Hello fellow cruisers! I’ve been reading this board since Ngaire told me about it, and now finally taking the time to post. I’ll echo everyone else who have thanked Ngaire, Karen and John for providing and managing this board.

Like Karen S, I was a Pennsylvania girl and not yet of legal age when Bill and I married 39 years ago. Our engagement was just as quick (following a blind date) as Silverwhiteknight’s and just four months later we were wed and living in Detroit. Bill was in his final year of General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) a co-operative engineering college. We have two grown children: Karen, an OB/GYN in practice in IL; and Rick, an electrical engineer working for Ford, married to Renee. They have given us two beautiful granddaughters, Megan and Jenna, and they live just 25 minutes away from us. We have lived in Ann Arbor, home of the University of MI since 1969 – Go Blue!

Bill took an early retirement from Ford five years ago. We had never taken a cruise vacation during Bill’s working years. Vacations always had to be planned well in advance in order to get the time off. We have a definite preference for going to remote islands away from the crowds. Snorkeling is our favorite daytime activity in the waters surrounding these islands. We’ve traveled to many of the smaller islands in the Caribbean and twice to Hawaii always making our own arrangements after much research. Once Bill retired, he came across a cruise package that was too great a deal to pass up. We went with no high expectations and were pleasantly surprised to learn how much we liked it. We started planning the trip we had always hoped to one day take: a cruise and land tour of Alaska. A local travel agent had just gotten Radisson’s 2001 Alaska brochures and encouraged me to look at one. We took the plunge and never regretted it! (Except for the fact that Radisson spoiled us and we can only afford to cruise them every few years rather than the few times a year that so many enjoy.)

I discovered Cruisecritic just a week prior to our Mariner sailing to Alaska. I stumbled across it while I was exploring shore excursion options. Following our fantastic trip I stayed on that board a few months then took a leave until last summer when I started reading about French Polynesia and the Paul Gauguin. I remembered Ngaire’s name from 2001 and after asking a few questions contacted her to plan our highly anticipated trip this August. Thanks to so many of you for all the information on the PG and French Polynesia that I have been gathering since last July.