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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome freelance travel writer Ashley Kosciolek. Ashley is a former editor at Cruise Critic for 12 years, but I really got to know her work during her time writing mainly about cruises but also some general travel articles wrote about cruises for The Points Guy. Ashley can address virtually any cruise-related topic from the consumer side, and even make topics about as exciting as watching grass grow—like travel insurance—worth reading about. On numerous occasions over the past couple of years in response to one of her articles, I considered reaching out to her regarding visiting us on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. I finally get a chance to welcome Ashley.

Ashley Kosciolek is a travel writer with nearly 20 years of experience covering the cruise industry. Following more than a decade as a staff editor at TripAdvisor company Cruise Critic, she spent four years as a senior writer on the cruise team at The Points Guy, with coverage ranging from ship reviews, destination reports, and industry news to tips articles, planning pieces and first-person features. You can also find her freelance work on Cruise.blog, Royal Caribbean Blog, and Cruise Radio. Ashley has sailed with every major cruise brand (and most of the lesser-known ones, too) and has been quoted as an expert by USA Today, the Associated Press, CBS, Forbes, NBC News, the Miami Herald, the Huffington Post, "Good Morning America," The New York Times, and more. You can follow her adventures on Instagram: @slyjabroni.

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome Janet Bava, Chief Commercial Officer, Windstar Cruises. We have had several small ship specialists on the podcast as well as leaders from some of the lines, and of course passionate cruisers providing us their cruise reports from their time on various small ship and river cruises. This is the first time we have exclusive focused on Windstar Cruises, and I am excited to meet Janet and learn about Windstar.

Cuban born and Miami raised, Janet Bava found her love for travel at a young age. She had her first taste of cruising at the age of 15 when she celebrated her quinceañera onboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship and never looked back. She describes herself as a cruise lifer and internationally travel driven — she even met her husband while traveling through Italy during her college years.

Prior to joining Windstar Cruises during the summer of 2023, Bava was most recently the Chief Marketing Officer for AmaWaterways River Cruises, and she has spent upwards of 20 years working in the travel industry. Most notably, prior to AmaWaterways, Bava was the VP of Marketing (The Americas) for Silversea Cruises where she fell in love with small-ship luxury cruising. Graduated from Florida International University with her Marketing and International Business degree, she always dreamed of working for a global brand poised for expansion and that would allow her to focus on bringing people from all over the world closer together. As a member of Chief [Professional Network for Women], she enjoys connecting and supporting women executive leaders and emerging future female leaders in the corporate world.

She prides herself on being a results-driven professional who is able to lead by example and set a clear vision for her team. Bava values collaboration, creativity and innovation. She sees the advantages of leveraging new emerging technologies to consistently deliver results and she looks forward to further elevating the Windstar experience ensuring every touch point with our guests can be 180 degrees from ordinary.

There's one thing Bava has that never expires — her passport. If she could, she would explore the whole world on a ship with her beloved colleagues, family & friends. With an already accomplished travel portfolio, Bava is most eager to experience Tahiti and the Middle East the Windstar way, on an intimate private-yacht style cruise delighting in the culinary experiences this award-winning global travel brand is renowned for.

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. This week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am proud to welcome Emily Gelineau, a Grammy award-winning Violinist, Pianist, Vocalist, Composer and Arranger who is known for interpreting modern styles of music from jazz to country, pop to rock, and world styles such as French and Brazilian music. Emily performs as a guest entertainer onboard luxury cruise ships. Listeners know I am as passionate about music and comedy as I am about cruising so when I get a chance to have a conversation with someone who has performed on cruise ships, I am in my glory.

Residing in the USA for 4 years, Emily is a graduate from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. She has performed live and recorded with many infamous and influential artists across the world, including recording Violin for the 8-Bit Big Band on their 2022 Grammy-Winning arrangement of “Metaknight’s Revenge”. Today, Emily is a well sought-after musician on the Jazz scene in Australia and overseas, whilst regularly earning composing commissions, arranging for orchestras and organizations such as RWS Entertainment and the Perth Symphony Orchestra, composing for media, and performing at sea.

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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)
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The Joy of Cruising Again https://bit.ly/TheJoyOfCruisingAgain

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