So, do you really have friends you've made here?

[Tamaracboy]

Oh, Reuel, meeting you was a delightful end to an outstanding cruise. I am so glad that we could all get together, however brief the encounter.

Please, buy those lottery tickets! Even a small win would put you on the Volendam with us. It would be a blast to sail with you. We would all have a grand old time.

 

Ruth,

 

You're on !

Do you have any favorite numbers ?? :rolleyes:

Perhaps Greg could help with a little Divine Intervention ??? :cool:

 

At least I buy a ticket every week ;)

 

r.

PS: Glad the Volcano is cooperating

[Kween Karen]

I really want to meet some of the regular posters here some day.

Tamaracboy....want to meet you and thank you personally for your kindness on my last cruise! That was SUCH a wonderful surprise!

[innlady1]

We've met many wonderful people on CC, and then later on cruises, many who I correspond with irregularly & regularly and certainly consider "friends."! Two even visited us at the inn last fall!

 

My only problem now is that I've enjoyed people from each and every cruise, and it's impossible to pick choose (and pay for!) enough cruises to cruise again with all of them! ;)

 

So perhaps I, too, should start buying lottery tickets.........

[Sailkeywest]

I am a real person! Some friendships endure, even if they are mostly "online." One such "online friend" I have known for nearly 8 years now, and though we have never met irl (they live in Sweden), we talk on the phone and exchange Christmas presents. :)

 

Btw, I met my loving Hubby on AOL, and 10 years later I still am thankful everyday that he answered my 'ping.' Who says you have to meet your soulmate at a grocery or a bar? I was sitting at my computer one day thinking to myself "Where are all the single educated men?" Well, they are sitting at their computers doing their work :P

 

*Just my opinion* :)

 

Oops, I should edit that to say "They are sitting at their computers doing their work... or downloading porn." jk! *hopes people aren't offended by my humor*

[sailtheoceanblue]

2004 we cruised on the Volendam ... we attended the CC meet and greet which was very well attended and we immediately bonded with several couples .. we set a time to meet every afternoon for happy hour ...by the time we all left the ship 10 days later we were friends we left armed with addresses, email and phone numbers. We even had a group photo taken before leaving the ship.

 

From day one of our arrival home we all began an almost constant daily email chat ... we hail from 6 different states from the pacific to the atlantic and states inbetween .. We try to meet every year face to face ... We've taken 2 other cruises together and several land reunion vacations .. we've even gone to Europe together.

 

We've come to know each others families through email and phone calls and have shared joy and sadness together -- and many, many pictures of our lives events. We are blessed to know this group as an extension of our family and we look forward to many more vacations together in the years to come.

 

So yes, it is indeed possible to meet and make life long friendships on board a cruise ship!!

[Travalot]

My parents met another couple on a cruise more than 10 years ago, and since then, not only have they had near weekly contact by email, but they have each cruised in "each other's territory" (a Mississippi river cruise, an Oregon river cruise), and have met up on several traditional Holland America cruises as well. Interestingly, my father's friendship from cruising is probably the strongest non-family relationship he has had in his adult life.

[DrKoob]

Great topic. In 2005 we went on a short repo cruise from Vancouver to San Francisco. Our thread got started 10 months before the cruise and as of yesterday it has 3379 posts on more than 160 pages.

 

We still post on it all the time. We have sailed with many of the folks from that thread again on numerous occasions in Europe, Alaska, the Pacific NW and most recently 14 days in Asia.

 

There is a core of six of us who speak via the web every day, vacation together whenever we can. 1 couple lives in Florida, one in Washington State and one in Canada. In my 57 years I have never had better friends than these two couples.

 

And yes, I also met my bride online as well. We met in 1997 and have been together ever since. The internet is an amazing thing. In fact just before I saw this thread I had been e-mailing with my friend in Florida and remarking to my bride that it is so strange that we converse just about every night via e-mail, Twitter or the boards and we live thousands of miles apart.

[Tamaracboy]

I really want to meet some of the regular posters here some day.

Tamaracboy....want to meet you and thank you personally for your kindness on my last cruise! That was SUCH a wonderful surprise!

 

Karen,

Tis you who were the wonderful surprise to meet here on CC ;) ;)

So envious of your 1st and upcoming 2nd Grand Cruise.

Then there was your phenomenal Blog ! :cool:

And yes, fully expect to meet you sometime.

Perhaps if I cruise out of Seattle to Alaska again ? ? (if you are not snorkeling some reef somewhere)

Reuel

[MACPC]

Great question - I consider myself a 'new' CCer, since this year is the beginning of my dialogues on the boards. Before our earlier cruises, I gleaned some good information from the boards, but didn't hang around much after we sailed. As we're planning to cruise more often, I've been reading more and more of and wondered about those who seemed to be friends in real time as well as online.

 

It was CC reviews of the lines that steered me to HAL for our first cruise. I feel as though we fell into a honey pot - HAL is such a perfect fit for us. Thanks to all you CCers! I don't read any other boards except for HAL - so many HAL ships and itineraries to aim for and not enough time and $$$!

[fridayeyes]

On other boards, I have friends that I've met online, some of whom I've later met in person and some I haven't. One of these hold the position of 'best friend', and several of the others I would describe as close friends or family friends. We've known each other for 10 years or so, watched each others' kids grow up, hung tight through deaths in the family, etc.

 

My current cruise buddy started out as an 'internet friend' and now we cruise twice a year together.

 

I consider them 'real' friends regardless of whether I've met them in person.

 

Cheers,

 

Friday

[Ellen Dio]

Since this thread resurfaced... I am not a regular on CC so can't speak for here - although most of the people seem very nice and friendly - however on other travel forums where I've been a regular for over a decade I have made some life long friends - been to their houses, invited them to my wedding(they all came some from pretty far away), mourned with them the loss of spouses and parents, chat with them online (first AOL now Facebook) etc. We all joke about how none of them would like their kids to meet people online and would forbid them to go meet them in person etc. and yet that's how we all met. We travel to our favorite island together often and other trips as well. So tell your husband that these friends probably aren't just in your imagination.

 

PS I guess in the interest of full disclosure I should also say I kind of met my husband on Match.com - we'd met before but never dated till match.com paired us up. It's a strange new world we live in.