronx!

Our other interesting experience was in Barcelona. We were wandering around on some of the side streets when we heard someone calling my husband's name. It was his co-worker who was also on a TA but on another ship. What was funny was that the two of them had left work together a few days earlier, walked to Penn Station to catch the RR, wished each other a great vacation than headed to their separate trains to go home and in all that time they never talked specifics about their pending vacations so neither knew that the other was going on a cruise!?:rolleyes:

We were on a Hawaiian cruise and stopped into a Harley Davidson shop for DH to buy a t-shirt. The sales clerk asks where we're from. We answer Nevada. She asks where in Nevada. We answer a small town in central Nevada. She asks which town, so we tell her. She tells us she used to live there about 25 years ago, and it turns out she briefly dated the guy that DH had bought his motorcycle from! She really enjoyed hearing about our town, what had changed and what was still the same.

When we went on the Coral Princess through the Panama Canal we met this very nice couple; but never exchanged emails so did not stay in touch with them. About 18 months later we were on another Princess ship (forgot which one) and was cruising to Mexico. We were on the elevator going up to the Lido Deck when the elevator stopped (before it reached the Lido Deck) and waiting to get on the elevator is this couple from the Panama Canal. We both shouted out!

A number of years ago, I was doing a TA out of Southampton and on the flight over I noticed a couple sitting across the aisle from me, that I thought I knew from somewhere. After deplaning at Gatwick I went through customs and was waiting for the transfer to the port. The same couple joined the group waiting for the ships transfer. I went up the couple and said, forgive me for asking but you two look familiar to me, do you mind if I ask where you are from. They named the city and it was about 20 miles from where I live. I still could not remember where I had seen them so I asked them what they did for a living. The husband said he was retired but the wife said she worked as an interior director for businesses that were being remodeled.

That is when I remembered where I knew her from. Several years before that the bank I work at was remodeled and she was the one in charge of the remodeling. She was in the bank for several weeks in the design process and then also in the remodeling process. They were on the same TA as I was so we kept running into each other all throughout the cruise. At the end of the cruise on the flight back to MSP, low and behold they were again seated across from me on the plane. We all had a good laugh over it.

I have one that's not cruise related. On my way back from Punta Cana I had a long layover in Baltimore so decided to grab dinner at one of the bars. Struck up a conversation w/ some people and during it another man sat at the seat next to me. In the conversation I was having I talked about my niece being spoiled as she'd never flown commercial but on a private plane to FL for her volleyball tournaments due to a team member being part of one of the wealthiest families in town. He heard and made a comment as he was from the same city. He then asked if I could plug in his phone charger (outlet was by my leg) and when I turned I realized he was the husband of a HS classmate. We had never met but I've seen pictures of him on her FB.

Second one is somewhat cruise related. I was planning on booking a cruise w/ friends that I'd met on a previous cruise. I normally book directly w/ the line but she said I should call her TA and see what deal I can get. Called and left her a message. When she called back she said you are in MI correct? She recognized the area code. Then asked what part of west Michigan I was from as she used to live in Lansing. Once I told her she said she lived there when she went to college. That college is about 2 miles from where I live.

On our first cruise I met a couple who knew a fellow electrician in my hometown. In fact the men had been best man at each others wedding. When he asked if I knew him I had to admit that I had talked to him that very week at the electrical supply house.

Third cruise we were seated with strangers in formal dining and I kept thinking that I should know one couple. Found out that they were from Branson, Mo and had the Kettle Corn concession at the local theme park Silver Dollar City . They had sold us Kettle Corn that summer.

On another cruise I met a couple who had worked with my closest friend in Saudi Arabia. The world is definitely getting smaller.

This happened to our friends....

They were entering the cruise ship on embarkation day and started chatting with another couple. Shared that they all lived in Florida. They chatted some more and found out that they all lived in the same community (755 homes). They spent lots of times together on the cruise and thereafter as well.

Hello,

2005 or 06...I was sitting in the Buffet area on the RC Enchantment of the Seas (Carib itin) early one morning, and an elderly lady was sitting a couple tables away. A waiter walked by, I noticed he was from the Philippines, and since I grew up there in the 60's and 70's...I surprised him by greeting him with a few words in Tagalog.

After the waiter left, the lady said Good Morning, and asked if I had just spoken Tagalog...(perhaps un-common for a pasty white, Irish American looking guy like me;p). I told her that yes, I had grown up in the Philippines. She asked where I had lived, and I told her my family lived in Davao for a couple years, and then Manila for almost 2 decades. I should note that Davao in the early 60's was home to just a couple foreign families. When I mentioned Davao, she got a very intrigued look on her face, and asked when exactly I lived there...when I gave her the exact dates...she said, "Oh My Goodness...are you one of the sons of James *** (my Dad)" ? Turns out she had been the secretary of my Dad in '66 and '67...40 years earlier !! Who wudda thunk !;p;p

Isn't travel, and cruising great...you never know who you might meet from the past...or who will become cherished friends in the future !

Enjoy !

BBL

We've had a few weeks of these, these are the ones I can remember

2009 on a ship in the med, I said 'there's a woman over there could easily come from the a particular family' my husband said who/what. I explained that my mums sister married a guy and all the family look alike. 2 days later she happened to be stood next to me watching the sail in and she said 'hi Jan I've not seen you since you were 12'. The following week I started a new job and she worked in the same office, we ended up working together for 3 years.

We were sat having a drink at the sunset bar on celebrity and shared a table as it was busy, conversation happened and it turned out she worked with my next door neighbour.

Last Christmas we were at the martini bar on celebrity and a teen was getting a drink, we were in the Caribbean. I recognised the accent and started talking, she was travelling with her friends family, they came over and they lived on the next street to us. The teens word were 'how does that happen'.

We were in Poland and there was a football match on tv, a group of guys were cheering on the team that is from 50 miles away from us. The guys lived 2 streets away from us and went to the same school as my son.

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I was on a photo safari in Juneau Alaska with eleven other cruisers when the guide asked where everyone lived. The couple behind me lived two blocks from my house here in Albuquerque.

I was on a cruise around Iceland with my mom last week. She ran into a couple on the ship who live at the other end of her small barrier island on the Gulf coast of Florida (single street almost a mile long). The husband said "Of course I know your building, I ride my bike past it every day!"

My best friend and I decided to do a cruise on the same ship we'd traveled on the year prior, doing the alternating itinerary. We were sitting by the pool and overheard a group of guys talking about locations in Rhode Island, where my friend and I were from. We introduced ourselves and joined the conversation. Turns out, these guys were with a large group traveling together and that same group had been on the ship a year prior - the exact same week WE were on the ship. We'd cruised together the year before without knowing it. What's more, we learned that a couple of the guys were in the cabin my friend and I had been in the prior year. (We knew because we had JUST removed our old luggage tags when embarking on the current cruise.) They generously invited us to join in some of their group activities while on the ship, and we've stayed friends over the years.

A number of years ago, on a HAL cruise to Bermuda, I was walking along Front Street in Hamilton when someone coming out of Trimmingham's (sadly, no longer there) bumped into me- she was my next door neighbor on a golf vacation with her husband - neither of us had known of the other's plans.