One of the most fascinating people we have met on a cruise ship is a Jersey-born Brit who has the ability to captivate an audience with a one-man show that looks good enough to be on Broadway. By the way, a “Jersey-born Brit” is someone who has a British accent despite his origins in New Jersey.
In John Maxtone-Graham’s case, it’s been that way for 82 years, many of his formative ones spent in England after the stock market crashed the year he was born.
“I had a Scottish father and an American mother,” he says. “In England, I was a half-breed.”
On that first Atlantic crossing — to him the proper identity of what many call Transatlantic cruising — little John was six months old. In eight decades since, he has made hundreds of 
crossings, many of them as a guest lecturer on cruise ships, primarily for Norwegian, Princess, Cunard and Celebrity.
On the Celebrity Eclipse for its 14-day “crossing” this spring, there were eight opportunities to meet him, not including the times he could be found in line at the buffet or sitting in a comfortable chair somewhere on the ship, reading or playing cards. He’s always anxious to meet people because, you see, he’s an author and the more people he meets the more books he sells.
The same goes for the more people he entertains, which he does with the skill of a master, especially when Titanic is the subject.
“I play it like a piano,” he says. “I know what works and what doesn’t work. Always, the Titanic works. It’s a magical performance that works so well.”
Between his first and his most-recent Atlantic crossings, Maxtone-Graham graduated from Brown, served with the Marines in Korea, worked on Broadway as a stage manager and became an author, lecturer and maritime historian. For anybody with a modicum of interest in sea-faring vessels, especially the Titanic, he is a must-see and passengers have been known to pick their cruises according to his schedule.
He and his wife, Mary, spend seven months a year on cruise ships, returning home to New York long enough to attend to the necessary personal matters.
“We plan ‘windows’ of three for four weeks, time to see the tax man, the doctor and the dentist,” says Maxtone-Graham. “I’m stressed the minute I get home.”
As a lecturer, he is highly entertaining, informative and opinionated. At times, he is funny. He seems to know something about every ship that crossed the ocean, and he’s not afraid to tell you what he thinks of today’s cruise ships, even if it seems to cross the line with cruise companies that utilize his services.
As a lecturer, he will invoke the story of the Titanic at least once.
“Only once was there resistance to my talking about the Titanic,” Maxtone-Graham adds. “It was in the Caribbean, on a Costa ship I believe. The hotel manager said nobody was going to talk about the Titanic — ‘Not on my ship!’ — and when I reminded him there were no icebergs here, he kindly relented.”
As a writer, John Maxtone-Graham is…well, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.