Welcome aboard to Cruise Radio, your home port for everything cruising.

Subscribe to our newsletter and weekly radio show at CruiseRadio.net.

I'm Matt Baskford. We really do appreciate you checking out Cruise Radio. Don't forget about our 12 days of

Christmas, where you can get some really cool cruise gear just for signing up for our newsletter.

Again, at cruise radio.net. A little bit later, founder, Doug Parker talks to Laura,

who recently took a nine-nighter aboard the new Carnival Dream, and we'll give you your cruise news.

But first, Anne Campbell joins us. She's a weekly contributor and can be found at cruising from

New York.com. Doug revisits a topic they tackled not too long ago about the misconceptions of cruising.

The number one reason that people have been telling me is that only old people cruise, so they're not going to do it.

Well, that's certainly far from truth. In fact, the numbers show the opposite. Royal Caribbean, the average age of their

passengers is about 45, and the same thing for Carnival. So there's a lot of young people out

there cruising. The only place you'll find senior people is on cruises over seven days. Right. The youngest passengers go on

the shortest cruises. Now another one, Ann, is folks tell me, well, I don't have a passport, so I can't

cruise. First of all, I think everybody should get a passport. But regarding Mexico, Canada, New England, the Bahamas, if the ship is sailing round trips from a U.S. port, you don't need a passport.

The same holds true for Canada.

So if you're leaving out of Miami, going from Miami to Nassau Bahamas back to Miami, you're clear then with no passport.

You're fine, right?

Absolutely.

Another one, Ann, is people say, well, I will get bored on the ship. First of all, there's so

much to do like at night. You have many different entertainment venues, for example, on Carnival.

You can choose between a comedy club, piano bar, a Las Vegas type review, disco.

And during the day, as I just said, there is nonstop activity.

...