The Joy of Cruising Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Mike Jirout. Mike is one of those entrepreneurs who transcend consumer cruising history. Along with his brother he created Ship Mate, which I’m sure many of us remember: the first mobile app for the cruise industry in 2009 when Apple first opened up its infrastructure...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Jeff Cuellar , Chief Executive Officer, Sixthman, which offers Music Festival Experiences at Sea. I love all my guests, but Jeff is a particularly coveted one because as many of you know, I love theme cruises and thinks ever regular cruiser should put one on their buck...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am honored to welcome Filippos Venetopoulos , Chief Executive Officer, Variety Cruises. Variety has been creating a better world at sea for over 75 years, offering travelers the comforts and unique benefits of small ship cruising while exploring the true identity of a destination.   Filippos...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast I am delighted to welcome Wayne and Charlotte Carter , first guests I have hosted who can share with guests all about Norwegian Cruise Lines new flagship, NCL Luna . They had a wonderful itinerary: Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Tortola, British Virgin Islands; and,...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Ralph DeFalco , a former U.S. Navy Captain turned cruise ship enrichment speaker, who brings a rare blend of global experience and storytelling to audiences at sea. As a Smithsonian Journeys Expert as well as a speaker with Ritz-Carlton, Ponant and Viking , DeFalco lec...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul, and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am excited to welcome Reign and Royce, the creators of Life of R and R . Reign and Royce are 10- and 8-year-old cruise and lifestyle content creators from Atlanta, Georgia. They've been cruising since they were just eight months old and have since traveled to 19 countries on 37 and 36 c...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Carra Miller , a maritime attorney. I have long wanted to bring to listeners a perspective of matters of law and passenger rights when it comes to cruising. I have been amazed at some of my findings regarding a cursory look at some those matters and I suspect, Carra wi...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Jason Gelineau. Jason is the answer to a The Joy of Cruising Podcast trivia question, as he is the dad of a previous guest, the lovely violinist and cruise ship performer and Grammy winner, Emily Gelineau, my guest for Ep 199 but I certainly don’t mean to trivialize Ja...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Josianne Jocelyn, Travel With Josianne. Josianne worked for several years for different travel agencies.   Josianne told me, “I was born in Haiti. I came to the US 40 years ago. I come from a family of 6 children (like me). I lived in Brooklyn through high school. (Lik...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Tiana, Crew Life On Deck. Tiana works in a hotel department, on a European river cruise ship called, The Excellence Countess, a Swiss-operated river cruise vessel. I met her on Instagram where her profile said, “Facts about people working on cruise ships.” You know tha...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome back Colin Stewart. Colin was a guest along with another Future Cruise Director, Nick Jackson , when I featured the new brand Cruise with Colin and Nick , Episode 88 . I featured Nick in my latest book, The Joy of Cruising Again , and when interviewing Nick for The Joy...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Rose Perry, SipWatchTravel . Just being a cruise enthusiast and world traveler means she has the kind of stories that I would like to bring to my listeners, but there is so much more to Rose.   Rose is a certified sommelier and lifestyle creator behind SipWatchTravel ,...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul, and let me introduce my co-host for today’s episode, Cheryl. Welcome to this episode featuring our reflections on Virgin Voyages newest lady ship, Brilliant Lady which we had the pleasure to sail March 12-21 on a special sailing known as a Red Hot Sailing Club Voyage , special voyages—I think there’s a couple per year—that feature a specia...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome back Billy D. Washington . Billy D. was one of my first guests three years ago way back on Episode 8 . He also was the first stand-up comedian I have hosted on the podcast, and regular listeners know I have since had several comedians and other cruise ship performers g...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate travelers! This is Paul, welcome to this special episode pertaining solely to our 14-Day Kenya & Egypt—Safaris, Great Pyramids & Nile River Cruise bucket list trip. An unforgettable journey through the wilds of Kenya and the treasures of Egypt! Discover the legendary Maasai Mara Natural Reserve, the scene of the annual Great Migration. At Lake Nakuru, con...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Dixie Krystals, of Virgin Voyages. I met Dixie on my first cruise on Virgin Voyages, a transatlantic cruise from Miami to Barcelona, Spain aboard Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady a couple of years ago. Dixie was “ The Diva,” on Scarlet Lady.  I experienced Dixie in several...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Sam Catling, Owner and Host of the unique YouTube podcast, Decktales, and Author , Seems Like  Smooth Sailing.   Sam told me, “I've been chipping away at DeckTales since November 2023, have written a book or two myself. I live in London.” The mission statement for...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome back Kathy Lu, Regional Director, Trade Sales, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. When Kathy was here over a year ago, she represented a different luxury brand. I am excited to hear from Kathy now about The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. I perused their website, linked be...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome back Jason Venner. In a section called Specialty Cruising: Fun and Quirky , I wrote about Jason in my book Cruising Interrupted in a chapter titled, Cruise Entertainment Producer, Director, Creator, MC Extraordinaire! And Jason joined me for a podcast of that same name...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome my friend Emery Gill, aka DJ Gilla. I call him my friend as I first interacted with DJ Gilla on a long cruise, our first transatlantic, it was Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady where I would find some shade around the pool and chill, or groove, depending on what he was spinn...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul, and this is Cheryl, and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast we are pleasedto present our reflections of the Soul Train Cruise 2026 we just experienced the first week of February. It was a welcome respite from a very busy last few months as I think most of you are aware we went through the process of relocating from North Carolina to V...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome back Jill and Jerry , creators of Cruising Canucks the Canada-based blog, YouTube channel, Facebook Group and Instagram platform. I always enjoy meeting passionate cruisers who are like me, curious about what the cruising world offers and who got out of their way to sh...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome back Bill, creator of Ritzy Travel Guide . I became familiar with Ritzy Travel Guide during my aimless browsing of YouTube cruise channels . I noticed I would stop on Ritzy Travel Guide because the videos were not only rich in production value but also rich with inform...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast ; I am delighted to welcome Rubin Ervin as my guest.     RUBIN ERVIN is the short guy with the big voice! He doubles as the Announcer and the Warm-up guy for the #1 game show in the country, Family Feud . Rubin started his career having the Slime of his life as a child actor for Nickelodeon Studi...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on I am delighted to welcome Daniel Edward to The Joy of Cruising Podcast . He shared with me:   “I started cruising with Royal Caribbean, where I was Cruise Director's Staff, then promoted to Activities Manager. I was first a Cruise Director over there in 2018. After the pandemic, I returned to cruising with Holland Amer...