Until I was 47, I thought cruises were stupid. I’d grown up by a lake and loved water, but even a one-hour ferry trip left me feeling nauseous. Being trapped on a ship for a week or more seemed like a terrible idea.
Then in 2019, a friend couldn’t take his Caribbean cruise and offered it to me for just a few hundred dollars. It seemed too good a chance to miss, so I stocked up with travel sickness patches and pills, and got onboard. Before the ship left dock, I got into a hot tub, steeling myself for nausea. When I asked a passing couple what time the “sail away” party was – when passengers gather to celebrate the start of the journey – they said I’d missed it hours ago. We were at sea. Despite being in open water, I wasn’t feeling sick: I smiled in relief. That was the moment I fell in love with cruise life.
By 2024, I’d been on 20 cruises, and never tired of them. I’d grown up poor but my successful business career meant I was able to take life easier by my late 40s. Despite meeting lots of interesting people onboard, a relationship was the last thing on my mind. Then one day I was on a Caribbean cruise and turned around to see a beautiful woman next to me. Debb and I sat talking and laughing for three and a half hours. We were both 52 and had been divorced, with six children and five grandchildren between us. I realised I’d met someone who loved cruising even more than I did. Debb had been on more than 150 cruises before deciding, at 51, to retire, sell everything except what she could fit in three cases, and live full-time on cruise ships.
Soon after meeting Debb, I returned to New Jersey, put my house on the market, sold most of my possessions and bought a diamond ring. The proposal didn’t go as planned. A few days before, I had seen a similar ring in the ship’s gift shop and asked Debb what she thought about it. My heart sank to hear that she didn’t like it. So I designed and commissioned a new one, and knowing it would take months to make, put my plans on hold. In the meantime, I booked myself on to the same 50 cruises that Debb had planned. Finally, in April last year, the ring was ready and I proposed. We were on the dancefloor, and I’d asked the ship’s photographer to keep an eye on me. I waited for a moment when we were alone, caught the photographer’s eye, dropped to one knee and asked her to marry me. She immediately said yes.
We had the legal ceremony that June on a beach in Miami, and the captain of the cruise we were on married us in a formal wedding five months later. Neither of our families thought it was strange that we were now living full-time on cruise ships. With our savings we were able to fund our life onboard, which, thanks to loyalty discounts and the rising cost of living, is cheaper than our life on land. At 54, I’m living my dream. Soon we’ll be heading to Europe, Mexico and Bermuda, and I can’t wait. I hope our life on the water goes on for ever.
