Gail
Hi, my name is Gail, I’m a young minded senior, and I love to travel. I love being on a cruise and after over 100 cruises on different cruise lines, the excitement never gets old. I love the planning that goes into it, finding that perfect cabin in the best location, then the real fun begins, meeting new people, relaxing, reading a good book, and enjoying all the activities. My favorite part is going into a port that I have never been to before and exploring it while finding something special there with the place and the people.
A little background on Gail. I got the travel bug early but my parents couldn’t figure out from where, at 4 years old I was packing an old suitcase of theirs with my clothes and when they asked, “Where are you going young lady?” I replied, “I’m leaving New York and off to see my friends in California”, strange we didn’t have any? My parents did road trips in the summers to escape the New York City heat and then we started spending summers up in the Catskill Mountains with my family but I knew deep down that I wanted to go further and see much more of this great big World, it was a strong feeling of wanderlust early on for me.
As soon as I was in my 20’s and had saved up enough (my card parlor story we can save for another time), I was ready for my first real adventure, my girlfriend and I would go backpacking across Europe, well not true back packing as I always fancied myself a Princess and not one to sleep in the outdoors. Off we went and we had the entire summer, she just had to be back in time for her teaching position in the Fall. We bought a Eurail pass and we were off to explore Europe! We had a limited budget so no Ritz for us but I knew I just couldn’t bring myself to stay in a hostel with a bathroom down the hall, that just wasn’t happening for either one of us. So our places were modest but clean and most found by the young men who were waiting at the train stations with their bikes and little wagons for tourists. Today I can’t imagine this happening but decades ago it felt ok to trust these strangers and we did life a little different, a lot more naive that nothing bad would happen to two young girls in a foreign Country.
Every morning we would get up pack up and head back to the train station destination unknown, first train we saw we took. After 2 weeks traveling around different cities, we headed to the South of France to a little village where my friends family lived. They took us all over their beautiful Country a great way to experience France. Saying goodbye to them we then traveled to Italy, we went to Rome, explored this historic city and we had to throw a coin in the Trevi fountain to make sure I would be back some day! (it has worked, I have returned four times so far) The legend of the Trevi Fountain says you should stand with your back to the fountain and toss a coin over your left shoulder to guarantee you will return.
From here we got back on a train with the thought of taking a ferry to Israel but there was a war going on so it wasn’t the best idea at the time. On the train were a group of young French men and women that worked at Club Med and were going to Greece on a holiday cruise and they said you have to join us, or at least I think that’s what they said as they spoke little to no English. My girlfriend said let’s go we have time left and no plans so sure why not and off we went. We got to Greece and followed them to my first “cruise” ship, nothing compared to today’s Ocean liners actually more like a big old boat. We paid our fare and got our own little tiny inside cabin and sailed on a Cruise to Greece and somewhere in Turkey. We had a BLAST, I loved it. It was totally not luxury by any means and there was little to no English spoken by anyone on the ship and if I recall there was very limited menu choices and certainly very little I ever heard of. What I do remember was being on the water, smelling the ocean, enjoying the fresh ocean air while watching land go by, meeting new people from all over the World, and knowing tomorrow we would be at a new destination to explore. After a few awesome days of fun and sun and fun times it was time to bid Au revoir to our new friends and head home. I knew then that cruising was in my blood and there would be lots more exploring to do.
My girlfriend went back to teaching, met a guy, married him and had a few kids. Without social media back in the 70’s to keep in touch and only letters, sadly we lost contact and all the plans we had made for future travels were not meant to be.
Lucky for me I met Ayr, (I met him as Drew/Andrew) at a travel company of course, and I found my life long travel buddy for the last 21 years. We have explored some of the World together both at sea and on land and have more adventures planned so please follow along with us as we have lots more of Our Grand Adventures!
Ayr
Well, to be fair he has not always been called Ayr, as his birth name was Andrew. Andrew has always been an inquisitive sort and found a love for adventure in his youth when he visited Colorado with with family and got separated on a family hike. While he thought it was cool to venture out on his own, his family was worried that he was lost. He wasn’t “lost” for long though as his parents found him safe and sound. This would start his thirst for adventure and discovering new places.
At age 18 in 1992 he would venture out on his own from the family and make the move from Connecticut to Florida where he started a new chapter working at Walt Disney World Resort. He fell in love with the world of retail merchandising and worked at Disney Village Marketplace at what was then the largest Disney shop in the World, Mickey’s Character Shop. He loved interacting with Guests and as he was a child that never wanted to grow up like Peter Pan he was in his element. After spending a year there he transferred to Disney’s Pleasure Island not unlike that fabled place from Pinocchio and his adventures continued. One of his favorite roles was working merchandise at The Adventurers Club set in 1937 where he would dream of far off lands filled with different people and cultures. Andrew was on the opening team of Disney’s Wilderness Lodge in 1994 and helped Guests plan their enrichment vacations at The Disney Institute in the late 90’s.
In 1999 he ventured West and helped open the Paris – Las Vegas Resort and learned a bit of French to assist Guests at Le Business Centre. He liked Las Vegas but wanted to see more of the Country and became a flight attendant with National Airlines. He would spend a couple years visiting Miami, New York City, Chicago and other fascinating destinations stateside before venturing to his next role at Expedia.com. At Expedia he worked in TeleSales helping travelers plan their vacations and jumped at the chance to be part of the launch of Expedia cruises. While he had never been on a cruise before, he knew he wanted to. It was at Expedia that he would meet Gail and hear stories of the grand life of cruising and adventure on the open sea.
In 2002 for his 30th Birthday they flew to Orlando where Gail surprised him with his first cruise experience on the Disney Wonder. This was a great trip and would be the start of his love for cruising, and what could be better than combining the Magical World of Disney and a cruise?!?
In 2004 they would move to Orlando together as best friends and work at Walt Disney World and plan Grand Gatherings and magical vacations for Disney Guests. Cruise vacations would increase and the travel bug would flourish. Over the next eleven years many vacations and cruises would happen and the adventures continued.
In 2015 he would leave the Magical World of Disney and start back in aviation working for an airline where Humanity is the inspiration. With new found abilities to fly anywhere at a moments notice he and Gail would expand their travels around the World. He is passionate about travel and fun and creating magical memories and although he no longer works for Disney, they both have annual passes and escape to Walt Disney World every chance they get.
I am not sure why I wrote all of this in the third person, it must be the writer in me. I hope you enjoy this blog as it has been a dream of mine for years and it will be updated weekly.