Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Monday the 4th of August.

I am in the Journey's Lounge on board a cruise ship explorer 1. I have been on a splendid voyage which began in

Istanbul and meandered through the Greek islands and then a series of Italian ports.

The most important person on board a cruise ship is arguably not the captain, although he or she is, of course, very important.

But from a cruiser's point of view, it's really the cruise director,

or in this case, the title is Entertainment Manager. And that happens to be Martin Moss.

Hello, Martin. When did you run away to sea and decide that this was a good job to have?

I started at sea in 1997, September the 21st, 1997. I worked for a now

defunct cruise line called Premier Cruises, sailing out of Port Canaveral to Nassau. Sadly, they

stopped trading in 2000, but that was my first three years with them.

And then where did you go from there?

I moved to Cunard when they went bust.

I was with Cunard for a while.

And then I stayed with them and moved to one of their sister brands

before joining Explorer Journeys in April this year.

Explorer journeys very different from mainstream cruise lines.

Yes, ultra luxury, magnificent place to be.

Superb service from our hosts on board and just positivity from the guests all the time

everybody constantly tells me how greater time that they have on board our ships that's reflected

in the prices we've been paying for i think it's fair to say but um give us a flavor of what sort of

nationalities are on board.

We have about 38 this journey we're on.

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