Q: My company recently gave me a birthday present when I hit age 57: a layoff notice. My spouse and I have already booked a cruise for next month, but I’m worried about getting a new job. Should I cancel the cruise? TLR, Buffalo NY

Every senior who signs up for a singles cruise hopes for a shipboard romance, maybe as happened in the Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr 1957 movie, “An Affair to Remember.”

Some sailing singles do succeed, and as in ads for romance websites like eHarmony.com promise, they marry and live happily ever after. However, often under the starlight on deck above a sparkling sea, many women fall for false stories told by single, or say they’re single, senior guys.

Most of the fibbers are guys, but not all. To help you sort out phonies from the realies on your next singles cruise, here’s some advice:

Remember the Sinatra song inviting you to take to the air? The lyrics don’t mention the normal human need to use the onboard toilet while up there in the sky.

Airlines continue to create and hike all kinds of extra fees for flying. Therefore, a recent news item about a top airline official mentioning the possibility of putting pay toilets on passenger planes shouldn’t be surprising. His reason was to raise “discretionary revenue.” Hmm. Wouldn’t that better be described as “excretionary revenue”?

Of course, pay toilets are still flourishing in tourist cities around the world. When in Rome recently, we visited the Colosseum, and its toilets were coin-operated, pay-as-you-go. Also, in Paddington Station in London, it was similar rip-off. 

One newswriter said if they install pay toilets aboard flights, it could have a backlash effect of losing money for the airline. He predicted passengers would then avoid buying expensive drinks, so that they wouldn’t have to use the toilets while in flight.

To misquote a phrase by Sir Walter Scott, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we charge to relieve!”

It has been 240 years since Ben Franklin, John Adams and the rest of the guys made history in Philly. The travel4seniors.com editor grew up in the city, and Independence Day always had a special meaning. I recall when my Mom took me to visit the Liberty Bell when I was four.

I reached out to feel the rough iron and the famous broken side. In those long-ago days, visitors were allowed to touch the bell. Today, it’s enclosed in its own space, and because of all kinds of security visitors can only look at it.