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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, I am delighted to welcome back Bill, creator of Ritzy Travel Guide. I became familiar with Ritzy Travel Guide during my aimless browsing of YouTube cruise channels. I noticed I would stop on Ritzy Travel Guide because the videos were not only rich in production value but also rich with information. I knew I had to invite Ritzy Travel Guide on The Joy of Cruising Podcast. Bill shared an amazing cruise and land-based travel journey with his wife, Ms. Ritzy EP 167

We are glad to have Bill back to catch us up on what they have been up to since we last spoke. Scheduled to start just a week after our previous Ritzy Travel Guide a 6-week Asian trip, including jungle touring in Thailand, staying at a train-themed hotel in the deep jungle, feeding elephants breakfast from a tree-top canopy, staying in a bamboo eco resort on stilts over the water, and taking an overnight sleeper from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Of course, we first want to hear about that.

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast; I am delighted to welcome Rubin Ervin as my guest.

RUBIN ERVIN is the short guy with the big voice! He doubles as the Announcer and the Warm-up guy for the #1 game show in the country, Family Feud. Rubin started his career having the Slime of his life as a child actor for Nickelodeon Studios and later became a show host for their live shows. As his career progressed, he soon became the life of the party, MC’ing and DJ’ing shows for Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Nickelodeon Recreation, and many more. As the “Warm-Up Guy” for many shows such as The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Little Big Shots, 500 Questions, Password, Judge Steve Harvey, and many more, Rubin gets the crowd pumped and ready to have a fantastic time no matter what. You can also hear Rubin’s voice as the announcer for many shows, in addition to Family Feud, such as Showtime at the Apollo, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and America’s Got Talent.

I first met Rubin when I hosted him on my other podcast, Lucid Driver Podcast Ep 16 as Rubin owns one of the baddest Lucid EV’s on the planet

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul and this week on I am delighted to welcome Daniel Edward to The Joy of Cruising Podcast. He shared with me:

“I started cruising with Royal Caribbean, where I was Cruise Director's Staff, then promoted to Activities Manager. I was first a Cruise Director over there in 2018. After the pandemic, I returned to cruising with Holland America Line, where I was a Cruise & Travel Director on their Grand Voyages. I circumnavigated Australia and New Zealand twice, South America once, cruised to Antarctica and up the Amazon River, as well as the usual Mediterranean and Northern Europe itineraries. Over the years of cruising, I've always written for newspapers and magazines (my first job was as a finance journalist at the Daily Mail), and I have just been elected to the board of the British Guild of Travel Writers. After leaving the Cruise & Travel Director role at Holland America I decided to launch a travel podcast, called Destination Unlocked, where I'm joined by a local expert in each episode to unlock their part of the world or travel style for my listeners.”

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Hello, passionate cruisers! This is Paul. I am delighted to welcome back this week on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, Nikki and Tommie Jones. Nikki and Tommie are the owners of Jones Getaways by Dream Vacations. Travel agency. They are instrumental in my travel life in a couple ways. They introduced me to Dream Vacations and as many of you know we are the somewhat new owners of our own travel agency, The Joy of Vacation by Dream Vacations. I have watched them grow and have emulated them and consider them travel agent mentors. The other way they have been influential in our travel life relates to the first time I hosted them on The Joy of Cruising Podcast, August 2024, to talk about Jones Getaways, Soulful Epicurean French River Cruise on AmaKristina, Episode 123. As many of you know we subsequently went on that same cruise, and coupled with our land excursion to Paris, we selected it as our #1 all-time cruise in our recent podcast, Paul & Cheryl’s All-Time Top Ten Cruises, Episode 203.

In 2025, Nikki and Tommie fulfilled what is #1 on my bucket list—a trip to Africa, specifically Ghana. On their YouTube channel, Jones Getaways, they chronicled the trip, in a 4-part series, Our Ghana Journey—From Accra to Ancestry. If you are a lifelong learner like me, I urge you to check it out. And if Africa is in your future—and I am booked— Our Ghana Journey—From Accra to Ancestry is a must. In the meantime, we want to hear all about the trip.

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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 on a ship that hit an iceberg in Alaska. I worked on cruise ships as small as 500 passengers, and the largest 4000 passengers. I worked for Holland America Line for five years as an onboard Cruise Consultant, and three of those years, I also had my girlfriend/fiancée/wife on board. For a very short time I was with the Royal Olympic Voyager in 2003, which was starting a world cruise, and immediately after sailing from Fort Lauderdale, the line declared bankruptcy. This led to us being held in limbo in St. Thomas for more than a month. I was the Art Auctioneer, and had 300 paintings onboard, some pretty valuable, being held hostage. After about 4-5 weeks, we were moved to Ft. Lauderdale. And there is an intriguing story about what happened to me, the paintings, the passengers, and the crew, who were held in limbo for several months off Ft. Lauderdale Beach.

I started working on ships around 1989, when cruising was quite different than it was when I retired, and certainly much different than the way it is now. I did work on some contemporary, large ships, such as the Carnival Glory and Royal Caribbean Monarch of the Seas. But I preferred working and sailing on the smaller ships like the Costa Riviera, or The Marco Polo. I also spent six months sailing transatlantic on the old Queen Elizabeth 2—the QE2— before it was taken out of service. Quite a different sailing experience from the other cruise lines.”

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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), building careers we love, and exploring the world together, mostly by sea.

Both of us are proud to work with Royal Caribbean Cruises. Damion, originally from Jamaica, is part of the Executive Escalations team, where he responds to communications sent to executive leadership from directors all the way up to the CEO. Quanda, who proudly carries both Jamaican and Turks Islander heritage, works on the Accessible Needs team, helping guests with physical, emotional, or mental challenges enjoy a cruise that’s not just possible, but unforgettable, because everyone deserves an amazing vacation.

Outside of work, you’ll find us doing what we love most: cruising with our kids. We believe there’s no better way to see the world than by ship, since you get to experience multiple destinations in one trip while creating unforgettable family memories. While Royal Caribbean is our home at sea and our first love, we’ve also enjoyed sailing with Celebrity, MSC, Carnival, and most recently Virgin Voyages.

For us, cruising isn’t just travel. It’s a way to teach our boys about different cultures, show them the beauty of the world, and remind them that adventure is always just a boarding pass away.

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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 process, we cruised for 3-weeks straight on 2 cruise lines. Terribly inconvenient timing but badly needed. Of course, both of these cruises were planned long before we decided to move. The first leg of our side-to-side cruises was on Holland America Line Rotterdam, about which Cheryl and i shared our reflections on episode 218 November 27. The second leg of our side-to-side was on the new Princess Cruises Star Princess—5-days stopping at Amber Cove, Dominican Republic, and Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos.

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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 the city of Liverpool as “Godparent” of Queen Anne.

We want to catch up with Gail and Mike and see what they have been up to. I know just from the title—a lot.

Welcome back, Gail and Mike to The Joy of Cruising Podcast

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