I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast Dan and Jay, creators of the UK-based cruise blog and YouTube channel, Sail Away with Dan and Jay. Let me set the stage by pointing out that the Wave Awards is the UK cruise industry’s premier award; included are award categories for cruise lines, ships, travel agencies, and most pertinent to The Joy of Cruising Podcast--Favorite Cruise Blogger. As you are aware I greatly appreciate cruise bloggers and vloggers and have written about them extensively. In the books, I call them “cruise community champions.” Several of the cruise personalities I have featured in The Joy of Cruising Trilogy and The  Joy of  Cruising Podcast are previous Wave Awards winners and finalists. This year’s award ceremony will be held in London in November. Most of the 2023 Favorite Cruise Blogger finalists have been featured in the books and/or guests on the podcast. Sail Away with Dan and Jay has not, and I thought this was a great opportunity to enlarge my circle of cruise friends, learn about Dan and Jay, and share another couple of passionate cruisers' stories with the cruise community.


Dan and Jay haven’t been at cruise blogging and vlogging for that long, but they have entered the cruise influencer space in a big way. Sail Away with Dan and Jay started out as a hobby, based on a shared passion for cruises and traveling. The cruises aspect of that hobby is relatively new—at least for Dan—he sailed his first cruise post cruising lockdown! That’s certainly not the case with Jay, who first cruised as a child, and went on to serve in the merchant navy.)


One characteristic of the Sail Away with Dan and Jay YouTube channel distinguishes them from most of the YouTube content creators I have interviewed. That is, you rarely see them in their videos! When I was researching them, the first several videos I watched, their faces were not shown at all, and when I did finally see them, it was just a brief cameo. However, their voiceover narrative is constant, comprehensive, and very informative. They note on their website, “Our channel is a little different to the others on the list, as we don’t feature our faces—and therefore don’t class ourselves as “vloggers". Our videos are cinematic, with the aim of showing the viewer as much of the ship as possible.”


In the midst of their excitement about making the shortlist for the Wave Awards, they are also celebrating the launch of their Sail Away Cruise Travel Magazine. I'll let them tell you all about that—now let me go subscribe so I can be entered to win a cruise on the world’s only remaining ocean liner, Queen Mary 2!

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This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Gary Bembridge, the embodiment of the successful Tips For Travellers blog, podcast, and most notably, YouTube channel. Oh c’mon, ‘successful’ is an understatement. With 400,000 followers, and over a 140 million views, Tips For Travellers is the world’s leading cruise channel…by far.


I featured Gary and Tips For Travellers in Cruising Interrupted amzn.to/3seFU8y in a section called “The Cruise Communicators.” Gary founded Tips for Travellers as a pastime to occupy himself during his travels—two to three weeks out of a typical month—as a Marketing Vice President for a multinational firm. Gary has since retired as a corporate executive and now operates Tips for Travellers full-time. By the way, he has maintained his record that began during his corporate career of traveling every month consecutively for over 25 years!


Beyond cruising, Gary’s backstory is multifaceted, fascinating and diverse. With regard to cruising, his content is similarly fascinating and diverse. Gary sails a wide breadth of cruise brands from formal cruising on his beloved Cunard, to brash newcomer Virgin Voyages, the largest ships in the world, to ultra-luxury five-star small ship cruising. I suspect one reason Gary is able to draw and grow such a huge following on YouTube that he is able to talk about a five-figure per person cruise that most of his viewers will never sail, and yet they are transfixed to the images on the screen and Gary’s informative delivery.  Whenever I finish one of Gary’s videos, I feel like I am back in college—except learning about something I love!


Gary epitomizes the kind of individuals I wrote about in The Joy of Cruising Trilogy and/or interview on The Joy of Cruising Podcast—passionate cruisers who act on their passion in fascinating ways. From part-time blogger to the top in the world!

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I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Jamie Robins, creator of Travel Blog Jamie, a blog and YouTube channel. Let me set the stage by pointing out The Wave Awards is the UK cruise industry’s premier award; included are award categories for cruise lines, ships, travel agencies, and most pertinent to this The Joy of Cruising Podcast episode--Favorite Cruise Blogger. As you are aware I greatly appreciate cruise bloggers and vloggers and have written about them extensively. In the books, I call them “cruise community champions.” Several of the cruise personalities I have featured in The Joy of Cruising Trilogy, as well as The Joy of Cruising Podcast are previous Wave Awards winners and finalists. This year’s award ceremony will be held in London in November.

​Most of the 2023 Favorite Cruise Blogger finalists have been featured in the books and/or guests on the podcast. Travel Blog Jamie has not, and I thought this was a great opportunity to get to know Jamie and to share a passionate cruiser’s story with the cruise community.


Jamie is an educator by training—he has degrees in Spanish and French and a master’s degree in linguistics. Jamie has lived in both Spain and France and currently lives in London. He’s been involved with teaching Spanish and French/education leadership for 25 years. This is a special time for Jamie; besides being a Wave Award finalist, he is about to embark on a new chapter. Jamie is giving up all leadership roles, reducing teaching significantly, and pursuing vlogging as his primary career. 

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​I am delighted to welcome Christine Beehler this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. I wrote about Chris in my second cruising book, Cruising Interrupted amzn.to/3seFU8y in a section called “More Joy of Cruising,” which was originally the title of the follow-up to The Joy of Cruising. Then the pandemic happened. Excerpt here: www.thejoyofcruising.net/cruising-interrupted-blog/excerpt-chapter-5-got-covid-onboard-cruising-interrupted-but-not-stopped
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I first encountered Chris when we became kindred spirits, so to speak. We were among a group of cruise enthusiasts interviewed by CNN. com during the pandemic for an article about interest in cruising as soon as possible, “Cruise Fans Explain Why They Can’t Wait To Cruise Again,” by Francesca Street (July 24, 2020). All the cruisers interviewed were eager to get back on the ocean again; well, all except yours truly! I came across as the most cautious of the bunch, in stark contrast to Chris. 
 
The article began with a depiction of Chris’ cruise which took place in March 2020—at the dawn of the pandemic—on the ill-fated Princess Cruises Coral Princess, which was denied docking after the pandemic declaration and then was stricken with a Covid outbreak. That opening to the article immediately caught my attention; then it said, “...Beehler returned home on April 6; she also tested positive for coronavirus. Beehler is 72, with a partial right lung. She also suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema.....”
Most remarkable of all, the article went on to point out, Chris can’t wait to cruise again! 
 
I knew I would have to reach out to Chris as she sounded like the kind of passionate cruiser I had come to love to interview. I was right; Chris has traveled extensively worldwide, and particular via cruise in the last ten years, and she agreed to be featured in Cruising Interrupted. In the process of interviewing her, we would spend hours with Chris telling me about the ill-fated Coral Princess saga—a high seas drama that I could easily visualize on the big screen. Of course, there’s a lot more to Chris’ cruising career than that Coral Princess cruise. It is a pleasure to host Chris on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, to get some insight into both her cruise background, and The Drama On the High Seas!

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