Wow, all those posts. Well, I don't want to be left out, so here goes.
I was born in Leeds, England and a Taurus. This makes me doubly stubborn and determined !! My family moved to Manchester in 1938 and i became a Man. Utd. fan. Graduating High school at 15 and obtaining a B.Sc. degree in Estate Mgt. at 17, I joined the British army on D-Day.
My first cruise was when I emigrated to Montreal from Liverpool in 1948 on the Canadian Pacific's Empress of Canada. On a 20,000 ton ship, THAT was a rough passage.
Unable to practice engineering in Quebec due to a language problem, I turned to commerce. When I retired in 1976, The Co. I had built was the largest bathroom accessory Co. in Canada.
I married a Canadian gal in 1953, and after a few years we started travelling to Europe for a few weeks in summer.
Our first 'modern' cruise was in 1960 on Grace Lines' Santa Rosa. from N.York to caribbean ports.
Negotiating Cape Hattaras in January was quite rough !! Our first port was Ft.Lauderdale !!
Returning to Montreal I suggested to the Pres. of Canadian Pacific that C.P.Air should fly Canadians to Antigua and pick up freighters who were carrying passengers to the islands. (On CP ships). I gave the idea to Grace Lines. And very soon thereafter, cruise ships started sailing from Miami. Maybe my idea worked !
The next cruise was on Celebrity to Alaska. Unfortunately, we were upgraded to a balcony cabin. And as I told Ngaire, we were hooked on balconies.
We sailed round Cape Horn with Royal Princess. This was extremely enjoyable. We 'hit it off' with a couple from the Isle of Man, and after that we seemed to draw a crowd with much hilarity.
A C.America cruise was booked on Renaissance.
Our older daughter, a consulting engineer, leased premises at Ft.Lauderdale port which was H.Q. for Renaissance. She told me to insure my trip, which I did, 3 days before the bankruptcy.
My younger daughter was employed by RSSC to do some artwork and so we met her at the corporate offices which is a stones throw from our home in Pompano. There we booked a C.America cruise. It was love at first sight !
Since then we were on Mariner to the med. in '02 and on Voyager to the Med. in '03.
On retirement in 1976 I entered McGill Law school
since I was being groomed to take a Parliamentary seat in 1978 election. Not wishing to move from one cold City to another, Toronto, with a safe seat, we emigrated to Florida. We have lived in the same golf course condo for the past 25 years.
This is too darned long ! But. Ihave 2 fingured it so might as well add it to the pile.
At least, when all the VTC's on April 13th. read it ,they will know that we are fun people,although Hannah hates Monty Python and I am a devotee !!