Every time I get ready to head off on a cruise I always think about the people I might meet. I love meeting new people and sharing new experiences and generally just having a good time. My last cruise on P&O Cruises, Oceana was no different, I had several new ports and a few familiar haunts but they were transformed because of the people my friend and I met onboard.

We spent a lot of time together both on and off the ship and boy did we have some laughs! I left some evenings with my sides actually aching because we had laughed so much! We ate together several times, we enjoyed a few drinks together, we explored ashore together – it really was a great group of people!

I remember one evening dining in the Horizon Grill, we all picked our food and one of the Gentleman in our group had opted for a T-bone steak. The steak arrived and aside from it looking delicious, by the sounds he was making it obviously tasted good too! Mmmm……Ooooooh……..Mmmmmm. We were all in hysterics laughing at him, he said it was the best steak he had ever eaten and my friend commented that we had been delighted by his Disney sound effects throughout. He also managed to walk face first into a glass door one day which tipped his wife and my friend over the edge, they were on the deck – laughing so hard they could barely breathe. I might point out too that not a drop of alcohol had passed his lips either, he literally just didn’t see it. He was such a character and we loved him!

As we made our way back towards Southampton we spent the last few days on deck chatting, playing games and just generally socialising. We somehow started talking about chores etc around the house and he said ‘I used to vacuum before I went to work and do this and do that’ his wife shot around and said to him ‘in who’s bloody house did you do that?’ I could barely move for laughing. He also said he vacuumed around the vacuum one day, none of us were really sure how that one worked, but again our table roared with laughter. At one point my friend said she was going to leave all her belongings behind, pack him and take him home because he was so much fun. On disembarkation day his wife turned to my friend and said ‘you lied! You told me you were taking him away’.

Another gentleman in the group celebrated his birthday onboard so obviously a cake was in order, shall we order him the champagne bottle? No, let’s go for the teddy bear! 😉 He loved it too! We cut into it on the open deck and each had a slice, it was pretty good too to be honest! That was another funny day and trying to light the candles was a military exercise in itself. We failed, miserably and finished up telling him he had to wait a minute before cutting into it as we had to light them again – You have to blow candles out on your birthday!

The company my friend and I had on that cruise really did make the trip. We looked forward to bumping in to each other and a quick 20-minute chat before dinner soon turned into an afternoon and evening of laughs and stories.

I am sure many of you have had similar experiences and have probably even cruised several times with the people you met onboard, I know I have and our little Oceana group is hoping to have a reunion cruise at some point too.

Today’s blog is a THANK YOU to all the wonderful people I have met over the last several years. Without each and every one of you the cruises would have not been the same!

Author: Danielle