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Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Emma of the massively successful Emma Cruises. Emma is one of the most …
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Emma of the massively successful Emma Cruises. Emma is one of the most well-known cruise personalities in the world—and she is still in her 20’s. I first met her in 2019 after Emma shocked the UK cruising community at age 23 by winning the UK Wave Award for Best Cruise Blogger for her irreverently named blog, “Cruising Isn’t Just for Old People.” I was writing my first cruise book, The Joy of Cruising amzn.to/2EAMddF, so I reached out to Emma, and she becam…
Paul Thornton
January 19, 2025 Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Melissa Newman.Melissa Newman is a university professor who loves to cruise.…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Melissa Newman.Melissa Newman is a university professor who loves to cruise. For most of her life, she held two full-time jobs, serving as professor and also running a nonprofit organization. In 2022 she decided to stop letting work dominate her life and she exited the nonprofit sector and used her newly found free time to pursue one of her passions... Travel. And specifically, cruise travel. She now cruises monthly and creates content to share with others what she learns…
Paul Thornton
January 15, 2025 Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, a special guest, Magical Bones. We were introduced to Bones on our recent anniversary crui…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, a special guest, Magical Bones. We were introduced to Bones on our recent anniversary cruise to the A, B, and C Islands in the Southern Caribbean on Celebrity Ascent. Bones was a headliner that put on a show that was spellbinding, funny, and captivating as Bones broke into breakdancing! So, I enjoyed his performance but I was knocked off my feet as he shared his story of growing up Black in UK; getting into Bboying, and then into magic.Magical Bones is one of the most exciting talents …
Paul Thornton
January 12, 2025 Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Kim Anderson, global nomad, host, and creator of the Design Her Travel podca…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Kim Anderson, global nomad, host, and creator of the Design Her Travel podcast. Design Her Travel inspires you to live the life of your dreams and incorporate more travel into your daily life. Each week you'll discover travel tips and tales from individuals doing just that. Whether you're dreaming of taking your first trip or an experienced globetrotter, each week—through guest interviews and solo episodes—you'll hear inspiring stories and discover prov…
Paul Thornton
January 8, 2025 Send us a textThis week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Matthew Jones of The Cruise Maps. Based in UK, their ingenious, unique products based on maps of your cruise journey i…
Send us a textThis w…
Send us a textThis week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Matthew Jones of The Cruise Maps. Based in UK, their ingenious, unique products based on maps of your cruise journey is far more than meets the eye. It all starts with your cruise shipʼs navigation system. While it was designed to help seafarers identify other ships and safely navigate the seas, it also enables The Cruise Maps to remotely follow the progress of every ship in the world in real time. A massive global network of satellite and land-based receivers are continuously sending signals them back to databa…
Paul Thornton
January 5, 2025 Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome a special guest, Colleen McDaniel. Among the global cruise personalities,…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome a special guest, Colleen McDaniel. Among the global cruise personalities, we are blessed to host, today, I am honored to welcome another one of those Googleable individuals (is that a word...yes) we occasionally have the honor to host. Colleen McDaniel is Editor-in-Chief of Cruise Critic. She considers cruising to be a true passion, having traveled the world by water – from Alaska, the Caribbean and Hawaii, to Europe’s rivers, Antarctica and Africa – on ships of…
Paul Thornton
January 1, 2025 Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Brandee and Shannon Lake, a couple of special guests who were recently sailo…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Brandee and Shannon Lake, a couple of special guests who were recently sailors, roommates on Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise on Serenade of the Seas. We want to get their reflections about the special cruise which left Miami December 10, 2023, and disembarked in Miami on September 10, 2024. Shortly after embarkation Ultimate World Cruise became a social media sensation, and for several passengers it became a social media obsession. One of the best known of those…
Paul Thornton
December 29, 2024 Send us a textI am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Jon Saxx, saxophonist extraordinaire. I first experienced Jon on a cruise we attended prior to the shutdown—Festival…
Send us a textI am d…
Send us a textI am delighted to welcome this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Jon Saxx, saxophonist extraordinaire. I first experienced Jon on a cruise we attended prior to the shutdown—Festival at Sea. Jon was a ‘house musician’ for Festival at Sea, the longest-running African-American cultural cruise. Created by African-American entrepreneur and owner of San Francisco’s Blue World Travel Agency, Patricia Yarbrough, Festival at Sea has put on over 35 consecutive years of sold out full ship charters of its annual cruise. In addition to Festival at Sea, Patricia’s affiliate brand,…
Paul Thornton
December 25, 2024 Send us a textIn 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…
Send us a textIn my …
Send us a textIn 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 of all, I assumed it would be a short-lived trend that would fade away. Wrong! Secondly, I kind of thought it was mainly for kids—and since I no longer have young children to cruise with I have “age…
Paul Thornton
December 22, 2024 Send us a textI 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…
Send us a textI am d…
Send us a textI 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 small ship cruising as well as “ship-within-a-ship” spaces, for instance, Celebrity Cruises The Retreat, Norwegian Haven, and Princess Cruises Medallion Class. I hosted Sometimes Sailing on The Joy o…
Paul Thornton
December 18, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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 crui…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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 entrepreneur was not able to join us. I don’t normally cover cruise news. I leave that up to others who are renown and much better than I am about covering that sort of thing. However, Cailyn and her fam…
Paul Thornton
December 15, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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 r…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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, Regent, Oceania, Viking, and Marella, and launching the first and only onshore shopping program on Viking River Cruises, Melissa decided to create an online recommended and guaranteed shopping program…
Paul Thornton
December 11, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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 …
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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 Master Chef for Holland America Line (HAL)—which I am particularly excited about as we cruise on HAL a couple times in 2025. Carnival Cruise Corporation—parent company of HAL, as well as Princess—was …
Paul Thornton
December 8, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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 Quirky Cruise, which was featured in my s…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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 Quirky Cruise, which was featured in my second cruise book, Cruising 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 small ship designed to hold 300 or fewer passengers; some low double digits, even single digits! These small ships can range from spartan to ultra-luxury, and because of their size and design can access …
Paul Thornton
December 4, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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 rec…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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 Emmy award winning Broadway, television and film actress. She is an accomplished singer, actor, voice over artist, media personality and educator of the arts. As a broadway veteran, Patrice has graced t…
Paul Thornton
December 1, 2024 Send us a textHello 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…
Send us a textHello …
Send us a textHello 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 at FLL followed by a sea day; a stop at Cayman/Georgetown, a seaday, then Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire, then 2 sea days on the way back to Ft. Lauderdale. We’ve gone on longer cruises and enjoyed t…
Paul Thornton
November 28, 2024 Send us a textHello, 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…
Send us a textHello,…
Send us a textHello, 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 global cruise personalities A Rich and Jazzy Life. Roland and Emma were the first guests to come on The Joy of Cruising Podcast not as global cruise personalities, but as “ordinary” cruisers to talk to…
Paul Thornton
November 24, 2024 Send us a textThis 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 di…
Send us a textThis w…
Send us a textThis 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 may be mini in length but this The Joy Of Cruising Podcast episode packs a major punch in terms of a couple of substantial updates that directly impact the bucket list cruise journey that we are still. …
Paul Thornton
November 20, 2024 
