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

I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 155.

With everything Royal Caribbean is doing these days, there are a lot of people considering trying a Royal Caribbean cruise, and this week, we have a podcast listener who was so intrigued he decided to give it to try himself.

In this episode, we talked with someone who just took their first Royal Caribbean cruise

after cruising with another cruise line many, many times.

And we talk about what it was like cruising with Royal Caribbean for the first time,

and what his recent Freedom of the Sea's experience was like.

Here we go.

You know, taking a Royal Caribbean cruise is something we all love doing.

And for some of us, hey, it might even be our first Royal Caribbean cruise.

And today's episode, actually, we're lucky enough to be joined by Chris Hodnet, who's actually back from his very first Royal Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.

And Chris is not new to cruising, just new to Royal Caribbean.

And Chris is a good friend of mine, and we've been talking about this for a long time.

So the fact that Chris decided to take the jump and go on a cruise on Royal Caribbean, really warm my heart, so to speak.

And I am glad to have Chris join me here on the podcast today. Chris, welcome to the

Royal Caribbean Blog podcast. Oh, glad to be here. Absolutely. And, you know, Chris, I just talked a little

bit about hearing the introduction. We were talking offline as well. This is not your first cruise.

Tell us a little bit about your background in cruising and what drew you to consider and eventually take a

Royal Caribbean cruise absolutely so I had cruise previously exclusively with the Disney cruise line

twice on the Disney dream and once on the Disney fantasy and had planned to take another Disney

cruise and upon like researching their rates I was just on the Disney fantasy and had planned to take another Disney cruise.

And upon researching their rates, I was just blown away by how expensive a Disney cruise

...