When I was 12 years old, my teacher asked the students in my class to choose a country in the world to write a report about. I chose Argentina!  Little did I know then that 40 years later I’d be residing half of the year in that country with a husband I met on a Princess cruise.

I was on Star Princess, taking an 18-day cruisetour of South America with my grown daughter Gina.  We were walking by the pool when Gina did something she’dnever done before. She pointed to a man seated at a table along the pool and said, “Mom, I think he’s perfect for you. Should I ask him if we can sit with him?”

That’s when I broke character and did a 180-degree turn on my usual self and said OK. Read More

When I married Jim, we had to hunt around city hall to find a clerk to witness it. Fifty years later, it must have been that lingering memory that provoked me to volunteer my husband and me as witnesses at the vow renewal of two complete strangers.

We were having lunch with a few couples, when Drena and Robert Douglass asked if they could join the table. It was a few days into a 15-day cruise to Hawaii. Drena said she and Bob would be renewing their vows for their 47^th anniversary, but alas, they had no one to witness it.

The thought of this happy occasion not being shared with a few friendly faces resonated with me. So, in a moment thoroughly out of character with my usually quite reserved personality, I volunteered my speechless husband and myself to stand alongside them at their vow renewal. I could feel Jim’s eyes boring into me, but it was too late. The Douglasses happily accepted the offer. Read More

Like many passengers, reading the Princess Patter to find out who’s performing the following evening is part of my nightly ritual during a cruise. But this time when I grabbed the next day’s paper from my stateroom mailbox, I was in for a big surprise.  I was instantly intrigued when I saw that a “Zach Winningham” would be singing the next night in the Princess Theater.

This was exciting news to me, even though I’d never met Zach Winningham or even heard of him before. Winningham is my maiden name, and I’ve spent the past 40 years tracking down other Winninghams, in a quest that any genealogist would find familiar.  

My husband, Donald, who doesn’t share my enthusiasm, has good-naturedly spent many a weekend with me visiting small-town city halls and cemeteries. He couldn’t believe that I’d found a new lead to pursue, during a Hawaii cruise aboard Golden Princess. The trip was supposed to be a break from our everyday lives. But when I am on the hunt for a new branch for the family tree, I get a little obsessed. Read More

Back in the days before GPS was embedded on every smartphone, there was a running joke about men who would rather get lost than stop and ask someone for directions.

On a trip to Hong Kong 20 years ago, my wife, Marsha, and I were standing on a Hong Kong street trying to figure out how to get to the famous Stanley Market. We knew we were supposed to catch a bus, but which one and in what direction?

We spotted another couple with a map and overheard them mentioning Stanley Market. Rather than wander around aimlessly, as the old joke went, getting increasingly lost in the labyrinthine streets of the Hong Kong, we went over and introduced ourselves to fellow Americans, Margo and Jim.

Like us, they were spending a few days sightseeing in Hong Kong before boarding Sky Princess. I explained our plight, and they invited us to join them. We got along so well, the next day, we explored the New Territories together and the friendship continued to develop as we sailed off on Sky Princess.   Read More

After the end of a long marriage, dating was like entering a different universe. Married at 19 and divorced 28 years later, I had never been on my own before.

To tell the truth, I was kind of excited to find out what it was like to stand on my own two feet. So it was with a bright sense of optimism that I sampled some of the options available for single people, including online dating and a singles’ cruise.

By the time I entered my tenth year as a divorcee, no one special had emerged. I decided that I would be single and loving it for the rest of my life.

I still considered my forays into the dating scene successful as they had introduced me to a network of likeminded people. Because of dating websites, I had someone to see a movie with on a Saturday night, which is harder than you’d think in this busy, married world. Thanks to the singles’ cruise I took with a girlfriend, I could now say I had friends scattered across the U.S. and the world. That’s a satisfying feeling.     Read More