Have you ever bumped into anyone you know (or could know)?

[bigwally]

A fun game for the new year. To play you have to EXCLUDE people you know from CC and folks you have cruised with before. BUT I will allow those people IF you encountered them in a situation where you weren't traveling on (or to join) the same cruise.

 

So the question is - have you ever bumped into anyone you know (or could conceivably know) while on your cruise or other travels?

 

For me it's happened twice in my 56 years so far:

 

1) I once crossed paths with my wife's nephew, who lives just 1 mile away from us, in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport. So for both of us that was 2,200 miles away from home. I remember he was heading home while I was heading off somewhere, and ATL was the hub airport for both of us.

 

2) I met a lovely woman in a tender boat off Norwegian Star, waiting to leave for the quayside in Helsingborg, Sweden (our last port of call on a 15-day repo cruise), and as we got to talking we both realized that we lived just a mile away from each other.

 

The latter incident was probably the more amazing of the two, considering the distance involved and the totally random set of circumstances. And it's not like this was a cruise from our home port (which would have increased the odds we might end up on the same ship). I haven't stalked she and her husband since we got back, but I do drive by their house often and think it would be nice to stop and reintroduce myself. Then I think that might just be too creepy and discount the idea. :D

 

How about you guys?

[Kartgv]

There was a quite extensive thread on this topic back in August - lots of good examples:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2528977&highlight=small+world

[bigwally]

Oh, darn. I would have searched first, but who'd have thought.

 

Mods - OK to merge threads, if you like. :)

[mjkacmom]

It was funny, our family of 7 had a group text on the ship, my 20 year old daughter texted “Jack Hanna is on the cruise!” Pretty cool, right? Except, my daughter was letter her brother, Jack, know that Hanna, who they met on a cruise 4 years earlier, was on the ship.

 

So no famous wildlife personality on the cruise. My kids had never even heard of Jack Hanna.

[dcyonce]

For us ... we have ran into friends many times while cruising. Maybe ... 20% of our cruises we have run into someone we know (not CC).

 

One of the coolest times was while in Hawaii. My son and I were having pizza at a little off the beaten path pizza joint in Waikiki Beach the day before a cruise on Pride of America. My son posted on Facebook how much we liked the pizza and good friend from our neighborhood responded saying he was eating pizza at the same little pizza joint at the same time. Turns out ... we were sitting in the front and he and his family were in the back. They also were staying at the same hotel and boarding Pride of America in the morning !!

 

Our kids had a wonderful cruise together hanging out and going on excursions together. Both families ended up having dinner together almost every night. It was a terrific coincidence !

 

— Don

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[jdvmd]

Has happened a few times. The most recent was a family that we dined with on Celebrity. Next year, same time frame, spring break, there they were again. Next spring break? Yep, they were there again.

[Pyrate13]

Never on a cruise but once in Las Vegas. We were walking thru the lobby of the Luxor when my wife and I walked in between friends of ours that are from Wales in the UK. What a surprise.

[GTO-Girl]

We were sitting at an outdoor cafe in St. Thomas and looked up to see my cousin and his wife walking by. They had come in on another cruise ship. We had no idea they were even cruising that week!!

 

 

They sure looked funny when we started calling out their names...

[Hlitner]

It used to happen to us a lot, back in the days when DW and I both worked. We would often take a European cruise and some land time during every July...and we kept running into other folks we had met on previous cruises. We finally realized that at least one person of every party was a teacher (as was my DW) and teachers almost always do their summer trips in July :).

 

These days, having spent more than 1000 days on cruise ships over forty years, it is the norm to run into folks we know on almost every cruise.

Hank

[haladdict]

I was walking promenade deck and a lady from my gym class back home recognised me from behind.

Sandra

[GUT2407]

Oh, darn. I would have searched first, but who'd have thought.

 

Mods - OK to merge threads, if you like. :)

But if you had searched and resurrected an old thread someone would have said “Don’t you know this thread is X years old”?

 

You can’t win either way.

[zqvol]

In Grand Cayman I heard someone call my name. Looked around in wonder and found my best friend's sister, who I had grown up with along with her family. I had been in her wedding and hadn't seen her in 20 years. Spent the whole cruise reminiscing.

[geoherb]

This summer, while standing in line to kiss the Blarney Stone, we recognized a couple who had been on our Alaskan cruise five summers previously. They were actually on the same tour bus, but we had not seen them until in line. It was the second full day of our cruise.

 

A long time ago, I ran into a former teaching assistant in a pub in London. He was the assistant for a professor whose class I had 18 months before.

 

DH ran into a co-worker while flying down to Florida for a cruise. The funny thing was that they had never met. She recognized his voice. They were on the same ship with us, but we only saw them around a couple of times.

 

After 9/11, a co-worker and I were booked on different cruises. It turns out that she switched over to my ship without telling me because her family did not want to fly to San Juan. She left a few days early to drive to Alabama to meet up with her family. I found out from other co-workers that she might be on our ship. We ran into her just a few times as well. She and her family had early seating and we had late.

[DirtyDawg]

Orlando and Disney World seams to be a good place to run into people. We were sitting at a table have ice cream with the kids when a college buddy and his family walked by. We hadn't seen them in about 5 years as they live in Connecticut and we live near Toronto. Another time we were in a ride line at Universal and the family right in front of us was the family of the captain on one of our kids' hockey team. We had just seen them days before at a tournament in Canada but never discussed where we were each going on vacation.

 

I ran into one of my best friends at the Dallas airport once. We we both headed back to Toronto and both connections were through Dallas.

 

When people find out we are Canadian, a lot of travelers seam to have a friend or relative who lives in Canada also so they ask us if we know so and so. Well most of the time their friend or relative lives in B.C. or somewhere else in Canada that is thousands of kilometers away from where we live in Ontario. But onetime this very nice German gentleman asked if we knew his cousin who lived in B.C. It turned out his cousin was, and is, a good friend of mine who had been living in Seattle and just recently moved to Vancouver.

[CarolinaGirl2010]

One time we discovered that a fellow cruiser, who was on an excursion with us, lived in the same neighborhood that my husband lived in when he was small, and was a distant cousin of his that he hadn't met. Another time, an ex- neighbor, who I hadn't seen in 30 years, was on the same cruise with us. It was a lot of fun catching up.

[lenquixote66]

A fun game for the new year. To play you have to EXCLUDE people you know from CC and folks you have cruised with before. BUT I will allow those people IF you encountered them in a situation where you weren't traveling on (or to join) the same cruise.

 

So the question is - have you ever bumped into anyone you know (or could conceivably know) while on your cruise or other travels?

 

For me it's happened twice in my 56 years so far:

 

1) I once crossed paths with my wife's nephew, who lives just 1 mile away from us, in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport. So for both of us that was 2,200 miles away from home. I remember he was heading home while I was heading off somewhere, and ATL was the hub airport for both of us.

 

2) I met a lovely woman in a tender boat off Norwegian Star, waiting to leave for the quayside in Helsingborg, Sweden (our last port of call on a 15-day repo cruise), and as we got to talking we both realized that we lived just a mile away from each other.

 

The latter incident was probably the more amazing of the two, considering the distance involved and the totally random set of circumstances. And it's not like this was a cruise from our home port (which would have increased the odds we might end up on the same ship). I haven't stalked she and her husband since we got back, but I do drive by their house often and think it would be nice to stop and reintroduce myself. Then I think that might just be too creepy and discount the idea. :D

 

How about you guys?

On my last cruise,Dec.2017 I wore a Born In Brooklyn tee shirt on the first sea day.38 people came over to me to say either they or their spouse was born in Brooklyn and I knew many of the same people as them.

Example :One guy told me that he graduated from a Brooklyn HS in 1960. I replied that I have a neighbor who graduated that year and that the brother of a very close friend graduated that year.

They were both friends of his.

[paul929207]

A few years ago at our neighborhood Christmas party, we were talking to a couple that also travels a lot. Asked where they were going next. They said a cruise in May up the west coast of Africa. I said "On the Ocean Princess?". Of course the answer was "Yes". If not for that chance encounter, we would have run into them on the ship. Out neighborhood has about 100 homes and the ship had 680 passengers.

[PBC29]

Bumped into my childhood (until I was 16) barber. He retired an closed the shop 17yrs later we're on the same cruise.

 

My mom bumped into neighbors 2 houses down from her in Trafalgar square in London. She knew they were away but didn't know where as they travel all the time. It was her 1st day of her tour and the last day of their tour. Mom was taking a picture and asks the guy in front of her to move a little an turned out it was the neighbor.

[myfuzzy]

On one of my first cruises, we had tendered into Playa del Carmen, as we were waiting for the tender to return to the dock, to take us back to the ship, there is another line on the other side of the dock with people waiting to return to a different ship. I hear my name being called... stunned, I search in the direction of hearing my name, and there is a co worker waving to me. Even though we worked in the same building, different departments, we knew each other, but had no idea we were both cruising at the same time.

[sadoan]

We were flying home from vacation in Las Vegas and our flight had to turn around because of problems. Had to get of the plane, rebook another flight home and of course there was not a direct one and we had a layover in California to get to DFW.

 

As we boarded the plane in CA we hear "I thought you where going to Las Vegas?". It was my husband's boss that had been in CA for a conference. At least we were legitimately on vacation or that would have been awkward!

[h_blond2]

We have bumped into former students and people who have previously lived in my tiny, tiny town. I have also met people from my area because I was wearing a t-shirt from my college. It definitely is a small world after all.

[Bizmark'sMom]

On a Lindblad ship, off the coast of Greenland, I happened to have dinner with a couple who live just 5 miles away from me.

[gooch47]

I probably posted this same one on the old thread but on the Pride of America we were walking through a lounge and someone called my name. It was a former pastor of our church.

 

But what made it even weirder was that our tour tickets had been delivered to their cabin by mistake and he already knew that it was probably us. No, we didn't have the same last name.

[Seawoff]

to make a long story short

 

my first cruise 1982 I am excite to meet people from different countries, fixed seating for eight people for the entire cruise.

 

I am from mid calif, four others are teachers from northern calif.

 

and two very snobby old money ladies from 30 miles away from where I live but from the town that I commute to every day to work.

 

very boring dinners

[LD Silver]

We used to cruise during President's Week with my daughter because school was out for the week. We ran into one of the teachers from her school on the same cruise.