​Hello passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Niamh McAnally, a multifaceted cruise personality, that quite frankly would have made a fine guest just to talk about one aspect of her impressive background. We could focus on her status as a best selling author, for Flares Up: A Story Bigger Than The Atlantic, which was conceived in Antigua when she witnessed Paul Hopkins and Phil Pugh cross the finish line after rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic; and the September release of her memoir, Following Sunshine: A Voyage Around The Mind, Around The World, Around The Heart, with a cover inscription by Liam Neeson, “Truly brave, enriching memoir that will take you on a global adventure."  


Or we could talk about the adventure that inspired many of her stories about travels on land and at sea, including her memoir. In 2016 she helped a solo sailor crew his boat from Florida to the Bahamas. It was only supposed to last a month. Niamh soon realized she had not only found the life she loved but also the love of her life. She and Captain Gary have sailed as far north as Maine in the USA and to Bonaire off the northern coast of South America. With toes in the sand in Antigua, Captain and Crew became Husband and Wife! 


Finally, we could focus on Niamh’s ongoing experience as a guest speaker on one of the top cruise lines, Celebrity Cruises!


Niamh McAnally is an Irish-born bestselling author, keynote & corporate speaker, former TV director, and youngest daughter of the late BAFTA award-winning actor, Ray McAnally, and actor, Ronnie Masterson. Niamh has traveled all over the world and lived and worked as a volunteer in many island nations in the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome San Diego’s Bob and Holly, creators in 2020 of Innocents Abroad, YouTube channel, Facebook group and page, and Instagram platform. Their goal is to grow appreciation for discovery, diversity and conversation about travel, with a concentrated focus on cruising. Bob and Holly note that, “Engaging with other cultures is no small thing to us—breaking down cultural barriers is what drives our travel…” To underscore that, their catchphrase, which I love is--an optimistic outlook of humanity through travel and exposure to other cultures.

Quite the way with words, Bob and Holly. Some of our literature-minded listeners recognize that their brand, Innocents Abroad, recalls someone else with quite the way with words, Mark Twain. It is a homage to Bob’s favorite writer—the channel was named for Mark Twain’s outlook on equality. In his 1869 book, The Innocents Abroad, Twain wrote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." (This was also the epigraph set at the opening of my second cruising book, Cruising Interrupted amzn.to/3seFU8y.)
​
On their channel Innocents Abroad is serious about their craft. Their style is visual storytelling; cinematography of very high quality, combined with choregraphed audio, and historical facts. How a film looks and sounds is very important to them. Journalistic integrity is of utmost importance to them. They emphasize that every cruise and land trip has been and will be out of their own pocket without exception. (They wouldn’t even accept free WIFI to facilitate their vlogging about their travels.)
​
Bob and Holly have an amazing cruise background. 61 cruises to-date including very high-end cruise lines, with plenty more booked. In fact, what motivated me to reach out to Innocents Abroad—Bob and I are friends and followers on social media—he posted that he and Holly were on a 120-day (!) grand tour of cruising in Europe and a wee bit in the Caribbean. They just arrived home, and I am delighted to bring Bob and Holly to the listeners.

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Hello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, John Perri, creator of the John the Wanderer blog, Facebook Page and Instagram. John is a consummate cruise aficionado. He notes “There is something about being on the ocean that is such an awesome experience. Plus having all the food and entertainment included and in one place makes for an awesome vacation. You can’t go wrong with going on a cruise.” Since childhood, he has loved anything to do with travel, and would get cruise brochures and plan trips for his family. To his parent’s amazement he would research destinations and pick the right room on the ship as well as what to do while the family visited the ports. Fast forward to today, John works as a travel advisor and still loves planning trips and hopping on an ship and being whisked off to a tropical destination.  

I teasingly use the analogy of Superman when discussing John. Most of the time he is a mild-mannered travel agent where he can help his clients plan an amazing cruise or land vacation and experience all the fun that he does when he travels, but at other times he becomes John the Wanderer, the super cruiser. For instance, when I first reached out to John we couldn’t schedule a conversation because he was headed to the inaugural cruise for the new Margaritaville at Sea Islander, noting almost apologetically, “I’m not a parrot head or anything, I normally do more luxury cruises like Celebrity, Explora Journeys.” I told him that’s ok—I want to talk about those other lines too. But he would be the 1st to give listeners a report on the Islander. Shortly after Islander, John was also going on Celebrity Beyond a week later for the President’s Cruise, so I definitely wanted to wait so we could have our conversation until after he returned. Then I found out he was about to sail the new Royal Caribbean Utopia of the Seas, the world’s second largest ship. So we deferred our conversation again because I had to hear about that.  
No wonder he is known as John the Wanderer.

Limited time offer John mentioned in the podcast: 
Celebrity Cruises: $150 Onboard Credit for any 6 night or longer Balcony or higher cabin for any sailing in 2024. 
Royal Caribbean: Onboard credit offer up to $150 (Varies depending on the type of room)
Contact me: [email protected]

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Many cruisers demand connectivity at all times. Relying on ship WiFi is slow, unsecure and often not readily available; and at foreign ports core travelers don’t want to pay their carriers’ high roaming fees that range up to $16 per day in some countries. Gig Sky provides a much more economical solution that, over the course of their vacation, will save them a significant amount of money.
​
GigSky provide unparalleled access across the globe: In addition to providing service in over 190 countries, GigSky users are able to use our product while at sea (on over 200 different cruise ships), offshore (throughout the Gulf of Mexico and North Sea) and inflight (on over 20 different airlines). GigSky uses eSIM technology; Launched in 2018 by Apple, eSIMs (embedded-SIMs) act exactly the same as traditional SIM cards, but without the need to fiddle with inserting or removing them.

Eligible Cruise Lines:  https://gigsky.pxf.io/9g1ZPY

Eligible Flights: https://gigsky.pxf.io/anJzmq

​Virtually ALL devices sold in the past 5 years are eSIM enabled and either only have eSIM ports or are considered dual SIM, meaning they have both physical and eSIM capabilities.
Verify your compatibility here: https://www.gigsky.com/enterprise-device-compatibility

​Interested? GigSky offers fixed data plans ranging from 500MB to 50GB; unlimited plans in 7 and 15 day intervals, and even a FREE 100 MB plan, no credit card required, for those who want to test it out. Here is  my link to GigSky:  https://gigsky.pxf.io/nLOXOR Use this code for 10% discount: JOYOFCRUISING

Hello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Nikki and Tommie Jones. As regular listeners and readers of any of The Joy of Cruising books know, among passionate cruise celebrities, musicians, performers, CEOs, or global cruise personalities, we feature “ordinary” cruisers with extraordinary cruise stories. If this podcast was video, you would see me put air quotes around “ordinary” because there is nothing ordinary about Nikki and Tommie, as you will learn. But what I mean is like I have done from time-to-time, I encountered Nikki and Tommie by happenstance in one of the many social media cruising groups I am a part of. And as I am wont to do when I see a cruiser sharing reflections, photos, and videos about some bucket list cruise they experienced, I reached out to them and invited them on the podcast to share with the cruise community. I had extra motivation to request the Jones’ to be on the show—I “met” them on an AmaWaterways FB group—and this bucket list cruise they experienced—the Soulful Epicurean French River Cruise on AmaKristina is at the top of my bucket list and booked! When this podcast episode releases, Cheryl and I will be enroute to France.


Nikki and Tommie are passionate cruisers who are happily married and headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. They are retired U.S. Army Veterans with more than 50 years of combined active-duty service. Nikki served for 20 years, and Tommie served for 30 years. ‘Thank you for your service! They are the owners of Jones Getaways by Dream Vacations. With more than 5 years as Certified Travel Advisors, travel is their life, and their goal is to help people experience the amazing of the world through travel. 

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome UK’s Harry Cotterill, cruise blogger, maritime artist, and creator  Cruise Cotterill. The Cruise Cotterill brand was launched in 2015 and since then Harry's talent for producing one-of-a-kind drawings of the world's cruise ships and other craft has become increasingly talked about around the world. Cruise Cotterill is nominated for cruise awards year after year; he has been shortlisted for the UK Wave Award and was  again nominated in 2024.


To date, Harry's artwork has been presented onboard no less than 100 different ships! He has been commissioned to produce his highly detailed one-of-kind drawings by clients all over the world, as well as cruise lines including Azamara Cruises and Ambassador Cruise Line. His artwork has become so popular he currently has clients securing commissions many months in advance. As a teen, so impressed were his fans and followers that they got together and paid for young Harry's first cruise!
 
Harry first started drawing ships while he was still in school, where he studied art. His artistic skills only improved over time as he continued to draw. As a teenager, Harry had the ambition to become a naval architect and design his own ships. In May 2009, Harry had his first large-scale drawing presented on board Holland America Line's Eurodam at Harwich International Port. This was to be the first of many more presentations to come. After excelling at college, Harry decided to pursue his passion and aim of setting up his own business, Cruise Cotterill. 

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This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Tristan Roebuck-Trull, Justin Roebuck-Trull, and their son young Josh, a couple from UK and creators of Cruise Buoys, rapidly growing YouTube channel, Instagram platform, blog, and Facebook group.  


At https://cruisebuoys.com/: We’re Justin, Tristan, and Josh – the faces behind Cruise Buoys, your new best friends in the vast ocean of cruise travel. Our love story with cruising kicked off in 2019, aboard the majestic P&O Britannia, cruising through the breath-taking Norwegian Fjords. That was it. We were hooked! Fast forward to now, we’ve danced on the decks of MSC Bellissima during a summer dream cruise and have collected memories from P&O, MSC, Costa, Marella, Celebrity Cruises, Virgin Voyages, Cunard, and Princess cruises. And guess what? Our adventure radar is beeping with excitement for our upcoming sails with Royal Caribbean, NCL, and Viking. Oh, and did we mention our mini adventure on Ambassador? Eight hours onboard, but a story for the ages! Why We’re Obsessed with Cruising? It’s simple. Cruising gives us that delicious taste of freedom and exploration we all crave, mixed with a sprinkle of luxury and a whole lot of fun. It’s about waking up to a new horizon every day, indulging in endless culinary delights, and making every moment count. Through our YouTube and Instagram channels, we’re not just sharing our journeys; we’re bringing you into our circle, our family. We’re here to spill the beans on how to make the most out of your cruise, all while keeping it real and fun.
 
I consider Cruise Bloggers, Vloggers, and Content Creators as Cruise Community Champions and have featured them throughout The Joy of Cruising books and on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. Passionate cruisers like Tristan and Justin epitomize the joy of cruising; they are so passionate about cruising that they want to share it with the world! Plus, I have a special affinity with UK content creators—such a passionate cruise community, and the first person to agree to be featured in my first cruising book, The Joy of Cruising http://amzn.to/2EAMddF, was a UK cruise personality.


I have not previously interacted with Cruise Buoys other than as friends and followers on social media. They have fun videos and have sailed a large diversity of cruise lines in their short time as cruise content creators. So, I am looking forward to getting to know someone who clearly embodies the joy of cruising, and enlarging my circle of cruising community friends, and it is now my pleasure to chat with Justin and Tristan, and to share the story of Cruise Buoys with the listeners of The Joy of Cruising Podcast.

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This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Carol McQuaid, artist, writer, blogger, world traveler and creator of The Illustrated Vagabond. I am so excited to bring Carol to the listeners of The Joy of Cruising Podcast--the first seafaring artist in over 200 guests featured in The Joy of Cruising books, and The Joy of Cruising Podcast. (In just a few weeks we will follow up with The Joy of Cruising Podcast's first interview of a maritime artist--Cruise Cotterill, who has drawn and displayed onboard over 100 cruise ships.)  My interview with Carol McQuaid, aka The Illustrated Vagabond, a seafaring artist who travels the world sketching, painting, and teaching art workshops, was loads of fun and informative.

From www.theillustratedvagabond.com: I love to travel, teach and make art. I’ve been showing in galleries and teaching watercolour painting and printmaking around the globe for a few decades. I’m based in Canada but spend more time on the road than not. I get invited on cruise ships to teach watercolour and printmaking, which gives me a great opportunity to travel the globe. I also do workshops and artist-in-residence experiences. I love to draw, especially on location. It used to be in little sketchbooks, some of which I’d make by hand. Now it’s mostly on my iPad, using Procreate. It’s never about what ends up on the paper or posted on social media. It’s about the act of really observing. It’s a meditation. I love that. The drawings on here are all done by hand with an Apple Pencil, not an app. The writing is also done by an actual human, me. I understand there’s a use for AI, but I hope it doesn’t replace real human creative effort. That would make me sad.

Carol just completed the World Voyage on the Azamara Onward as its onboard art instructor. Apart from her love of cruising, and teaching art to passengers, Carol kept a sketchbook of the entire World Voyage and created a gorgeous fully illustrated book that is about to hit the bookshelves. It’s full of all the top port stops, some good planning info, and lots of fun sketches and stories of life onboard. 

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This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Venus Anderson who attended Melanin at Sea’s recent group cruise to Alaska on Celebrity Edge and will share her reflections with the listeners. Venus and I are among the 105 thousand members of Melanin at Sea, one of the most influential of the thousands of private cruising discussion groups on Facebook. It is comprised predominately but not exclusively of cruisers or aspiring cruisers of color. Melanin at Sea was created by friends of the show and global cruise personalities, A Rich and Jazzy Life (Richard and Jasmine Ranmarine) who I featured in my newest book, The Joy of Cruising Again amzn.to/3lAfyON and who have been guests on the podcast. 
 
Venus is the moderator of Melanin at Sea. As I read the posts and enjoyed the images
coming 
from Alaska, I recalled my trip there last year, where I fell in love with Alaska, and wished I was on the group cruise (which by the way, Melanin at Sea group cruises are known to be legend!) Plus, it was on Celebrity’s Edge-class; many of the listeners know my favorite ship is another Edge-class sister, Celebrity Beyond. So as soon as Celebrity Edge disembarked, I reached out to Venus and asked her to come back on The Joy of Cruising Podcast and share her reflections with the listeners. I was confident Venus would be a good representative on behalf of Melanin at Sea. Besides serving as moderator, Venus has been a fun guest on The Joy of Cruising Podcast before. From-time-to-time I invite guests I encounter on social media who post a great story and photos about some bucket list cruise that I think the listeners would enjoy hearing about. Last year I invited Venus on to talk about her bucket list holiday cruise with her daughter to Australia—a destination on my bucket list as well as some of the most experience cruisers I have hosted. Check out Ep 84 Venus’ Sydney, Australia Bucket List Cruise on Carnival Splendor
​
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This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Sarah Gallo AKA The Five Foot Traveler. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah for a feature in my second cruising book Cruising Interrupted amzn.to/3seFU8y in a section called The Globetrotters, featuring travelers, passionate cruisers all, who transcend cruising in traversing the globe. The others featured in The Globetrotters—John Robert’s of In the Loop Travel Ep 6, and Mr. Scott Eddy Ep 29—have since been guests on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. Life happens however, and there have been some major developments in Sarah’s already busy life, so we are just now getting the chance to catch up with The Five Foot Traveler.

Sarah Gallo is professionally known as a Destination Marketer and Travel Expert to the many audiences she stands in front of at international travel and hospitality events and symposia. She is a writer, content creator, keynote speaker, and photographer. Sarah is also known as The Five Foot Traveler to the travel blogosphere, her legion of fans on social media, and to the digital marketing world where she reigns among the elite when it comes to travel influencers. Launched in 2013, The Five Foot Traveler specializes in luxury accommodations, adventure activities, and cultural immersion worldwide. 

It was fun to interview Sarah for Cruising Interrupted, especially the story about a major cruise line hiring Sarah to do a marketing campaign where she got to sample each of the line’s Caribbean excursions. Sarah was featured in a series of destination excursions commercials to be shown on the ship’s television for a major cruise line. She got the opportunity to do every excursion available from swimming with the stingrays in Grand Cayman, to bobsledding in Jamaica (4000-foot sled coaster ride down a mountain and through a rainforest), to snorkeling in Cozumel, to the Flying Dutchman in St. Maarten, the world’s steepest zip line, 

Now I am looking forward to hearing what fun things has Sarah been up to since we spoke several years ago. 

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