Cruise Director John Heald Planning Blogger's Cruise

Posted on May 3, 2007

An MSNBC article discusses cruise director John Heald's hit travel blog. John Heald is the Cruise Director for Carnival Freedom. His blog at johnheald.wordpress.com has already received over 150,000 visitors. The MSNBC article describes some of the topics Heald has been covering in his blog.

In one blog entry, Heald tells of a passenger who was upset that the shops in Naples, Italy, refused to take U.S. dollars. "I explained that in Europe the euro was the accepted currency, but this lady was adamant that the dollar is accepted all over the world," Heald writes.
In another entry, Heald recounts a passenger's anger that John would encourage tours of Istanbul's mosques. "The passenger felt that for various reasons it was wrong and that I was promoting terrorism -- he left by calling me "the Sperm of the Devil." Heald says he's seen a lot of things over the years, but was unprepared for both this man's wrath and his reasoning.
It turns out Heald is a multi-media guy, and some of his best blog entries recount stories from his daily TV show, which is broadcast each morning to all the staterooms aboard ship. In addition to shipboard news, the show features passenger requests and questions. One such request came from a passenger whose luggage had been lost by her airline. The woman, who was quite large, was able to find some clothes that fit, but she couldn't find a comfortable pair of plus-sized underwear. She begged John to help, so he put out a panty call to everyone watching the show. Result: seven pairs of underwear from sympathetic fellow passengers. Heald sent each of the kind ladies champagne with a thank-you note.

Bloggers that are experts in their field and can write well can quickly build a readership. John Heald writes interesting posts about life on the cruise ship and the fantastic places they visit. He doesn't hold back in his descriptions if there is something unpleasant. This excerpt from one of Heald's posts gives you an example.

The weather was fine today but the smell was not. No, you do not need glasses, I did say smell. There are natural gas reserves in this area of Greece and today those reserves were being...well...less than reserved. The sea smelled like it had eaten 1 million eggs for breakfast and was giving our guests the resulting good news.

John Heald also provides travel photographs in many of his posts. The busy cruise director is also organizing a cruise for bloggers. It sounds like it would be great fun.