Marc....Tom and I started cruising about 15 years ago - did the first one in 1989 and then stopped - it was an excellent cruise but Tom wanted to play golf on his vacations and Hawaii seemed like a better choice. We started again just to join some friends on a 10 day Caribbean cruise - somehow this time we were hooked!

Cruising with a group of friends is a marvelous experience (as most LCTers can attest). We took several more voyages with our friends, fondly known as The Boat People.

As you know, once you cruise any particular cruise line you are inundated with brochures. One day a glossy flyer arrived detailing 62 days cruising the Pacific Rim from Vancouver to LA (the long way, as I often put it). At that time, I was nearing a milestone birthday and that evening after a dinner and a little too much wine, Tom asked if I'd like to take the cruise as a birthday gift. No fool, I called the travel agent the next day at dawn! Tom has often called that cruise his Mondavi Moment!

It turned out to be one of our favorite cruises - no only did we visit places we though we'd never see, but we learned to love life at sea - at least life at sea on a cruise ship! We are avid blue water cruisers, haven't met a sea day we didn’t love, even some of the rougher ones.

We loved the Pacific Rim cruise so much that we repeated it five years later. We've also learned that we really like longer cruises and rarely book anything less than 28 days.

When you do 62-day cruises, it doesn't take long to accumulate 300+ days! Moreover, every one of them is memorable!