Imagine for a moment: walking right by the person you will someday marry on your home college campus several times – but only meeting them for the first time, and setting off a lifetime relationship, aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from home. For Valerie and Allen Denson, Lifelong Learners on the Fall 2025 voyage of Semester at Sea, the current voyage is more than just a chance to see eight new countries and travel with like-minded community – it’s a chance to celebrate this very love story: for 46 years, the couple has been sailing the seas of life together since first meeting as students on their SAS voyage in the Spring of 1979 – despite studying the same major at the same college at home in the U.S.
As majors in business from San Diego State University, they individually joined the Spring 1979 voyage – Allen studying marketing and Valerie, accounting. Although they were in close proximity to one another at college in California, the two met for the first time on the ship, “somewhere between Hawaii and South Korea,” when the group of students from San Diego State gathered on the deck to take a photo. There, Valerie and Allen realized they had a geography class together on the ship; eventually, they became study partners for this class. Then, there was a brief dance together at the Alumni Ball at the end of the voyage.
While a spark was ignited between the two on the voyage, they would not become an official couple until a few months later, when Allen and Valerie crossed paths again at a SAS alumni event, held at a Los Angeles Angels game. The two were happy to reconnect, and Allen also happened to need a date for a fraternity party. He asked Valerie to join him, and she accepted his invitation to the party. After that, “the rest is history.” Around two years after they met fatefully for the first time on the Semester at Sea ship deck for a chance group photograph, the Densons were married in August of 1981.
This would officially begin a relationship of 46 years together – including careers in executive marketing (Allen) and CPA accounting (Valerie), three children, and five moves around California from San Diego to Los Angeles to Orange County and back again. The couple also continued to travel together internationally, with trips to locales such as Spain, London, Switzerland, Bora Bora, Australia, and several short alumni voyages with Semester at Sea.
In 2023, Allen retired, and, with Valerie now working a more flexible schedule, the two decided it was time to finally get back to their roots together with a half voyage on SAS as Lifelong Learners. In Fall 2023, the couple sailed the second half of the voyage together, from Cape Town to Bangkok. Now, on the current Fall 2025 voyage, the couple returned, choosing to sail the first half of the voyage, bringing them from Amsterdam to Cape Town.
For Valerie and Allen, the Semester at Sea experience has not only changed the course of their shared lives, but they feel the program, from their perspective, is invaluable for everyone. “You get to have adventures and see the common humanity found all over the world,” Valerie said. “The learning environment is terrific, the faculty is top-notch, and the diversity of the voyagers is great. It’s just amazing for all involved.”
Today, the SAS learning experience still remains pronounced for the couple, even almost five decades after their first voyage. Allen fondly remembers that Semester at Sea also made him stand out in interviews when he was first starting his successful career. “When I came back from our first voyage, I remember that in job interviews, half the conversation, at least, was about Semester at Sea and the experiences I had there,” Allen said. “So, SAS really sets you apart in the job market– and you are learning so much about the world – you’re doing things that tourists just don’t always get to do.”
For the Densons, their fateful meeting on the Spring 1979 voyage shaped every aspect of their adult lives: meeting for the first time on the ship, igniting a spark, sharing a life together, and, now, returning to SAS as Lifelong Learners – SAS has helped the couple really understand, in the best way possible, how small the world really can be.
