"Small World" holiday tales - do you have any?

Is it just me, or has anyone else experienced the most amazing coincidences whilst on holiday? i.e. bumping into someone you know whilst away?

It's happened to me quite a few times and each and every time has completely "freaked" me out!

1. Flew to Dominican Republic one year, got friendly with a couple whilst there (as you do) - didn't keep in touch or disciuss any plans to return. We decided to return the following year (but 3 weeks earlier) and whilst sitting in the Gate area at Gatwick, low and behold the same couple are sat there! They also flew out 3 weeks earlier!

2. Holiday in the canaries, again met a nice couple - saw them a few times in the hotel etc. 6 months later, returned and as we arrived at the hotel and departed the bus - the couple getting off the bus suddently looked very familiar - yes, it was the same couple! This time in absolute shock as it wasn't even remotely the same time of year.

3. Holiday in Antigua - met some friends from USA. The following year, completely different Island, hotel chain and dates bumped into the same couple in reception one evening.

4. Planet Hollywood in Orlando, bump into an old school friend! Of all the places, restaurants and timings - it was amazing.

Is it just me that has experienced these amazing coincidences? Or has anyone else had a similar experience?

(In all cases, no discussion of future holidays and did not keep in contact at all, not even FB!).

Cal

- Bumped into old work colleague in Sephora in Times Square.

- Ended up on the same bus at JFK airport with someone from a previous employer.

- A year later ended up sitting next to the same person and their family on a flight from Orlando to Gatwick - again completely random!

- Literally bumped into an old teacher in Auchan hypermarket in Calais.

I'll try and think of some more.

Great topic, Cal. My then girlfriend (now wife ^) ), were walking down a Sydney street 20 years ago when she bumps into a friend that she used to go to school with in Cheltenham, England! Totally blown away by the way the world shrunk that day

On our first Caribbean trip, we boarded a bus on a very rainy day to go from our hotel into Bridgetown. When cleaning my steamed up spectacles I heard someone say "Paul?!" to find someone I used to first work with and then commute with whom I hadn't seen for at least 5 years.

In a city of ~17 million people it is, in retrospect, slightly odd to run into the same person, with no other connection and in two different and geographically remote locations, on two days consecutively.

[Darren Wheeler]

In a city of ~17 million people it is, in retrospect, slightly odd to run into the same person, with no other connection and in two different and geographically remote locations, on two days consecutively.

In one word...

Stalker.

In one word...

Stalker.

Who are you?

We also met the same couple two years running - different dates same flight to the uS.
We were leaving the Magic Kingdom in Orlando & walking down Mainstreet USA when we bumped into our next door neighbours on their way in. Neither of us knew the others were going.

Katie

10 years ago, My wife and I were at the Guggenheim museum in NY. We were looking at the Kandinsky exhibits and we thought one of friends would love it here. Went in to the next room and there he was! :0 When he was in the previous room, he had thought that we would like the same exhibits. :0

We went to his wedding this weekend after not seeing each other for 3 years and we reminisced the freakiness of the NY meeting.

Tiny town in southern France - bumped into my old boss while on holiday while we were sitting in a restaurant.

Flying back from Portugal - an old sports team mate on the same flight I hadn't seen for years.

[honey lamb]

Apart from the fact that when I get to Cork Airport I nearly always bump into someone I know going on to my flight, I have had several such encounters.

In Vienna I was walking down Kartnerstrasse when I bumped into someone I hadn't seen in 20+ years. They recognised me before I recognised them

In the SFO Clubhouse I met an American couple who, on chatting were going to spend a month at a holiday home they own some 20 miles from me. In the course of the conversation it turned out that they had played in the golf course near to us and also knew my son. The following year I met them again in the same CH

Not quite the same but on a trip to San Francisco about 10 years ago a colleague from work was going to be there too.

When in SF we arranged to meet up at Fishermans Wharf after they had done Alcatraz and I'd done the 'bike the bridge' trip.

Although planned it was still weird to see him and his partner walking down the gang plank !

Wow!

Disneyland Paris - our first 3 trips there had us bumping into a family who's child went to the same school as my daughter - each and every time! (School of 112 pupils!).

First trip to WDW - on arriving at our hotel (Grand Floridian), entered the lobby as some neighbours from 5 houses away - don't know them that well, and didn't know they were going to be there!

3rd trip to WDW - bumped into someone from my daughter's school again!

One day, on monorail at WDW - bumped into an old university friend/aquaintance - had seen him in 15 years!

2 days later, exactly the same thing ahppens, same guy (and his family) on the monorail.

Tunisia - circa 1980, on a camel ride up a waddi - stopped for refreshments, and there was our neighbours, next door but one!

Los Angeles, circa 1985, got chatting to a guy in a coffee shop. After a while, his background/ancestry came up - it only turns out he's a cousin of my mother, although he'd emigrated as a child!!!

Funny old world...

No 2 daughter took a 3 month vacation in Canada after completing uni. To ensure she could afford the resultant bar bills she got herself a part time job while in Vancouver, working in a cafe.

First morning, her second customer was a girl she had been at school with in Reading and hadn't seen for four years. y)

1/ On the ferry between islands on the Great Barrier reef, and the boat makes an unscheduled stop to pick up someone who missed the previous ferry that did stop there. It turns out to be one of the guys in my department at work (department was about 50 people)

2/ On the Pan American Highway in Ecuador - lost car keys, and enlisted the help of local cafe owner (who the car was outside). After he helped me break in and hotwire the car, we had a drink with him, and it turned out his (Ecuadorian) daughter was good friends with a Guyanese friend of ours who now lives near us in Hertfordshire

3/ Many years ago I had a holiday crossing the US by Greyhound. Early in the trip I stayed with a UK University friend who then lived in Albany NY state. A month later I'd reached somewhere in Colorado. Greyhound stops at a large ski resort (which was almost empty as it was summer). I sit next to a table that had other Brits on it. They were also Greyhounding, but going in the opposite direction. And surprisingly, they were going to stay with one of their friends, from the UK, who now lived in Albany NY - the same person I'd stayed with! (Although I'd never met them, I'd heard my friend in Albany talk about this couple)

Is that enough?

Peter

Several;

1 On holiday in the Maldives I got chatting to the lady in the next door water villa while both my husband, and hers, were swimming around in the lagoon. It turned out she lived about 200 yards from us and my friend was her youngest son's teacher.

2 On holiday in Orlando, we walked out of Belz shopping mall and our daughter literally bumped into a phamaceutical rep, and someone we saw socially occasionally, that used to visit my husband in surgery.

3 In France we were driving along the road when a child ran out in front of the car. My husband did an emergency stop and the child, was in our daughter's class at school.

4 Same holiday as 3, we bumped into friends in a French supermarket.

5 On holiday in Corfu and two of my husband's patients, a couple he saw all too often for trivial matters, were staying in the same hotel and sadly exactly the same two were on a cruise we took as well. We too pains to avoid them both times!

2001, chatting vaguely to couple at chk-in LHR, we got op-up'd to UC, tried to see if we could get them Op'upped to PE..no such luck...
Arrived in CPT, turned out they were staying at Table Bay also, never asked where they were from, but about 3 months later, sat outside beer garden of local pub at the time in Yorkshire, they walked passed, lived in same village!

Not me however a collegue was checking in to their hotel on St Lucia for their honeymoon only to find the man at the desk next to her checking in was a manager we all knew well in the same company!

On holiday in Corsica at a Mark Warner resort one summer, we were sitting next to a couple having a glass of wine and chatting. We mentioned we always took an October half-term break in a cottage in Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast.

When they said where in Blakeney, we said Glaven Cottage last year. That was their cottage!

5 On holiday in Corfu and two of my husband's patients, a couple he saw all too often for trivial matters, were staying in the same hotel and sadly exactly the same two were on a cruise we took as well. We too pains to avoid them both times!

That's the flipside of this coin... and why MrsPJH's default position is a child free hotel when on holiday. Not that she doesn't like her term-time charges or their parents, just that she didn't sign up to go on holiday with them too.

[Scrooge]

A couple of years ago we were in SFO (when we should of been in Cabo, don't ask) Mrs Scrooge was in a perfume place, I was standing outside smoking, I look up and one of her cousins is standing waiting for a cab right in front of me.