A little about us

Several people have emailed me that I should tell you a little about us. We are both retired from our first careers; mine in government and Jim in construction. We married later in life (in our 50’s) so kids are all grown and on their own. My real love in life has always been travel and photography so I met a perfect mate as he enjoys both. I have done travel destination stock photography for about 20 years and have two stock photo agencies that carry my images. You are beginning to understand why Luxury Cruise & Travel agency is my second career. I started the agency a year prior to my retirement to learn the ropes and give myself time to not get in over my head. I’m so pleased that we have been able to build a successful agency. I guess we will get a real feel for our success when we return from a 4 month hiatus… will my clients still be here???

Our travel history together started in 2000. I had planned to do a QE2 crossing as a 50th birthday celebration for myself and Jim agreed that he would like to do it with me; it was his first cruise. That was the start of our addiction to cruising. One of our next cruises was a 10 day cruise on Celebrity Mercury from Caracas, Venezuela to Ft. Lauderdale. It was on that cruise that we met Joyce Gleason Adamidis, the wife of Captain Adamidis. We struck up a great friendship that continues today. We sailed on their ships, mostly Millennium, 5 or 6 times… if you ever want to feel like Royalty, be good friends with the Captain and his wife. We certainly miss them now that they are retired and living in Greece, but are looking forward to visiting with them on our port stop there during this cruise.

We have done about 30 cruises, primarily on Celebrity and Holland America, but have sailed at least once on most of the major cruiselines. As some of you know we are suite cruisers… I’d rather go a little less often and do it first class when we go. We have had a couple of the Penthouse suites on Constellation and Infinity – these are 1500 sq. ft with 1100 sq. ft of private balcony. I think they are the most “over the top” suites available on any premium cruiseline. We also have had Royal Suites and Sky Suites on Celebrity and many S suites on Holland America. Our only other cruise on Princess we were in a Grand Suite on Grand Princess. That suite is second (in my opinion) in luxury on a premium cruiseline. We have also had an inside cabin while on a travel agent seminar at sea on Royal Caribbean and an outside cabin when we Hosted an Ensemble (our consortium) hosted Alaska cruise on Holland America. This world cruise will be our first regular size balcony cabin. I’ll give you my thoughts as to how we deal with it as we go along. Oops, I better say here that we have always paid full fare for our suites… there are no travel agent deals for them.

I just found a wonderful link to photos of Royal Princess. Thanks to Richard H. Wagner, the editor of that wonderful website.