Join host Dr. Krystal Sodaitis as she launches Luxury Cruising, a podcast dedicated to all things luxury cruising. From personal stories to expert interviews, Dr. Sodaitis invites you to explore the world of opulent cruise experiences, whether you're a seasoned cruiser or just curious about the high seas of luxury.
This episode is sponsored by: Simply Inspired Travel
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Welcome to the inaugural episode of Luxury Cruising! Dr. Krystal Sodaitis shares her love of cruising and the inspiration behind starting this podcast. Dr. Sodaitis recounts her cruising journey, beginning with her first voyage in 2001, and how a mix of family adventures and future cruise credits led her to explore a wide range of cruising experiences, from mass-market lines to luxury aspirations.
This episode sets the stage for what’s to come: in-depth conversations about high-end cruise lines, ship-within-a-ship experiences, all-suite ships, and how you can make luxury cruising attainable. Whether you dream of relaxing on a private balcony with panoramic ocean views or dancing until the early hours at an exclusive onboard event, Luxury Cruising is here to inspire and inform.
Three Key Takeaways:
About the Host:
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a health insurance executive (CHIE) and TEDx speaker. She is a board-certified pediatrician with fellowship training in academic general pediatrics. With extensive experience in utilization management, claims adjudication, coding, and appeals, she transitioned from academic medicine to managed care, where she serves as an Associate Chief Medical Officer.
Her academic background includes leadership in Academic General Pediatrics and grant-funded clinical research. She also holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Health Services Administration. Passionate about professional coaching and emotional health, Dr. Revai Sodaitis is dedicated to supporting neurodivergent physicians, helping them harness their strengths and navigate challenges associated with neurodiversity.
Beyond medicine, she is a devoted mom and an avid cruiser with a deep appreciation for luxury travel.
EP 1 welcome
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to episode one of Luxury Cruising, your podcast about all things luxury cruising. I'm your host, Crystal Sodaitis, and I'm really excited to start this podcast and add Podcaster to my expanding list of roles. If you've never encountered me before, I'm a mom, I'm a life coach for neurodiverse physicians, I'm a healthcare executive, and I'm a pure bar enthusiast.
I love all things cruising, and I also love exercise and science, especially brain science and creating systems. And so I'm sure those things will pop into our podcast here and there, but mostly this podcast is going to be about luxury cruising. I went on my first cruise in 2001. My mom asked me if we wanted to take advantage of some of the post 9 11 price reductions and go on a cruise.
[00:01:00] Yeah. For those of you who may not remember that, but 9 11 also brought a dip to the cruise industry similar to the COVID 19 pandemic. And we were not Concerned about, terrorism or anything like that with regards to cruising. So we said, Hey, the prices are great. Let's take a cruise. Had never cruised before, but we took a chance on a one week princess cruise to the eastern Mediterranean out of Miami.
I. really can't remember much about that cruise. I think we went to St. Martin as one of the port stops. I don't remember anything about a private island. I remember the dining room and I remember some of the activities and I remember sleeping a lot. But I did fall in love with Cruising, but despite moving to a cruise port, I lived in Galveston, Texas on the island within half a mile from the cruise port for [00:02:00] over five years.
And I never went on a cruise. Isn't that crazy? I loved seeing the ships in port. I always thought, Oh, one day, but I never actually set foot on a ship craziness. So I wouldn't actually go on my next cruise for almost 14 years after that initial Princess Cruise. It was a Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas four night Thanksgiving cruise in 2015.
We left from Port Canaveral. We spent two days in Nassau, actually, because at that time Coco Cay, which is Royal Caribbean's private island, was a tender port.
The weather was so rough and the seas were so rough that they knew that they couldn't get the tenders to Coco Cay. And for those of you that don't know what a tender is, it's a small boat that you take from the larger ship to the port. And this is for many ports whose docks or the conditions in the [00:03:00] port can't support a larger ship, but yet those larger ships still want to visit.
Back then Coco Cay was a tender port. They have subsequently built A doc. And so we couldn't go. So we spent two days in Nassau. ~And ~We had a fabulous time. I went with my brother and sister in law and their two boys We were taking my dad as a part of his 80th birthday Celebration so he was there with his partner at the time and it was just epic even though Enchantment of the Seas is a smaller ship They did expand it at one point.
They actually split the boat in half and added, more probably rooms. I'm not actually sure what exactly they added. It was amazing. We had fun, we danced, we ate, we chilled. It was just one of my favorite all time vacations. So what happened on that cruise is we had an issue with our cabin. And the issue was bad enough that when [00:04:00] I went to customer service to discuss it with them and the amount of time that it took for that issue to be resolved, we got some future cruise credit, also known as FCC.
Now the FCC was time sensitive, so we only had a short period of time by which we needed to Book a cruise in order to take advantage of that FCC. So we actually booked our next cruise right there in the next cruise office on the ship. ~Just, we were one of those people sitting in the next cruise office.~
It was amazing. And I thought, oh, I know what my Daughter's vacation schedule is going to be for the next school year. Let's just go ahead and book it. And we booked a one week cruise on Anthem of the Seas out of Bayonne, New Jersey for March of the next year, March of 2016. The itinerary wasn't glamorous.
We left Bayonne and we sailed like a day and a half to Port Canaveral. Then we went to Nassau, Coco [00:05:00] Cay, and then two days back to Port Canaveral. Nobody came with us. It was just at that time, my oldest daughter~ my ~and my husband and I we liked the idea of driving to the cruise port and we live in a flyover state.
We and we could drive in a reasonable distance to Pennsylvania, which was where my father lived at the time. And from there he drove us to the cruise port and it was really nice. And this time we had an even better trip. Anthem of the Seas continues to be one of my favorite trips of all time.
We loved it. Exploring Anthem of the Seas, we love the bumper cars and the C Plex going to karaoke, bingo, all the things. My daughter who at the time was probably, eight or nine. Can't remember. Didn't do the math. She loved going to Adventure Ocean. She spent a whole day there when we docked in Port [00:06:00] Canaveral and she didn't want to go to Kennedy Space Center.
And so we gave her the option to stay in. Adventure Ocean all day. It was probably half the day because by the time we left the ship it was noon and we told her we're not picking you up until after dinner, which was gonna be like 8 or 9 o'clock. She was perfectly fine. Actually, didn't even want to leave.
I was a wreck because I was like, What am I doing leaving a ship with my child on board? But it worked out fantastic. And that's where ~we ~I learned and realized one of the other joys of cruising is when you have children, maybe not little children, but when you have that elementary school, middle school children, you can start to give them a little more independence and they can have time away from you having a great time with their friends while you are also having a good time.
And they are. Taken care of and entertained and safe. When we returned from that Anthem of the Seas cruise, we were officially hooked. Since then, I've gone on over [00:07:00] a dozen cruises, everywhere ~from the, ~from Mexico and the Mexican Riviera to the Baltic. So around the same time that I returned from the 2015 cruise, it was about the same time I was discovering podcasts.
And so I quickly subscribed to three podcasts that were just dedicated to cruising. ~One was a, ~one of those was a river cruise podcast that is not active anymore, but the other two are going strong and I still listen to them all the time. Weekly or whenever a new episode comes out now, these two podcasts and.
Many of the other podcasts that I have subsequently picked up on really focus on mass market or contemporary cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, MSC, every once in a while, there's an occasional sprinkling of a higher end line like Celebrity or Holland America or Princess, Disney, but really not Much else.
~Nothing really outside of that. ~We'll call Holland [00:08:00] America, Disney celebrity premium lines, but really nothing much out of that. There's very little about the luxury ~crew ~boards, the seaborns, the regent, ~right? The~
~Oceana, right? ~Or, ones that focus just on the even when they're talking about the premium lines or the contemporary lines talking about ~the S ~the suites on board and what kind of perks you get with some of those higher end state rooms. I have always loved. Luxury for those of you like me in generation X, you might remember Robin Leach lifestyles of the rich and famous millennials had cribs these days.
I don't even know if keeping up with the Kardashians is like for people these days, it seems keep it up from the Kardashians like 10 years ago, but we've got real housewives of fill in the blank. I just discovered real housewives of Dubai. Like I have such morbid curiosity about that one.
We've got Vandercamp rules. We've got, I think there's like sly in the family stone about [00:09:00] Sylvester Stallone and his house. And in his family. So we just love to glimpse how the 0. 1 percent live. Glamor, luxury, opulence, extravagance, and we just love it. We soak it in. And I love the idea of taking a luxury cruise.
Truth be told, I have not yet taken a luxury cruise. I've never been on one of the, Luxury lines. I've only been on, I've been on a couple of the premium lines. Like I said, princess and I have been on celebrity, but even on those ships, I wasn't in a suite, but I love hearing about luxury. I love living vicariously through other people who have experienced luxury.
It's just fun. Now, cruise lines spoil us to begin with. And then when you put on. ~The service of the ~the service level that I consider to be part of luxury, it's just an amazing experience. And I just love that the staff are so committed to no [00:10:00] matter what. What number, what level stateroom you're in, the staff are so committed to creating the most memorable vacation of your life.
And if that's true for mass market lines and for contemporary, I use mass marketing and temporary interchangeably. So if you've got a particular, or dislike of one ~of ~the other. I'd love to hear from you at luxury cruising podcast at gmail. com. But yeah, ~and ~any comments whatsoever, I'll interject here.
Any comments you have about the podcast questions, or if you would like to be on the podcast to talk about your luxury cruise experience, please email me at luxury cruising podcast at gmail. com. So that was our little advertisement ~interchange or ~interruption. ~And, ~but what I was going to say is, imagine if service and obviously safety, but if service is so important in a contemporary line, imagine what the experience would be like on a luxury ship or in a high end suite.
And [00:11:00] that's what this podcast is dedicated to giving you a glimpse into that. experience. When you subscribe to this podcast~ an email, ~a podcast will drop into your feed every week. You can expect me to talk about what luxury is to me. And so the guests~ We'll ~be interviewing. I'll give you ~a ~glimpses into life, what it's like to sail on Puno, Seabourn, Regent, ~in the Haven ~in Norwegian's Haven, right?
Or MSC's Yacht Club, right? We'll do ocean cruises. We'll do river cruises. Anything that is considered luxury, I hope to be able to cover on this podcast. We'll learn what it's like to really live life to the fullest. And if my goal here is just to give people a glance at what living life to a fullest on a cruise ship looks and that could be dancing till 3am in [00:12:00] your own private silent disco or just sitting out on your, 300 square foot balcony enjoying a meal from your favorite restaurant on ship.
We will look at, All suite ships that have high end suites, ships that have, ~are ~the ship within the ship concept, right? Where if you are in a suite, you have access to a specific restaurant and a specific pool deck, right? I hope to get anyone who has taken advantage of~ some of the business, ~some of the ships that ~take advantage or ~offer the business class airline tickets.
So that your luxury starts even from the airport. Maybe you got a transfer So who knows I really hope that one day I will have either a resident or a representative from the world to come. The world is a exclusive cruise ship ~that ~where millionaires and billionaires actually own their suites and they circumnavigate the [00:13:00] world. They may or may not live on the ship. ~I, ~it is considered to me one of the most luxurious.
Cruise experiences, even though I've never been on it from what I've seen and read and heard. So if you're out there and you have experienced the world in any way, either from a crew standpoint or from a passenger standpoint, please reach out to me. I'd love to have you on the podcast.
I also hope to share with you all on this podcast how you can create and afford the luxury for yourself. Like I said, I love to cruise. I have never been on a luxury ship. I've never been in a luxury suite. ~But I would also, ~I do travel on the higher end. I've been on my fair share of what Royal Caribbean calls junior suites, where you don't get, a personal concierge.
But I get a little bit of a bigger room. I get a little bit of perks. I like it, and I would rather ~cruise~
that [00:14:00] way.
Lastly, if you think sailing is In luxury is a pipe dream. Then I hope that we can also cover how you can create and even afford a luxury experience for yourself. Now I love to cruise. And at this point in my life, I would rather cruise more often for less than splurge on one really expensive state room.
Less frequently, but that doesn't mean I can never splurge. I do like to cruise in what Royal Caribbean considers a junior suite. So this is a slightly bigger balcony state room that has some perks, but certainly doesn't have a personal concierge and usually doesn't have access to the suite neighborhood.
And Yeah, it's nice, but it's not what I would consider luxury, but yet I do have a luxury cruise scheduled. And at the time of this recording, it hasn't happened [00:15:00] yet. ~And why, ~and I hope to ~talk to that, ~talk about that in a future episode about why we chose this cruise, how we afforded it, and ideally what the cruise was all about and how it went.
So I just want to sincerely thank you for listening to episode one of this podcast. I hope that you will join me again as I, continue and learn about this podcasting world and the world of luxury cruising. And if you ~again would like your, ~would like to come ~on the podcast and. Tell me about your luxury cruising experience.~
~Please email me@luxurycruisingpodcast.com. I'm sorry. If you would like to join me ~on the podcast and tell me about your luxury cruising experience, please email me at Luxury Cruising podcast@gmail.com. That's Luxury Cruising And until then, until our next episode, I wish you dreams of luxury cruising and unforgettable journeys ahead.
Thanks.