Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Alan Shapiro to The Joy of Cruising Podcast, to talk about what it was like 20+ Years Working and Living on Over 15 Cruise Ships. Alan shared with me: “I worked on 7 different cruise lines and probably at least 15 ships. Some of my more exciting cruises included going to Antarctica, cruising down the Amazon River, going on a Nude Cruise to Alaska. I even was o...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Damion & Quanda EXP, Travel with Us to The Joy of Cruising Podcast. They shared with me: We’re Damion and Quanda, a couple whose love story started fast and hasn’t slowed down since. Damion moved from Jamaica in 2012, met Quanda, and just three months later, we were married. More than a decade later, we’re raising our two adventurous boys (10 and 11), buil...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast I am delighted to welcome back my cohost Cheryl. For the first time since we moved into our new house, we are doing a podcast together. Some of you know the past several weeks have been quite hectic for us. We have been slowly moving from North Carolina to Virginia during that time. Weekly we would drive a load of stuff to the home we bought in September. Right in the middle of this moving pro...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome back Gail and Mike, from UK and creators of the Sail With Gail and Mike YouTube channel, Instagram platform, and Facebook group. Check out their previous episode at where they were present at Cunard’s Queen Anne’s official naming ceremony at the Liverpool waterfront. Gail and Mike are from Liverpool, UK, and Cunard had announced the unprecedented decision to choose t...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome Wayne Schell as my guest on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. Wayne is the 89-year-old owner of Laguna Del Sol near Sacramento, CA, one of the largest, most well-known clothing optional resorts in the us. He also owns Mira Vista, another clothing optional resort in Tucson, AR. I first met Wayne on my other podcast, Lucid Driver Podcast, which is about my dream car, the electric vehicle and one of the fastest cars in the world. Wa...

Send us a text Welcome passionate cruisers. Our brief thoughts about our dream cruise to the Panama Canal on Holland America Line Rotterdam. Support the show Support thejoyofcruisingpodcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/2113608/supporters/new Support Me https://www.buymeacoffee.com/drpaulth Contact Me https://www.thejoyofcruising.net/contact-me.html Book Cruises http://www.thejoyofvacation.com/ US Orders (coupon code joyofcruisingpodcast) The Joy of Cruising https://bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruising Cruis...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Kenneth Jarvis. Ken is a confirmed Global Traveler (he’s visited 6 continents); Frequent Flyer (1.5 Million Miles on American Airlines and it’s One world Partners); Frequent Floater (118 cruises all in suites, Pinnacle with Royal Caribbean / Zenith with Celebrity); and Business Traveler (Senior Director in Global Networks and Technology for a major telecom company).&...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast i am delighted to welcome back a special guest, my cohost Cheryl. As you know we are largely in the bucket list checking stage of our lives, and just got the opportunity to check one off. We recently traveled to Las Vegas. That’s not the bucket list check I am referring to—we have been to Vegas a zillion times. An aside, we used to own a chain of video stores—memba them—and the annual conferen...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Roland and Emma, certainly worthy to join the handful of guests who have been on the podcast for three times. I first met Roland and Emma a couple of years ago on the 119,000 member Melanin At Sea, created by friends of the show and global cruise personalities A Rich and Jazzy Life, and I anointed them as my new travel role models, after they posted photos and desc...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am honored to welcome a special guest, Richard Fain, Chairman and former CEO of Royal Caribbean Group (RCG). Mr. Fain’s new book, Delivering the WOW: Culture as Catalyst for Lasting Success (October 21, 2025; Fast Company Press), reveals actionable lessons from Royal Caribbean’s rapid growth: a culture that motivated employees to deliver WOWs to customers, transforming the customer and empl...

Send us a text This week I am delighted to welcome back to The Joy of Cruising Podcast Iris MacBeath creator of the blog Life of Iris. I wrote the story of Life of Iris in my latest book The Joy of Cruising Again amzn.to/3lAfyON in a section called “Ship life,” which followed the career of four past and present crew, staff, and officers from three different cruise lines. At the time, I wrote that In the community that comprises onboard life, Iris is a dual member: first, not only is sh...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome back Gary Bembridge, the embodiment of the successful Tips For Travellers blog, podcast, and most notably, YouTube channel. I have to be careful introducing Gary, lest you think of me as being sensationalistic. I’ll just give you one opinion, and one fact about Gary. It is my opinion that Gary is the smartest person out there when it comes to cruising; regardless of ...

Send us a text Hello passionate cruisers. This week I am delighted to welcome Matt Hochberg, creator of the Royal Caribbean Blog, indisputably the leading unofficial source for all things Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. To say he dominates his space is an understatement. The Royal Caribbean Blog YouTube channel is the second most popular cruise channel in the world, with 378,000 subscribers, its blog is the third most visited in the world and the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is a consensus top t...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Chris Gray Faust, Executive Editor of Cruise Critic, the world’s largest online cruise resource. Former travel editor of USA Today, and the winner of a Lowell Thomas travel writing award, Chris has visited more than 100 countries. She speaks frequently on the topic of cruising, and her expertise has been featured in dozens of media outlets, including Forbes, NBC...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back to The Joy of Cruising Podcast Ilana of Life Well Cruised. Ilana is one of my best friends in the cruising blogosphere, having been featured in my second cruise book, Cruising Interrupted http://amzn.to/3seFU8y, and on the podcast twice before. Life Well Cruised was the second episode ever of The Joy of Cruising Podcast Episode 2, Life Well Cruised; Life Well Cruised was also on Episode 95, Ilana, Life Wel...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome James and Tracey, making memories one trip at a time, and creators of The Traveling Type YouTube channel, and Instagram. As frequent listeners know, I watch cruise YouTube videos incessantly as I work on the podcast seemingly every waking hour—often with the sound down. When a The Traveling Type video comes on, I turn the sound up because I know they are l...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome to The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Jessica Jane Peterson, embodiment of Jessica Jane Magic, a dazzling magician, daredevil, and an experienced sleight-of-hand artist with more than 10,000 shows under her belt—many while performing on the ocean. Jessica has performed on cruise ships sailing to over 42 countries and has also entertained on tours for the men and women serving...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome back RacQuelle and Ron, creators of the fast-growing MH Family Adventures, YouTube channel, Instagram platform, and Facebook Group. How fast is MH Family Adventures growing? We then were on the podcast well over a year-and-a-half ago YouTube channel had 15k subscribers, impressive especially give that less than 2 years prior, RacQuelle was a full-time educator. Now t...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back to The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Ben & David creators of Cruise with Ben & David, one of the top cruise brands in the world, certainly when it comes to content creators and cruise influencers. They have a massively successful YouTube channel with over 320k subscribers—in the top five of all cruise channels. This is the 3rd time Cruise with Ben & David has been on The Joy of Cruising Podcast—you ...

Send us a text Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Anwar and Lametrius Arif, creators of the Mete and I YouTube channel, Instagram, and Facebook page. As frequent listeners know, I watch cruise YouTube videos incessantly as I work on the podcast seemingly every waking hour—often with the sound down. When a Mete and I video comes on I turn the sound up! Their channel is described as follows. “Our channel is ded...