This is fun...just learning about each of you is sort of an "ah ha" moment...like gosh, should have guessed that! Anyway, here's my turn.

Tom (my DH) and I took our first cruise in 1988 or 89 - at the time we didn't really pay attention, but it was our first mistake...or good luck perhaps - we booked a 16 day Seabourn cruise on the Sprit. It was a wonderful cruise and we met some amazing people, but when we returned to Florida Tom wasn't that anxious to plan another cruise so we continued our land vacations for several years. In 92 while we were on the Big Island for 4 weeks our friends at home were planning a cruise - 3 couples, close friends were doing a 10 day HAL Caribbean cruise....at the last moment they asked if we'd like to join them. We paid top dollar for a suite - didn't know about looking around for a better price etc., but we had a great time cruising with friends and you might say the hook was set! We continued doing 10 to 20 day cruises with this group over the next few years.

In ‘97 we received a brochure from HAL for a 64 day cruise around the Pacific Rim...to my complete amazement (one evening after dinner and a bottle of wine) my DH said, would you like to do that for your (this was a big one) birthday? In a nanosecond I said yes and before he could change his mind, I called an agent first thing the next morning and booked it!

His golfing buddies actually started a pool betting on which port Tom would fly home from! I documented his trip by sending them a photo of him standing at the bottom of the Gangway with each location sign! LOL - he made it the entire 64 day.

After that trip a 10 day cruise just wasn't worth the effort - we started to book 30 days+ trips. We’ve cruised around South America, 3 trips to the South Pacific (Nuku Hiva each time!) – also Australia and NZ and 2 Mediterranean cruises - #3 coming up this fall.

Cruise vacations are just right for us - Tom "doesn't do shore" and before the end of our voyages the ship's crew knows that and takes marvelous care of him while I see everything there is to be seen at every port.

At home we live the typical Florida retiree lifestyle, golf & tennis and lots of visitors. Tom's daughters live in Virgina, my daughter lives in NJ - some of you know I'm about to be a grandmother for the second time, the end of March.

We have two wonderful miniature poodles(Maggie and Mollie) who are 15 and 14. We also have a marvelous pet sitter who moves into our home to care for them when we are gone. Our "girls" are getting older and more fragile so we worry about them when we plan each cruise, but they are always wagging their tails when we come home again.

We did our first RSSC cruise last fall and are firm converts – can’t wait to board the Voyager in November.