When you read this post, I'll just be ending a cruise through New England and the eastern part of Canada. We've been watching an Amazon Prime show called "Still Standing." We started watching it because Jonny Harris, a comedian and actor, who played George on the "Murdoch Mysteries," another Amazon Prime feature, is the host of the show. In "Still Standing" Harris takes the viewer to small towns in Canada that have gone through hard times due to plant closures, industry changes, or severe weather events. It tells how the small towns managed to survive. That led us to a desire to visit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in Canada. We thought of driving, but our daughter mentioned a cruise, and that sounded much easier than hours of driving from the Boston area, where our daughter and her family live. So we booked this cruise along with friends we have known since we got married nearly fifty years ago.
We've gone on a lot of cruises through the years. It is a fun and easy way to see a lot of places. We've done numerous Caribbean cruises, two Mediterranean cruises, one to the east and one to the west, a cruise that took us to the fjords of Norway, a Baltic cruise, a Panama canal cruise, and a Danube River cruise. The photo above is from the Panama Canal cruise while we were going through the locks.
What do cruises have to do with my writing? I'm glad you asked. On several cruises we got to know some of the crew, and I was able to ask numerous questions about what it is like to be a crew member on a cruise ship. I learned that they sign a contract for a certain number of months to do whatever job they have. Some of them were in the shows while others worked with the children's programs or in the ship's library. So when I wrote my book, Hometown Proposal, I made the hero a former cruise director and the heroine a singer in the shows. The relationship they started on the cruise ship didn't last, but now that they are both not working with the cruise industry, the hero is determined to win her back.
Often when we take cruises, we also add some travel before or after the cruise. Our cruise to see the fjords in Norway started in Amsterdam, and we took full advantage of visiting that city several days before the cruise. After the cruise we traveled to other parts of The Netherlands and Belgium. I feature some of these places in my book, A Place to Find Love. The hero and heroine take a business trip together to The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, which we visited before and after our Danube cruise.
Have you ever been on a cruise? If so, what was your favorite part?
Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of forty-plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with her on her Facebook page and sign up for her newsletter.
