Sea of Glamour, The Joy of Cruising Podcast, 11/16

This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Kandes Bregman of Sea of Glamour. The name combines Kandes’ love of the sea with hints of her past life as a beauty pageant winner. I wrote about the former Mrs. Southwest and Holland America Line super cruiser in my second cruising book, Cruising Interrupted amzn.to/3seFU8y in a section called “Cruisers Like You and Me... Sort Of.”  Kandes is the consummate Holland America Line cruiser. When I met her, I told Kandes there should be a photo of her on the HAL homepage. In fact, after researching Kandes and reviewing Sea of Glamour, I opened up my Cruising Interrupted interview with Kandes by stating facetiously, “You should be in a Holland America Line advertisement!” Kandes responded, “Well, I was....”


I am not implying Kandes is HAL’s most prolific cruiser or biggest fan, but she would be a good personification of the joy of cruising on Holland America Line. First, from a sheer quantitative perspective: Kandes has cruised virtually all of her over 100 cruises on HAL, visiting 87 countries on six continents and spending the equivalent of almost four years of her life at sea with HAL—all the more remarkable given that Kandes has been cruising with HAL since just 2000. And, while perhaps there are those out there who exist, it is hard to imagine someone who is more of an ambassador for HAL. Kandes is a five-star Mariner—which is HAL’s customer loyalty program—and has over 100 referrals of cruisers booked and sailed on HAL, several of whom are now four and five-star Mariners themselves. 


At the beginning of my new book The Joy of Cruising Again, I quoted a number of passionate cruisers who I was confident had immediately gotten back on the ocean. When I contacted Kandes for a quote last year, she told me. “I returned to cruising in October 2021, for an 18-day Panama Canal cruise on Holland America Line Nieuw Amsterdam; I was so excited to be back, and we sailed eight more cruises over the next seven months!” That’s a passionate cruiser!

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