Hi, everyone!

I guess it’s way past time that I give my introduction to LCT. Hopefully I won’t go too long. I’ve never been accused of keeping my words short. But I’ll give it a try.

Tom & I have been married 32 years. We were high school sweethearts. Started dating at 17, married at 19 (babies!!!) while Tom was in the Army. He was then stationed in Germany and I joined him there for a year. During that year we took our first “road trip” together driving from Germany to Vienna, Venice and Rome. No travel agent – we just went on our own with not a lot of experience but the enthusiasm of youth. We had quite an adventure with memories for a lifetime. That started our love of traveling (just wish we had more money and time to do more of it!)

We had put off cruising because the thought of being on a "Fun" cruise ship with thousands of people did not appeal to us. So, for our trip to the Caribbean in 1987, we decided to cruise our own way – on a 37-foot sailboat that we charted from Annapolis School of Sailing. It was a “learn to sail” charter with just the two of us on the boat, along with our captain. While we were snorkeling in the beautiful warm waters around St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, our captain was busy making us breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tough life!! We had a wonderful time.

Then, when we decided to go to Australia and New Zealand (our lifelong dream) for our 30th anniversary, we thought a cruise would be a more convenient way to see more in a shorter time. But we would only go if we could find a smaller, less crowded ship. It’s funny how things work out. When I first started looking into the different ships it was the Radisson cruise line that was my first choice. But more money than we had intended on spending. Then I discovered the Renaissance which really seemed to fit all our requirements. As we excitedly awaited our first cruise and our dream vacation scheduled for Dec. 2001, the horrific day of 9/11 happened. While we were glued to the TV during those first days after, we saw the scroll at the bottom of the TV say that Renaissance went bankrupted and ceased all operations. Luckily we were able to get all our money back thanks to our credit card company. So we regrouped and decided on Maui that year. It was our second time there and a good trip but such a sad time for everyone.

We were not giving up on our dream trip to Australia and New Zealand, so we started the process all over again for 2002. As it turned out, we decided it would be the Radisson Navigator or nothing at all. I got my first choice after all!!!!!!!!! Of course the one HUGE drawback of that is that when you start at the top, you don’t want anything else. We have been spoiled for life. We had the MOST AMAZING trip. I will never forget it. I felt like we had two big vacations rolled into one. The wonderful sights and people of those countries was a trip within itself. But to also experience “living” on such a wonderful ship for 15 nights, being pampered all the while was also a vacation within itself.

I won’t go into a review of the Navigator at this time (although I could talk forever about our love of that ship – especially the extremely friendly and helpful crew). But I think what impressed us the most was the truly wonderful, down to earth and NICE fellow cruisers we met on the Navigator. Everyone was so friendly and eager to help us out as new cruisers. We were especially lucky enough to meet LCT’s Sheri on that cruise. So after our exceptional experience on the Navigator you might say that we are “HOOKED!!!!!” As I’ve mentioned on my previous posts, our next cruise will be the PG 5/21/05 PIP. Can’t wait!!!!!!

I do have to confess that we did go on a mass market cruise this past Sept. We decided to take the “long” way home after visiting family in Seattle. We took the Island Princess from Vancouver to Los Angeles – 3 nights with no port calls. It is a beautiful ship and I have to admit that it really didn’t seem as crowded as I expected with all those people. There were a LOT of kids, but fortunately they were all well behaved. So it was a good trip and not a bad way to spend the trip home. But I have to say that I still enjoyed so much more being on the Navigator and experiencing Radisson’s exceptional service and the truly special people who cruise this line. It’s just the best!!!

During my process of researching for our cruise, beginning the end of 2000, I discovered the Cruise Critic Radisson board and found the most delightful, helpful people there. Of course, I was just a “lurker” (or “learner” as Ngaire told me recently). Then, when we decided to set up our next dream vacation – the PG in French Polynesia, I gave Ngaire a call based on all the great endorsements given by many, many, many people on the CC board. (By the way, the endorsements are 100% accurate – she is wonderful!!). Ngaire told me about LCT and I was hooked immediately. It was so much fun to see many of the same posters that I learned so much from over on CC. So, with her encouragement, I decided to come out of the “lurker closet” and get to know all of you. I’m SOOOOO glad I did. You are a wonderful group of people. So kind, friendly and helpful. I want to thank all of you personally for all the help and insight I got from you during my planning of my Aust/NZ trip and now the PG. Kudos to you all!!!!!!!!!!!

O.K., O.K., I know I’ve run on and on. So I’ll just wrap this up by adding that Tom works as a commercial construction inspector, I work for a CPA firm as an assistant/office manager. We don’t have any children. Our cats have always been our kids. We had two cats, but in June lost our sweet, beloved cat, Bernie. He was very special to us as we got him from the Humane Society, very sick and injured. But we nursed him back to enjoy more of his 9 lives. We had him for 8 wonderful years, but age just got the better of him. Luckily we still have our other cat, Wolf who adopted us a couple of years ago when, starving, he showed up in our backyard. We were raised and went to high school together in So. Calif. (La Mirada), lived in Germany as I mentioned before, lived in beautiful but COLD Colorado Springs for 9 years and have now lived since 1988 in San Diego, a beautiful city with great weather (usually). We keep thinking about where we eventually may retire, but it’s going to be hard to beat San Diego. We’ll listen any suggestions you may have.

I think that more than covers it. Sorry for being so long winded. Thanks again to all of you for making LCT such a fun and helpful place to escape to. It’s like traveling all the time!!

Cyndi