First thing to know, this is a cruise for people who don’t cruise! Forget all those cruise stereotypes and let me quote Gandhi here...be the change you want to see in the world! Yes, I just wrote that.
Fathom's Dominican Republic cruise is a steal at $249 plus taxes and fees for 7 days (you can even bring your own wine!) but the real headline here is the impact you have on the Dominican people (we participated in 3 volunteer activities) and the new friends you meet on the ship! This post will be about the latter, the next one will be about my volunteer experience.
Truth be told, other than some of the home schooled kids on board my friend Jeanine and I were among the youngest passengers. I was pleasantly surprised that we got along with “the oldies” as Jeanine called them. I was quite the social butterfly on this trip bonding with strangers over voluntourism and wine. Fathom had 3 wine events on the ship, a class on organic, biodynamic wines and one on wines of the world (did you know that Baguio, a city in the Philippines, is a perfect location for wine country?!) The classes were led by Mike, head wine steward on the ship, who’s a glass half full kind of guy (as in he always made sure our glasses were full) and his presentations were hilarious! One of his slides read:
Water = Poop
Wine = Health
Therefore, it’s better to drink wine and talk stupid than to drink water and be full of shit.
Mike with his favorite wine students...us!
Mike was one of my favorite people on the ship, here are some others:
Mom and I with Adrienne and Kenny from San Diego. We had met that morning before volunteering at the cacao farm and chocolate factory. Fun fact: Adrienne used to be a writer for Charles in Charge, Full House, Mr. Belvedere, and Alf! I started singing the Charles in Charge theme song and Kenny said I must be a lot older than I look :) Adrienne loves vino and drank all 4 glasses at our wine class where she saved us seats! My kind of lady. She also danced her heart out at zumba...afterwards she wondered why no one was as sweaty as her. Despite her recent shoulder surgery she didn’t shy away from the sometimes labor intensive volunteer work at the cacao farm and even though her shoulder was bothering her, she kept on dancing. That’s the spirit!
Me with Ronni (short for Veronica) and Ken from Vancouver. This was snapped our final morning of the cruise. I made 2 trips to their table to chat and before they left they walked over to give us goodbye hugs! They have 5 kids but still know how to throw down as in they went from our wine class to a rum tasting, nothing like a liquid lunch! They couldn’t have been any nicer (I love Canadians)! Fun fact: When Ronni was younger her dad made wine in their basement (it's a thing Croatians do apparently) and his wine was known as the best Zinfandel among his friends! She makes wine too. I think. I may have had too much wine when she was trying to explain whether or not she makes wine.
Then there's Dottie who's in her 80s. She gathered up the courage to zip line in Puerto Plata. She had always been scared to do it but didn’t want to be scared anymore, plus she couldn't wait to tell her grandkids! We had seen her around lunch time one day and had gone 3 times. She was about to take a nap before returning for her 4th run. I respect that.
Like Dottie, Jackie (who must have been in her 70s) was traveling alone. She had never traveled alone before and was always very shy and kept to herself. This cruise forced Jackie to come out of her shell and make friends with complete strangers, it was a big deal for her. We all clapped when Jackie told this story.
As for my mom she had a few firsts too...like jumping off a waterfall...more on that later but here's a teaser pic for you, love her facial expression (i.e. pure terror)!!!
I really love this text mom sent after the trip: “I'm still building up my courage to start a conversation with people I meet. That's one area I want to cultivate. Slowly but surely. I was encouraged with the way you and Jeanine interact with people around you. I'll be doing that too.”
So talk to a stranger today! After all, strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.
