If you do the deal right, and with a little bit of luck, you can actually sail at no cost. First, a warning! We certainly don’t mean responding to a telemarketing scam that offers a phony free cruise. This is about making direct contacts with the cruise line. Here are a few ideas:

1. Gather passengers: If you belong to a club, church or other organization, and can enlist from four to a dozen others to go as paying customers, your fare may be free. The requirements vary among cruise lines, and offers may depend on the number in your group, season, destination, length of cruise and other factors.

2. Be an entertainer or established info expert: For example, you have pro talent singing, playing an instrument, gaming expertise or pro lecturing and/or classroom background. Some cruise lines will sign you up to sail free to perform your skills at sea.

Recently, amateur contestants on TV talent or reality shows are being offered free cruises to be onboard performers. Additionally, if  TV has lifted you to celebrity or notoriety status, many cruise lines will consider you. Plus, if you’ve picked up an entertainment agent, that can greatly enhance your chances of sailing free.

Have you seen the recent “Last Vegas” movie about four seniors who meet in Sin City to talk over old times when they grew up together 50 years ago in Brooklyn? The the actors, all Academy Award winners, seemed to enjoy their Vegas experience as if a script weren’t needed.

If Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline had such a great time, consider doing the same. To get started, think of favorite companions from school, fraternity, sorority, family or branch of service. It could also be people who worked with you all those years at the next bench, counter or desk.

Check with your travel agent or consult a Las Vegas hotel and start forming plans. Once you’ve put a rough package together, send it to those long-ago pals and suggest you agree on a schedule, and then do your own “Last Vegas.” Remember: at your age, the title may actually be all too true.

For some hints on planning the gathering, a no-obligation website is www.military.com/Resources/ResourceSubmittedFileView?file=reunions_how_to_plan.htm

It happens to all of us, age one or 100, whether around the corner from home or around the world. Ya gotta go, especially if you’ve just eaten a strange fried food from a native street cart.

The urgent question is: Where’s the restroom? Here are just a few examples senior travelers may need.

Spanish: ¿Dónde están los aseos? French: Où sont les toilettes? German: wo ist die Toilette? Chinese Cantonese: Chiso hai bindough a? Danish: Hvor er toilettet? Hebrew: Eifo ha'sheirutim? Turkey: Tuvalet nerede? England/Scotland/Ireland: Where’s the loo? Brooklyn: Hey, I gotta go real bad!

Note: Before visiting foreign lands, learn native phrases and pronunciations to request this vital need. Additionally, before you travel, ask your agent or check the internet about the latest in safe, personal needs. Always carry emergency supplies, such as toilet paper, paper seat covers, sanitizing wipes, underwear lining and other hygiene items.

Your travel4seniors.com editor has visited Japan several times, beginning with those little misunderstandings around the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. Many decades after those hostilities, we find hospitality at Japanese restaurants, shops, hotels and everywhere else fantastic.

Now, Japanese in the tourist industry bow and say chinkyaku, a polite welcome to visitors. Everyone, including doormen, waiters, bartenders and taxi drivers, are super considerate and helpful. However, tips are not expected nor accepted in Japan.