I AM looking into it as we speak...have already applied for financal aid!! I am running into another stumbling block, the PA licensing board! It seems as though they are VERY strict. They accept only certain accreditations...I received a letter from them stating that they would not pre-approve a licensing application...that I would need to complete the program (!) and then APPLY for licensing and they would "let me know". I cannot fathom spending 5 -6 years of my life and $50-60K+ only to find out I cannot get licensed...sorry...I am venting..it seems as though "someone" is trying to tell me I can't do this!

Sheri

Maybe it is time to make a personal visit to Harrisburg or contact you state senator or Repr & have one of their staff members get on this. These people will "jump to" when they hear from a legislature member.

Sheri - yes, you can do this! Why would they deny your license if you have the degree from a properly accredited program? Most states won't pre-approve state licenses before completing your program. What has been their criteria for not accepting certain accreditations?

Masaki

I don't come to this thread very often, so nice to read new postings! gf and Glenda, glad to hear more about you! I know gf has a RSSC cruise in the future, and I know that Glenda had the chocoholic cruise planned for December, but now that has moved over to Silversea for a better itinerary. Glenda, I hope you will book one of the larger ships on RSSC very soon! The PG is, well, just a different experience because of the intinerary, that can't be beat. The larger ships (and they are far from mega-size) are just nicer in terms of dining venues, cabins, etc. I hope you and the other erstwhile chocoholics will consider RSSC in your future!

Thanks all,

Thanks to Team Brown & Keene led by Ngaire for this wonderful forum...Also, special thanks to all of you LCT members (e.g., dolebludger, Masaki, Mp8shnt, sheri, Thulewx, et.al.,)who contribute. Your passion & infectuous enthusiasm pulls "lurkers" like me into your wonderful cruise world. Ida and I are now (thanks Susan Walsh!) booked on PG B2B in March to celebrate my retirement after 28 years of service.

Ida and I have served our country almost half a century. Ida retired from the Army four years ago. We are in the 45-50 life bracket. The Army
has planned our cruises (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Germany, Italy, Croatia) in the past, unfortunately we always missed the boat.

Now, with our full retirement looming we are gladly turning to Brown & Keene and expecting to always catch the (RSSC)boat/ship.

Again, thanks for sharing your extraordinary
passion and comraderie for cruising.

We look forward to sailing with you in the future.

Colonel Wes

Welcome Colonel Wes! Sounds like you and your wife have traveled the world with the miliary. I know you will love the PG!

Sue

Hello, Colonel Wes. Happy to meet ya!

Welcome Colonel Wes and Ida! Lots of friendly folks here...so happy you've joined us!

Welcome Wes & Ida!! I was hoping that you guys would post! (always better to be posters than "learners") :)

Masaki

Welcome W and I. I too am lax in coming here to welcome all the new members. Will try to be better. enjoy the boards and post often!

R

Welcome Ida and Wes!

Welcome Colonel Wes and Ida! I can't think of a better way to start out with RSSC than a BtoB cruise on the PG! Surely you will be spoiled after those other ships you have been on!

Sundail, Bettyk, Petlover, Masaki, Robert, Karen S, Jhp...Thanks for the personal welcomes, it is great to be part of LCT...Wes & Ida

Hello new friends, have been enjoying the intro's. We will be celebrating our 37th ann. next year, and my big BD So to celebrate my husband Ron and I are taking our very first cruise next year in June on the PG. Cruising is something he said he would never do and I didn't like the idea of cruising on a large ship. We did sail around the BVI for a week on a cat. with a captain, cook and another couple. Luxury it was not, we didn't know the other couple before hand. Problem was they were vegetarian(we are not)they didn't drink wine! Were divers we snorkeled. Still had fun though. Back in '98 I decided to become a tour director. After watching all the groups following the lady with the umbrella during our travels through Europe. On our own, I planned the itineraries, did all the bookings etc. We would go for 4-5 weeks. Definitely would call them learning vacations. 2 nights here 1 night there. One splurge hotel(Le Sireneuse, Positano, Chevre d'or in Eze, France, 4 nights in Monaco), thrown in during the trip. Anyway one of my first assignments before being hired by a tour operator was to work at Pier 35 in SF helping people find their luggage then in the afternoon checking them on board. This was Crystal also did one Radisson ship. Even invited to have lunch on board etc. The thought of cruising started to look kind of appealing. Anyway after 9/11 I was laid off by the tour operator. Had been doing tours all around the country. New England for Fall Foliage,Northwest, Southwest, West coast etc. During these last 3 years I have been doing local tours of San Francisco and Monterey peninsula. Will be going back over the road(Motor Coach Tours)Sept. 7th!! will be on the eastcoast until Oct. 9th Yikes! My husband is self employed has been in the fashion industry for 30plus years. We have two children, daughter is a glass blower and waterpolo coach in Ashland, Or. Son is into politics and wine!! We moved to Carmel 2 years ago from the Bay Area. This is way too long. Look forward to reading your posts.Jeanine

Jeanine, Welcome to the board! What an fun travel history you have! I am looking forward to reading your posts. :)

Welcome Jeanine! You'll bring a wealth of information to these boards, I'm sure! :)

Masaki

Welcome Jeanine! Nice to meet you!

Betty

Jeanine, Glad to see your intro post, LCT is a great place to learn and to soak up the enthusiasm of all its members...Welcome.

ColonelWes

Colonel:

A hearty welcome to you and Ida!

You've hardly been on-board and you have already been a help to me.

I'm impressed!

Cheers! Ray

Thank you all for the nice welcome. Looking forward to spending time learning about cruising(a whole new way of travel)thru LCT. Question: have any of you done Motor Coach Tours? Curious to know if cruisers and people who travel by motor coach are two different animals or what, As you know if you read my intro. i am a tour director(the one on the mike at the front of the coach saying on the right is(omg what is that on the right!!)my biggest fear is that I will have complete brain freeze(has happened) then the gratuities are definitely affected!! You see I do accept gratuities, in my business you do not live by wages alone, believe me!! Hey I need all the $$$ I can get for this upcoming cruise(my husband thank goodness is coming thru(my BIGbd present) Later Jeanine

Jeanine, I can't speak for others but we don't do bus tours. It just never appealed to us...too confining, too regimented, it has never been appealing. I have friends though who are not very adventuresome and this is all they do. They are "fraidy cats" and would NEVER venture off to foreign countries on their own. They prefer to have everything organized from the moment they walk out their front door. They toured 3 weeks in Europe from country to country all on a bus! Sounds terrible to me...they loved it!

Hi,

I just joined this forum and saw this "introductions" thread, which appears to have not been used since July! But then I saw the reminder thread which came on yesterday, so what the heck, I'll plunge in.

I just booked my first Radisson cruise, so I'm hoping that I am considered a "luxury cruiser" even though I haven't actually done it yet. :cool: I've been on two other cruises -- Mexico on RCCL with my family, and Alaska on Celebrity with my DH. This time I'm cruising with my mother, so I wanted to try a more "refined" cruise experience. We're booked on Radisson Voyager, for the 11-day May 1 Funchal to Rome itinerary. Honestly, I can't wait! Some of you who also haunt the CruiseCritic boards may have seen me posting dozens of questions over there, as I have much still to figure out, such as land tours etc.

About me -- well lessee, here's a thumbnail sketch. I'm 44, married 20 years (next week!), w/ a 14-yr-old daughter and 13-yr-old son. I live in Thousand Oaks, CA, and recently returned to work as a Project Coordinator with a Biotech firm, after taking 5 years off to stay home with the kids. I'm an avid marathoner and triathlete, so the jogging track onboard is quite important to me! :hyper:

I LOVE to travel (which I'm sure is a common trait in here!). In fact, next week I'm going to be in Copper Canyon, Mexico with my husband to celebrate our anniversary. If you haven't heard of this place, it's this amazing series of 5 canyons in Northern Mexico, each bigger than the Grand Canyon, with a spectacular railroad that goes through them and is considered one of the engineering marvels of the 20th century. It's a rather remote and rugged area, but along the 15-hour route of the train there are villages with beautiful lodges run by families who will totally pamper you. We're very excited to go.

I do still have a bazillion questions about my cruise itinerary, so I'll start asking them in the cruise forum soon. Y'all on this board seem to be a very friendly and informative group!

Meanwhile, can anyone tell me how I get my picture in the avatar like I'm seeing on so many of yours?

Best,

LeeAnne

Welcome LeeAnne,
So happy to see another Southern Californian! It's great that you're going to get to cruise with your Mom for your first time Radisson cruise. You have come to the right place to ask all your questions! BTW, Karen is our resident "teach us how to do avatar" person so I'm sure she'll give you good instructions.
It's so nice to see someone use the "Introduction" board....it's been too long and I hope others follow your suit.

LeeAnne,

Welcome to LCT too..fire away w/your ?, the
many seasoned cruisers here will provide
rich/experienced answers...and as soon as
you figure out how many laps on the outdoor
track = a marathon, pls let us know.

r/wes

LeeAnne,

Welcome to LCT!!!!!

Betty

Welcome, LeeAnne! You will have a great time on Voyager, which I am thinking is my favorite RSSC ship!

Welcome LeeAnne! It's so nice of you to post your introduction.

As for your avitar picture, you can email any picture you would like to use and I will install it for you.

welcome LeeAnne!! And thanks for posting your introduction! We like new ones to pop up!!

Masaki

Thanks for all the great welcomes! I took up Karen's offer to install my picture, so now we can all see who we're talking to. I must say I like this feature of this board. It's makes it seem more like you are talking to a human, rather than a computer.

My dh and I are off to Mexico tomorrow morning for the week, but once I come back I'll start the question deluge <img border="0" alt="[naughty]" title="" src="graemlins/naughty.gif" /> about my upcoming Med cruise. Talk to you soon!

LeeAnne,
Have a great time in Mexico! When you get back, you will soon become a LCT cult member, like the rest of us! Don't worry, we don't have any strange cult ways about us other than the fact that we are all cruise addicts :)

My kinda cult! <img border="0" alt="[jam]" title="" src="graemlins/jammin.gif" />

Me To would like to welcome you on board Lee Anne.
We have a lot of fun here at LCT
:app: :lct:

Hello All:

I would like to introduce myself. As you can guess from my member name, I have booked the full 2005 World Cruise on the RSSC Voyager.

I live St. Petersburg, Florida. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey I moved to Florida with my family when I was 5. With the exception of 4 years at Duke University in North Carolina and then 3 years working and living in Washington, DC, Tampa Bay has been home base. After working in the family business for 18 years, I became a full time volunteer working for a local charity for the past 7 years. I turned 50 this year and am currently on a self-imposed sabbatical in an attempt to look at my life and figure out what God wants me to do next.

I have traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

I began cruising in 1985 and just completed my 54th cruise. I don’t have an accurate list of all 54 cruises but will list the ships that I can remember.

Carnival: Celebration, Glory, Sensation
Cunard: QE2 and Sea Goddess II.
Holland America: Noordam, Rotterdam I, Rotterdam II, Ryndam.
NCL: Dreamward, Norway,
Peter Dielmann: Clara Schulman, Danube Princess.
Princess: Crown, Grand, Regal, Royal, Star, Sun
RCCL: Empress of the Seas, Monarch of the Seas, Sovereign of the Seas, Voyager of
Seas.

The longest cruise to date was 35 days last year around South America on the Ryndam. In 2001, I spent 30 days traveling from Hong Kong to Venice on the new Rotterdam’s World Cruise.

So at 125 days, this will be my longest. It will also be the first time that I will be cruising alone.
I usually travel with my parents, sister or friends. I am looking forward to all the new friends I will make and the interesting places we will visit.

PAUL

P.S. Could someone let me know how to post my picture.

Welcome Paul!

With your life experiences, I'm sure you have some fascinating stories to tell and we'd love to hear them!

Paul, if you send me the picture you want to use, I will be happy to add it to your profile for you!

Paul, I'm so happy you posted on the "Introduction" page. I was hoping you would! You sure are well travelled...that's for sure! I can't think of a better way of easing that "turning 50" feeling than going on the World Cruise!!

P.S. I can't wait to see your "cordless mission lamp" on your balcony too!

Wecome Paul! I, too, want to see that lamp! You will have the coziest cabin and probably many drop in visitors - Joanna

I suppose that it's about time that I got around to introducing myself here. My wife Eva and I live in Minnesota and have three kids that we could not be prouder of - twin daughters that are both in their second year of college (at different schools in different states) and a son who is a Junior in High School. We have been on four cruises, but now that the nest is getting a bit emptier that will probably start to change in a big way.

By day I'm an executive with a large computer storage company that is gracious enough to let me live in Minnesota but report into Massachusetts. Since I have global responsibility I travel a great deal, and have been to every continent except for Antarctica. Come to think of it, I was in every continent except for Antarctica in just this past year alone. As a result, Eva now wants to cruise to Antarctica. :)

In my spare time I play on USTA tennis teams and having put my rock performance days long behind me, I've been part of the management of a major-label rock act. I've never been in any band that you would have heard of, but I've opened shows for many bands that you would indeed have heard of. (Old rockers never die - they go into management :) ). A little over a year ago I actually thought about getting back into music when I auditioned to become the new keyboardist/lead vocalist for Iron Butterfly (yes, THAT Iron Butterfly, and yes - they're still around) but they decided to talk their previous keyboard player into coming back instead. So even though I didn't get the gig, I can say that I've played keys and sang lead to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (and about half of their setlist)with Iron Butterfly, which alone was well worth the experience. But I digress...

After two knee surgeries for old sports injuries in the last 8 years my doctors won't let me play basketball or soccer anymore, although the brain would still love to do so despite the body not being at all up to it. I don't endorse aging and what it does to your body. ;) These days Eva and I really enjoy scuba diving, some occasional golf, skiing, and mostly travel.

Cheers,
Ken

Ken, it is nice to know you a bit more. I loved your PG pictures, by the way!