Welcome to the Royal Crime blog podcast, a week of look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 334.

With less than a week until my next Royal Caribbean cruise, I'm excited to record this episode

because this is the beginning of our next Royal Caribbean blog group cruise.

This time, we're selling on Freedom of the Seas to the Southern Caribbean for New Year's Eve.

This will be my first time doing a cruise over New Year's, and I'll be previewing what I've lined up,

group cruise plans, and more. Here we go.

My favorite kind of podcast episodes are ones in which I get to talk about a cruise.

I'm about to go on.

And this week, my friends, that's right.

We're talking about my upcoming cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.

But you know what?

It's not just my upcoming cruise.

I've invited Royal Caribbean blog readers, podcast listeners, and friends to join me on this cruise.

This is one of our Royal Caribbean blog group cruises.

And when we talk about group cruises, well, I've got to have one of my BFFs on here,

my cruise bestie.

And that is Annette Jackson from MEI travel.

Welcome, Annette.

Hey, I'm so excited.

Haven't started packing, but I'm so excited. Can't wait.

Well, I'm a night before packer, so I'm not going to, I'm not here to render judgment on you for not doing so. But yeah, of course, we're recording this episode. Just a couple days before our Freedom of the Seas group crews. And you know, Annette, this one is, look, every group cruise kind of stands up for its own reasons

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