The Joy of Cruising Podcast

Send us Fan Mail In my effort to portray cruising in all its diversity, now for something completely different. This week The Joy of Cruising Podcast is delighted to welcome Cris Kostiuk, creator of Cris the Cruising Duck Man. Let me preface by saying that for the most part up until recently, I have been rather ambivalent toward the phenomenon of hiding and finding toy ducks on cruise ships. First...

Send us Fan Mail I am delighted to welcome back to The Joy of Cruising Podcast Mikkel and Dan, creators of the Sometimes Sailing cruise website and Instagram . Mikkel and Dan are special friends, and this is a special episode.   I got to know Mikkel and Dan when I wrote about Sometimes Sailing in my new release The Joy of Cruising Again http://amzn.to/3lAfyON where I wrote about their penchant for...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I present to you something quite different than what you are used to hearing from me. It’s a cruise news story—an absolutely amazing one. First, let me welcome to the show Cailyn. Joshua is an entrepreneur in Tulsa, Oklahoma who is a central figure in said cruise news story, and as a busy entre...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome Melissa Davis, and have a conversation with her about how she grew from running Port Shopping Programs onboard cruise ships to providing Port Shopping information and running  to all cruisers as a private entrepreneur. After running shopping programs on Crystal Cruises...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , it is my pleasure to welcome back a special guest, Chef Rudi Sodamin , a culinary virtuoso of the seas. Chef Rudi is Princess Cruises' first Head of Culinary Arts effective January 2024. When I chatted with him back in December, Ep 71 , we talked about his pending new role, along with his existing role as...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Heidi Sarna and Ted Scull’s Q uirky Cruise , which was featured in my second cruise book, C ruising Interrupted in a section called “Specialty Cruising: Fun and Quirky.” When I first interviewed Heidi and Ted I knew very little about small shipcruising, that is, a sma...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, a special guest, Patrice Covington. We were introduced to Patrice on our recent anniversary cruise to the A, B, and C Islands in the Southern Caribbean on Celebrity Ascent. Patrice put on a show, I’m Your Whitney Tonight, a Whitney Houston Tribute. Patrice Covington is an...

Send us Fan Mail Hello passionate cruisers, this is Paul. This week on The Joy Of Cruising Podcast Cheryl and I will share our reflections on our recent cruise—a 9-day sailing to the Southern Caribbean—A, B, C Islands aboard Celebrity Cruises newest ship, the latest in its Edge-class, the Ascent. A, B, C  is an acronym for Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.    The full itinerary of Ascent was embarkation...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Roland and Emma , a couple I first met on a Facebook cruise group, and I immediately anointed them as my new travel role models. That cruise group happened to be the most influential on Facebook—the 106,000 member Melanin At Sea, created by friends of the show and glo...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Joy Of Cruising Podcast we want to revisit a show from earlier in the year February 12, Episode 79 The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Bucket List Cruises 2024-2025 where we discussed our plans to check some milestone cruises off our overflowing bucket list over the course of this year and next. This is a mini episode as we are on a cruise to the Southern Caribbean. It m...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week to The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Jamie Robins, creator of Travel Blog Jamie , a blog and YouTube channel. I first met Jamie over a year ago when I hosted each of the finalists for The Wave Awards who had not previously been on the show . The Wave Awards, UK cruise industry’s premier award; included a...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , fun couple Scott and Tom, creators of Vitamin Sea UK. They were on a year ago and were a lot of fun and I can tell from Instagram they have sailed more fun cruises so we want to hear all about them. Vitamin Sea UK’s credo is ‘Sailing the seven seas (and rivers), two...

Send us Fan Mail The Joy of Cruising  is delighted to welcome sisters Juliet & Janice, creators of Cruise Sisters . The Cruise Sisters brand launched in 2015.  I am pleased to note that Juliet and Janice are our first guests from Germany.  The Cruise Sisters love traveling, especially at sea, and have been cruising together since 2009. They  have been on over 65 cruises, and through their blog...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, John Shallo, the founder and editor of Cruise Addicts , a premier online community for cruise travelers. John’s love for cruising began after his first cruise in 1989. He later established Cruise Addicts in 1999 to share his passion for cruise travel with others, and it ha...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Cathy and Emma, creators of Cruise Addicted— YouTube channel, blog, Facebook and Instagram platform; and shortlist candidate for The Wave Awards, Favorite Cruise Influencer . Let me set the stage by pointing out The Wave Awards is the UK cruise industry’s premier award; in...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Sandra and Chris, creator of BritsOnAShip , blog, YouTube channel, and Instagram platform; and shortlist candidate for The Wave Awards, Favorite Cruise Influencer . Let me set the stage by pointing out The Wave Awards is the UK cruise industry’s premier award; included are...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week I am delighted to welcome to The Joy of Cruising Podcast Leslie Nilsen, creator of Point My Soul North blog, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Instagram platform. Leslie is a passionate traveler and cruiser, and recently completed a major cruising milestone and a tiny percentage of us have anything like that. She sailed the ent...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Kristen Owens . Kristin’s debut novel, Elizabeth Sails (Rising Action Publishing Co/Simon & Schuster), launched two days ago. What can be better than discussing with the author the use of an actual cruise ship, The Queen Elizabeth , as a setting.    Kristin told me, “A...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome Kevine and Vincent McMillan, creators of McMillan’s On The Go . This episode is one of those I podcast about occasionally when I come across photos and narrative about some unique, bucket list experience. Kevine had posted the following on social media, along with some...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Chef Bri Bullard, creator of Authentique Delights . I learned of Chef Bri when I hosted Nikki and Tommie Jones of Jones Getaways podcast a couple months ago Ep 123 . The Jones’ had traveled on AmaWaterways Soulful Epicurean French River Cruise on AmaKristina in June, a bucket list cruis...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast , I am delighted to welcome Sarah Dandashy, Ask A Concierge. From time-to-time I have been fortunate enough to host a travel icon who—though they have experienced bucket list cruises—they transcend cruising. These individuals are so influential in travel that I want them to share their story and perspectives, with the listeners. At the same...

Send us Fan Mail As an author of cruising books and continuing that same premise in the form of a podcast, I have learned of a large variety of vessels, destinations and experiences that I barely knew existed before I started capturing these stories. Accordingly, as The Joy of Cruising Podcast listeners know, my cruising bucket list runneth over. In August, Cheryl and I got the opportunity to chec...

Send us Fan Mail Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Neil Gregory, a seven-year former videographer on several ships for Princess Cruises. During those years, Neil kept, and continues to update a diary of his time working onboard ships. His story as reflected in his diary is real, raucous and laugh-out-loud funny! “Crui...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, a special guest straight from somewhere in the world, Todd Truax , a passenger on Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise on Serenade of the Seas which departed Miami December 10, 2023. Todd, along with his wife Gina are two-thirds of the way through the world cruise and is scheduled to disembark in Miami on Septe...