Welcome to the first episode of the Royal Caribbean blog podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and I want to invite you to join me as we look at the many aspects of a Royal Caribbean cruise vacation.

The first question I think you might have is, what is this podcast?

Well, the basic premise of this podcast is to help you plan your Royal Caribbean vacation,

learn what's new and exciting at Royal Caribbean,

and share our passion for cruising with all of you.

Along the way, I plan on inviting some of my friends and colleagues who are cruise experts to join us and share their insight and knowledge with all of you. Along the way, I plan on inviting some of my friends and colleagues who are cruise experts to join us and share their insight and knowledge with all of you. Most of all,

I want this podcast to be really interactive for you as well as for me. Your thoughts, comments,

questions, and suggestions are going to be at the core of the show. After all, there is no podcast

without you guys. Regularly, I will bring lists for comments into the show, so please feel free to be a part of this show. After all, there is no podcast without you guys. Regularly, I will bring

lists for comments into the show, so please feel free to be a part of it all. I'd also like to tell

you a little bit about myself right now and why I'm doing this podcast. As I said earlier, my name is

Matt, and like many of you, I've become a passionate fan of cruising with Royal Caribbean after

many years of cruising with a company. I started Royal Caribbean blog as a way of sharing news and information about the cruise

line with the world, and this podcast is the next step in that adventure.

I think what really strikes me about Royal Caribbean is the experience I've encountered on board.

Royal Caribbean likes to call it being wowed, and marketing slogans aside, I think cruising

with Royal Caribbean just hit a chord with me.

After experiencing some of the other cruise lines, I've always felt Royal Caribbean just delivers

that combination of terrific onboard experience, coupled with great value, and that's got me hooked.

Year after year, I kept coming back to Royal Caribbean when it came to a cruise vacation,

and pretty soon my family and I were basically hooked on the experience of cruising.

I love the ease of getting on board and having the ship take me to different ports of call

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