Instead of booking a tour on my Royal Caribbean ship visit to Hamburg, Germany, I let a stranger plan my day and it worked out really well.

Months ago I was just starting the planning process for my European cruise aboard the Independence of the Seas.

Hamburg is a port I've never been to before, and we only had a few hours of time to visit.  I wasn't sure how to best use the time, but I knew I wanted to visit a beer garden, because it seemed like a very German thing to do.

Unrelated to this, I went for a visit to a facsimile of what a beer garden is like at Walt Disney World, where they have the Biergarten restaurant in Epcot.

Our waitress started talking to us, and I noticed her nametag said she was not only from Germany, but near Hamburg.  I asked her for any recommendations for what to do in town.

Her name is Sariana, and she lives in Bremen. She worked at Walt Disney World for a few years as part of an international employee work program.

As it turned out, she was not only a cruiser, but also a viewer of Royal Caribbean Blog on YouTube and volunteered to show us around when we arrived.

I had my doubts how serious she was, or if she'd even show up.  Sure enough, the week our Independence of the Seas cruise departed, I got a message from her that she hadn't forgotten about us and wanted to help.

She suggested since we loved eating at the fake beer garden, why not try the real thing.

We picked out one place and Sariana made all the arrangements for my family and a few friends to meet up to eat there.

Unfortunately, that place was sold out, but she had a few other suggestions and we landed on Hofbräu Hamburg. It's located right in the city center, and is a traditional German beer garden.

The best way I can describe a beer garden is it's like a big party room, where you drink giant glasses of beer, eat traditional Bavarian/German food, and enjoy a ruckus good time.

You're seated at what is essentially picnic tables, and you very well could eat with or near other patrons.

The menu was giant, and I could have eaten a heck of a lot more.  I wanted to try so many things, but unlike the food on Royal Caribbean, each entree is quite large.

We ordered schnitzel, Bavarian potato soup, spätzle, and more.

And yes, I indulged in a liter of beer. Not only is it traditional, but we all were looking forward to sharing beers together.

The food was so good, and we had a great time sharing cruise stories, talking about how life is different in our countries, and just enjoying each other's company.

Sariana was sure to let the servers know we had to be finished by a certain time. Evidently if we hadn't, the two hours we had allocated for lunch wasn't long enough at a beer garden.

This reminded me the power of cruising

Going into Hamburg and eating with Sariana and her sister reminded me why I love to cruise.

We got to meet amazing people and try foods in a foreign city that we otherwise would not have done otherwise.

I doubt we'd have ever planned a land vacation to Hamburg, and even if we did, without the love of cruising, I never would have had the opportunity to spend time with Sariana and her family.

I think we all had a great time being in Germany and doing a very German thing. When you add friends to the equation, it becomes the perfect kind of day.

Following the cruise industry-wide booking slump thanks to the Costa Concordia disaster earlier this year, Royal Caribbean appears to be moving back into positive numbers again.  

Tom Fecke, Royal Caribbean Germany chief said, "We are seeing a permanent increase in bookings for a few weeks" and is satisfied with the results.  According to Fecke, compared to the same period earlier this year, bookings are seven percent higher and Fecke hopes to finish the current fiscal year with "small growth".

To achieve this goal, however, Royal Caribbean would have to normalize the booking patterns again. 

Royal Caribbean's German branch had a record year in 2011.  The number of passengers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland grew from the previous year by 34 percent to 80,500.

The turnover of all three Royal Caribbean brands (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises) has increased by 40 percent according to Royal Caribbean's division head Tom Fecke during an annual budget presentation.

Besides capacity growth, the "Seefari" Mediterranean campaign and the "highly developed" Fly & Cruise supply contributed to the positive result. And also a broader basis in counter sales: 526 travel agents were added in the last year, according to Fecke.