The Joy of Cruising Podcast

10 Episodes
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By: Paul C. Thornton

The Joy of Cruising Podcast is a conversation with one of the dozens of amazing cruisers with fascinating stories that have been featured in The Joy of Cruising Trilogy—The Joy of Cruising, Cruising Interrupted, and new, The Joy of Cruising Again. In addition there will be conversations with global cruise personalities and cruisers I encounter with fascinating stories the cruise community would enjoy hearing.  Order here: The Joy of Cruising; Cruising Interrupted; bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruisingAgain; Contact Me 

Professor Melissa, Cruising Through Life
#157
Yesterday at 5:00 AM

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Hello, 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...


Magical Bones: Magician|Illusionist|Bboy
#156
Last Monday at 5:00 AM

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Hello, 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...


Kim Anderson, Design Her Travel Podcast
#155
01/09/2025

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Hello, 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...


Matthew Jones, The Cruise Maps
#154
01/06/2025

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This 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 r...


Colleen McDaniel, Editor-in-Chief of Cruise Critic
#153
01/02/2025

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Hello, 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 river...


Brandee and Shannon Lake, The Ultimate World Cruise
#152
12/30/2024

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Hello, 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 be...


Jon Saxx, Performing On the Ocean (and the River)
#151
12/26/2024

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I 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, Fri...


Cris the Cruising Duck Man
#150
12/23/2024

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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 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...


Sometimes Sailing, Mekong River, Cambodia & Vietnam, AmaWaterways AmaDara/Iceland, Windstar, Star Pride
#149
12/19/2024

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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 small ship cruising as well as “ship-within-a-ship” spaces, for instance, Celebrity Cruises The Retreat, Norwegian Haven, and P...


The Gault Family’s Alaskan Nightmare on NCL
#148
12/16/2024

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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 entrepreneur was not able to join us. I don’t normally cover cruise news. I leave that up to others who are re...