PACIFIC NORTHWEST – Meeting the Group

Eventually my roomie and I caught up. I didn’t know her before – this was an LDS Singles Cruise – and we’d both signed up, so the travel agency paired us up. After we’d both booked, we became Facebook friends and had messaged a few times – but the truth is that we are both really busy, and neither of us had the time to do much more than a few messages. But a few weeks earlier I got a frantic message from her, wanting to sell her ticket – and wondering if I knew anyone. I talked to my nieces, a few friends – but the truth is that to have both the time and money at the last minute is a bit rare. Fortunately, Catalina was able to get things straightened out, and with only a few days to spare she was able to continue with her original plans to attend.

   As she’d wandered around the ship, she had run into a few people from the travel agency, and they’d informed her of a gathering of our group that evening. And as she and I finally met in person, she was heading to this gathering, so I tagged along with her. When we got to the Ship’s Library, there were about only about 8 people there – but we started with Intros anyway, and more trickled-in as we progressed. We shared names, locations, etc. – a group of strangers, spending the week ahead together, most of us on the Trip of a Lifetime.

   As we visited, we learned that our whole group was 26 – with only 6 of them being guys. And this being a Midsingles group, most were in the 30-45 range – but there were some under 30, and even at age 51 I wasn’t the oldest in the group. Mostly, regardless of age, we were all just there to enjoy a trip to Alaska. Also there with this same travel agency was also an LDS Family Group that had about 225, and they were there with John Bytheway (a rather popular LDS speaker), so we had a few events that overlapped with them too. So we learned the outline of activities for the week –breakfast together, some shipboard activities, a few lectures with John Bytheway, Game Night, Ice Cream Socials, and hot tubbing EVERY evening – plus a variety of excursions when we were in port. A full schedule of events, plenty to do and plenty of people to do them with.