Have you ran into anyone you knew on board?

Cruising is a small world. When we were on the Celebrity Silhouette a year ago we ran into my son’s high school Vice Principal and her family!

Two years ago we ran into a teacher from my son’s elementary school while on the Reflection. It appears that teachers like to cruise!

You never know you are going to meet on a cruise. Now we look around to see if we know anyone onboard!

I was on a ship and said to my husband that a lady at another table could be a member of my aunts husband's family due to her looks, he had no idea what I was talking about until 2 days later she stood next to me and said Hi I've not seen you since you were about 12! Then I got off the ship started my new job the next week and she also worked in the same office

On a recent cruise in the Baltics, my parents and I were hanging in the lobby of our hotel (independently booked), got to talking with some ladies who were on the same cruise. Turns out one was the mother in-law of a student I knew at the college I used to work for. On the same cruise I met a gentleman who had worked, now retired, at the place I currently work for.

No, we have always sailed on ships that are 2/3 US folk so the chances are slimmer.

In a few days I will be on a ship with quite a few people from my home city so that might change. :)

It's unusual when we don't run into someone we've know from "cruises past" or elsewhere or knows someone we also know. :D

LuLu

Our last cruise there was a woman who lives in our neighborhood with her daughter and the daughters family and on that same cruise our sons knew people. Not so odd though as we were sailing from our hometown!

We have run into people while shopping on St. Thomas-friends from another ship were walking into a store as we walked out.

We also have run into people in Washington D.C. in line for the National Archives and other folks in a bar in Costa Rica while on land trips.

Really really small world!

On our 3rd cruise, 1st without children, my DH and I were walking across the port drop off area, and we heard our names being called. We ignored it, because we were in Miami, and we are from KY so we thought who would we know. Again, our names were called, so we turned and looked. It was a former employee of my DH, who moved back to New York from Kentucky 10 years earlier. She and 100 of her closest friends were on the same ship.

The next year we took our DD on the Triumph, and the week before we left, we found out that two of our daughter's friends and their families were sailing on the same ship. It worked out great, the mother of one of the girls is a TA, so she linked all of our dinner reservations together so we could all sit together. As it turns out, she now books all of our vacations for us. :)

In the summer of 2008 we cruised on the Grandeur of the Seas out of Norfolk, Virginia. Our daughter met a new friend who's was cruising with her parents. They were from Long Island, New York.

The following summer we cruised on the Carnival Triumph for a Canada / New England cruise out of New York City. On the second day were ran into them again coming out of one of the elevators. The girls were inseparable the rest of the cruise.

A very small world indeed.

First cruise I ever took, was with my 15 yr old daughter on her Spring Break, was walking around the ship and ran right into an entire family from our little farming community. I've had this happen many times; Disney World, Mexico - the world is just very small these days.

My wife ran into a fellow teacher from her school on a cruise and we wound up sitting with them at dinner for the week.

We also ran into a family around the corner at the Pantheon in Rome. However, we were not too surprised. It was spring break and both of our kids were studying abroad in Rome at the time.

On the flight over, we ran into another neighbor, who was visiting their daughter.

On an earlier trip to Rome many years ago, my wife ran into a friend from elementary school on the hotel jitney.

We ran into people on our first cruise. Actually it was in the airport in Houston, we were frantically looking for our luggage which didn't make it, as were they. We got to talking and they had been on the same two flights with us, all the way from our hometown and were going on the same cruise as us.

Long story short, we made a million phone calls, pulled some strings, did some begging and ended up getting our luggage late that night. We bumped into them on the cruise. They never got theirs. I felt so bad for them :(

Yes, last year on Princess from Houston, bumped into a woman that I had played Trivia with for 14 days on a TA from Barcelona to Galveston. Had not seen her in a year. We played Trivia together on that trip as well.

We met a fellow teacher from my then school district. The weird thing was, once we got home, we kept running into him at the theater and the kennel club show. Guess we liked the same things.

We met people from our area in the airport AFTER the cruise. They said they had seen us onboard. We became friends!

We sat with a couple who knew my uncle's wife's mom from the church choir, when he was a kid.

In Rome, some people on our tour met their neighbors, in Vatican Square.

I forgot that this past January, we were sitting in the San Juan, PR airport waiting for our flight home from our cruise, and here comes a man that we go to church with walking down the hall. That was very strange to see. He and his wife were on a different cruise out of San Juan, and coming home the same day as well.

Never anyone that we know from outside of cruises, but one of the nice things about taking a popular holiday cruise every year is that we often recognize our table mates at breakfast or lunch from previous years' cruises.

Spotted someone that I knew on a cruise once.

Luckily it was a big ship, so hiding away for the rest of the trip wasn't too difficult.

Every cruise we have ran into someone we knew.

I have also often ran into people who knew/thought they knew me.

But I had no idea who they were.

But that happens to me a lot.

The nicest though was when we got talking to our steward and it turned out that we had paid for his education.

The sad bit was that after qualifying as a teacher he was making more money on a ship as a steward.

The nice but was he was doing it to save enough to start a school in his village about 50 miles from where he had attended school as a boarder.

We met a couple on our roll call once who lived very close to us.

We didn't share a lot of personal info on the roll call, but once we met in person and started comparing notes we found out that our son's best friend was their babysitter.

A co-worker of mine was on our first Princess cruise. Her family had originally booked a cruise out of San Juan but switched it after 9/11 because her mother did not want to fly anywhere. She did not tell me they were going to be on my ship, but other co-workers did tell me. We only ran into twice during the week.

My DH's co-worker was on a different cruise with us. We actually flew down on the same flight. She heard him talking on the plane and recognized his voice. They worked in different offices and had never met before in person but had to talk over the phone to each other several times a quarter. We saw her and her husband many times on that cruise.

Yes, it happened to me on this May's cruise on Ventura....someone stopped and said:" Excuse me, but aren't you...?" We'd taught together about 20 years ago, but we'd since moved a hundred miles or more away, and lost touch with everyone.

Yes. I'm a mental health therapist. It was my last day at work before my cruise - so excited. I had a new client that day. Turns out we were going on the same cruise leaving the next day.

I only ran into him once on board. My two young kids asked, "mommy, why was the man with the tattoos in the hot tub talking to you. [emoji1]

We have been on the same cruise 4x with a couple we do not know, but recognized each time. They are a couple that dance a lot (very well) on their cruises and are hard to miss. We thought it was so odd that of all the cruises/dates/itineraries we would be on 4 cruises together. Another time we parked and were walking into the port on embarkation day and my husband's co-worker was disembarking. One time we cruised with my husband's direct supervisor. We found out we were all going on the same cruise shortly before leaving. It all worked out fine. Once I was on an excursion in San Juan and a woman on it with us swore she knew me. Turns out she is from the city where I went to college and she frequently took her daughters shopping at a store where I worked. That was 20 years prior so her memory was amazing!

Many times.

We live an 60-90 minutes away from the three SoCal ports. Almost always run into someone we know onboard- Mailman, DD's friend, secretary's daughter, student's mother, etc.

We also seem to bump into the same people on the roll calls.