Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for a while you would have heard of the phenomenon known as speed dating. The concept is that lots of single people turn up to a bar or other venue and then each person has a mini-date with all the other people individually in a round robin style event. The dates often last no longer than 5 minutes and people are encouraged to ask lots of questions very quickly. The downside of this style of dating is that people are very rushed and often do act as they would when they were more relaxed. The organizers of a new ‘dating cruise’ think they have the answer.

Australian based company, ‘Love Works’ are now planning their second singles luxury cruise which comes only 4 months after their first cruise went very well. The cruises are strictly for single people and you need to able to prove your occupation. “That is all that we ask of our passengers” states Mike Flemming, MD of Love Works. “They have the whole trip to get to know the ins and outs of the other holiday makers, which is typically 4 week long enough to get know someone pretty well we think.” The last cruise traveled around South America for 4 weeks and 3 days, and took a massive 3000 single people. The cruise was a definite success according to the company, who have said that over 350 couples got together on the cruise and some are already planning to get married. They are planning to expand the cruises to local river cruises and one is already scheduled to take place in Germany next year on one of the Rhine river cruises

Flemming has commented that the success of the new dating cruises comes from the fact people are more relaxed on the boat as they treat it as a holiday and they also are not forced to act quickly when meeting people as there is plenty of time for everyone.