Roll Call (Introductions)

In order to get to know each other, how about a roll call with introductions.

I'm Bibb, from Kittery, Maine.. We've been on 18 cruises (10 RCI, 4 CCL & 4 NCL) but do a lot of land
vacations also. I'm retired from the Air Force and the National Park Service.

Anyone else care to introduce themselves??

I'm Nick from Staten Island, the forgotten borough, in NYC. I work in our family business which is construction, I'm married to a wonderful, patient woman, and, we don't have any kids (although I think my wife would aruge that I'm one kid too many .) We've cruised on many different lines from Carnival to Cunard, and, have discovered, there really isn't a bad cruise or bad cruise line. It's just a matter what fits our needs at the moment.

Oh and I might add we love this site and all the freedoms that go with it!

Hi I'm Debbie and since Hubby and I drive a truck, we could be anywhere in the USA. We have a house in Greenville,OH but since we are only there 1 week every 8 weeks, our daughter and grandson lives there...We take a lot of mini vacations though out the year but do a nice(suite) cruise every 2 years. We love leaving the truck in different places, renting a car and taking off for a couple of days!! We have been in 49 states,sorry can't drive to Hawaii, and most of Canada!!

Yes I agreee this is a great site with nobody getting flamed for a asking a question

Hi I'm Host Jackie, not to be confused with Host Jacqueline over on CC. I live in the beautiful City by the Bay, San Francsico. I started my career in travel as a flight attendant but, when things went sour I left and became a part-time travel agent. I'm a step-mom and full time wife. And, I'm the person to come to if our admin Tina is cruising or indisposed for any reason.

Greetings from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York! I'm Vinnie and love cruising but, especially love cruising from my homeport of Brooklyn! If anyone has any questions about visiting Manhattan please feel free to PM me, I'm more than happy to share my knowledge of this wonderful city I call home!

Looking forward to Genesis/Oasis of the Seas with Cruise Freeks in 2009!

Also, don't forget that I'm the driving force behind the 2010 Christmas/New Year's cruise out of Cape Liberty, Bayonne, NJ on Royal Caribbean. If you even think you might be interested in this sailing, don't forget to sign up on the opt-in email list! Just click the link! https://cruisefreekforums.forumotion.com/Cruise-Freek-Forums-Present-Holiday-Cruise-2010-h63.htm

Hi I'm Robyn from NJ. We love family friendly cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Princess, Disney. We're extremely excited about Oasis of the Seas and I'm helping to pull together the 4th of July cruise on Princess Cruise Lines from New York in 2010!

Hi I'm Roxie. Single gal, divorced and always looking for trip mates! Looks like Cruise Freeks is starting to take off and I'm really looking forward to sailing on the Inaugural of Oasis of the Seas. You're really putting together a great package here and I think it's going to get Cruise Freeks noticed!

Nick - We stayed at the Navy Lodge (on the old Staten Island Navy Base) back in 2005 and loved it. We had a Swedish teenage girl with us and took "The Ferry" over to Manhattan had a ball.

Debbie - Staging mini-vacations from a moving home sounds like a great way to travel. I've been to all the states but Oregon and Karen has been to all but Oregon and Washington. We'll get those next year.

Vinnie - No place in the world serves cheese cake like the small diners near the Verrazano Bridge near Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

K&R - It's a shame you two don't like dancing. We usually dance to the wee hours on cruises but it's at the night club or disco. Getting to bed by 1:30AM on a cruise is hitting the sack early.

Nice to meet new friends and say hello to old ones. Many of us have been around on other boards for quite a while now and we learn different things from different boards.

Any others care to check in????

Hi, I'm Towanda.

I'm married to a DJ & we live near Philadelphia, PA. (We were both born & raised on Long Island, so we regularly drive across Staten Island & through Brooklyn). We have 4 children, the oldest is 20 & will be graduating from Marine Corps basic training in a few weeks. We will be taking the other 3 (17, 12 & 10) on their first cruise this summer. It will be number 7 for the two of us & all of those on Carnival. I look forward to the opportunity to try other cruise lines & visit ports that I haven't been to yet.

In preparing for our first cruise back in 1998, I spent a lot of time on CC. After the cruise, the postings there seemed to get more hostile & stopped reading cruise boards. Searched them out again as we prepare to take the kids for their first cruise. Found this one from a Yahoo group posting. Happy to have found a board without the flames flying.

Towanda

Hi! I'm Dave as you can see by my signature, I love both Royal Caribbean and Princess but, really enjoy just about all cruise lines. I work in Manhattan for an Investment Bank.

And I'm very much looking forward to the Genesis Inaugural. I doubt I'll ever sail it again (I have a feeling it's going to be just too big) but, once during the Inaugural I am sure will be a memory for life!

Hello, Carole and John here - We currently live on the Gulf Coast of Texas (yuck) hoping to move anywhere but Texas - LOL

We have been on several cruises on different lines. We are looking forward to our next one in 2009.

Favorite line is Princess.

We are the parents of 5 (3 his and 2 mine) and grandparents of 9 (from his three kids). We are also proud to say that three are/or have been military.
One Navy, one Air Force, and one Army. The Navy daughter finished her hitch two months ago and is married to a Navy veteran. Our Army son finished his hitch last August.....he is an OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) Vet. He got married to an Army girl so our daughter in law is military and heading for Afghanistan next year. Our Air Force daughter is in Military Itelligence in California with a few more years left on her hitch. We are proud of all of them. The other two...........Son - works on offshore oil rigs and daugher who works for an insurance firm.

Carole & John,

Sounds like you have an interesting family. You can probably imagine that I am partial to military families (being retired Air Force).

Karen and I greet troop plans as they pass through here going to and from the war zones. So far, we have met just over 170 planes with about 20,000 troops. We provide coffee, donuts, cookies, soft drinks, books, and free long-distance phone service plus a lot of handshaking and "thank you"s. Being retired, we meet them all regardless of the time of day or night. Maybe we'll get the chance to greet your DIL as she goes over.

We're peanuts compared to Bangor, Maine though; they celebrated greeting their 500,000th troop an few months ago.

Thanks Bibb. Mindy and Michael are in Germany so she would go directly to Kuwait, then Afghanistan. We hope to see them at Christmas.
I am proud of all of them.

We took our first cruise on Enchantment of the Seas in 1999, and were hooked. We've been on 5 cruises, with #6 coming up next. My wife and I enjoy Princess and RCI the most so far. We are both 44 years old. We've taken our children on two cruises...and they were also hooked! (I was able to get 29 family and friends to cruise with us last time out!)

I'm a career Firefighter/Rescueman, and have worked for the Dept. of Defense (USAF civilian) for 26 years. (4 years active military) I love running into burning buildings (and aircraft) when everyone else is running out! (I'm a bit of a daredevil I guess) Have 2 children, (grown) and one grandaughter. (2)

I love downhill skiing, Jetskiing, cruising, camping, SCUBA diving, and am a HUGE Jimmy Buffett fan (Parrothead). My wife (high school sweetheart, vintage 1982) puts up with my obsessions. I'm obsessive about a few things in life, like cruising, the islands, Buffett, coffee, camping...

We live in the frozen North (ND) and are originally from MN. (but have also lived in CA, and TX). Cruising takes us away from this winter hell!

~My favorite ship was Navigator of the Seas.
~My favorite island is Dominica.
~My favorite cruise itinerary was 15 day Hawaii. (OMG...start and end with 5 wonderful sea days!)
~My favorite cruise line...toss up between Princess & Royal Caribbean. (although Princess seems to want our future business much more than RCI)

Good to meet you all!

NDJM,

I hear you on being hooked. We cruised on our 10th anniversary in 1985 and have done 17 since then. One is scheduled to Estonia and St. Petersburg next year. But we like land vacations as well. Europe was wonderful until the dollar crashed so now we head for Hawaii.

We're trying to work out a cruise or tour to Peru. I want to visit Machu Picchu while I'm still able to breathe at high altitudes. And Rio would be great also.

Howdy from Texas!

I'm Cathy from Fort Worth, TX. I'm a home-based TA working on my certification. My first cruise was in 1988 on Carnival's Carnivale to the Bahamas; I hated it!! Swore I'd never take another cruise! My next cruise was on Norwegian in 2005 with my 2nd hubby as part of a group (his 1st cruise) - LOVED it & became addicted!! At 47 I finally figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up!!

We have 4 "kids" together (all in their 20's now) - 3 older ones were his, the youngest was mine. Both of our 1st spouses died on Valentines Day, 1 year apart in 1993 & 1994. I volunteer every other week at the Grief support group for children where we met with our kids. It helps remind me to live each day to the fullest & be thankful!

I love being able to help people find the right cruise for them, especially first time cruisers. It's great to be able to introduce them to Cruising & hopefully they'll be hooked!

Hi I'm Tammy and I'm a cruise travel agent for Cruisemoms.com ~
I live in North-Central Florida with my husband and 2 children
and look forward to getting to know everyone here!

Hi Tammy! We're always happy when another TA joins the board!

Thanks! {{hugs}}

Hi CruiseMom! Nice to see our family growing!

Hey there! It's great meeting everyone!

Hi Tammy,

Welcome aboard. I hope you are safe down there with Fay coming through. Please check in after she passes through and let us know how you are.

Thanks!

So far we're fine here. Hasn't even started raining yet. I'm not worried ~ Fay is suppossed to be less strong than Charlie was a few years back and we did fine through that. I'll let ya know how it all goes though.

still, keep us posted and let us know you're alright after the storm passes....