In this episode of Luxury Cruising, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis sits down with seasoned cruiser and travel advisor Cindy Pirtle to explore the magic of transatlantic cruises. From fewer crowds and lower costs to meaningful connections and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, Cindy shares why “slow cruising” might be the most rewarding way to see the world.
What if the ultimate luxury in travel isn’t space, but time?
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis sits down with travel advisor and experienced cruiser Cindy Pirtle to explore the appeal of transatlantic cruising. With nearly 100 cruises completed, Cindy shares insights from her recent 40-day journey, including two transatlantic crossings and time exploring Europe.
They discuss how these longer voyages often offer better value, with lower per-day costs, fewer crowds, and a more relaxed pace than traditional cruises. With multiple sea days, travelers can enjoy enrichment activities, establish routines, and experience true rest away from busy itineraries.
The episode highlights how transatlantic cruises encourage deeper social connections and create opportunities to meet like-minded travelers. Ultimately, the conversation reframes luxury as time, time to slow down, reflect, and pursue meaningful experiences, making transatlantic cruising a powerful and fulfilling way to travel.
Listeners will walk away with a new perspective on luxury, not as excess, but as the freedom to slow down, explore deeply, and reconnect with what matters most.
Episode Highlights:
About the Guest:
Cindy Pirtle currently serves as a Travel Advisor with Expedia Cruises in Spring, Texas; specializing in ocean and river cruises. She has recently completed her 95th cruise and 31st country. Cruising affords her the ability to see the world one port at a time and in doing so allows her the opportunity to determine which countries call her to explore for extended land tours. This extended personal travel allows her firsthand knowledge in assisting her travel clients with fantastic itineraries.
Prior to her life planning travel for others, she retired from two separate exciting careers. For many years, she practiced law focusing on litigation in the areas of oil and gas, pipeline regulation, constitutional law, employment law and finally health care law in both Houston and Galveston. She then attended Fuller Seminary and worked as the Director of Adult Education and Church Life at Windwood Presbyterian Church in Houston, teaching Bible studies and other areas of Christian education. After two full careers, Cindy learned that though she was talented in many areas, retirement was not one of them.
Email: cpirtle@expediacruises.com
Website: https://www.expediacruises.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cindy.pirtle
Phone: (832) 529-1300
Office Address: off 99/Grand Parkway exit Kuykendahl Rd in Grand Parkway Market Place adjacent to Toasted Yolk, Chipotle Mexican Grill, facing the Grand Parkway and near Target.
About the Host:
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a pediatrician, executive, and life coach for neurodiverse physicians—and the passionate host behind Luxury Cruising. She brings expert insight and honest excitement to every interview, helping curious travelers elevate their adventures at sea.
📍 Website: luxurycruising.net
📧 Email: luxurycruisingpodcast@gmail.com
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/krystalsodaitis
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Luxury Cruising. I'm your host, crystal Sodaitis, and today we're talking about the luxury of time . My guest, Cindy today has, really. Perfected the art of slow cruising. It's something that I have done once and hope to repeat again. And she has been on multiple slow cruises, also known as trans-Atlantic Cruises.
And I cannot wait to get into her philosophy around transatlantic cruises, around slow cruising and just the ease that, transatlantic Cruising provides. So Cindy, please tell the audience anything you would like them to know about you. First of all my name is Cindy Pirtle.
I'm a travel agent in Spring, Texas with Expedia Cruises and, a really strange, varied background. I was a trial attorney for 20 years retired, went to seminary and was [00:01:00] the director of adult discipleship at church and preached and taught bible studies. And then I retired. And what I've learned is I'm not very good at retirement.
So I am now a travel agent, uh, my third career. and absolutely loving being able to help people with their dreams really honestly, to find. What is a spark for each person, within their budget, within their timeframes multi-generational solo. So it's fantastic. It really is. even though I do book all types of travel, I would really say that my specialty and my focus is.
Ocean and river cruising. Those are the two things that I, sell the most and personally do the most. You had said that, I had done several I just got back two days ago, uh, from a 40 day trip. and so I [00:02:00] finished my 95th cruise and my 31st country. So it was just phenomenal.
And two of the cruises were transatlantics, which is how we got, started talking on this. And, so there you have it. Amazing. Amazing. So. Clarify was the 40 days on a ship or the whole trip in its entirety was 40 days? No, so what I did is a 16 night transatlantic from Galveston, Texas to Barcelona, Spain.
Then I had 10 days and I did that land. So I flew to Strasburg, France and used that because they have a great train system in France and used that as A point to go to Luxembourg and Switzerland and Germany and all over. So that was nice. Then went back to Barcelona and did a 13 night transatlantic from Barcelona to Orlando, Florida before I flew home.
Oh, that's amazing. so tell us on which ships have you [00:03:00] done Transatlantics. So I did three Royal Caribbeans and a carnival. and part of that is because two of the Royal Caribbeans were going outta Galveston. Since I live in Houston, that really is easy and it avoids airfare.
Mm-hmm. the first one was Voyager of the Seas, which is kind of a mid-size ship. The second one was out of Miami. That was independence of the Seas. That's the next level up of ship. The one I went over this time was Harmony of the Seas, which is one of Royal Caribbean's Oasis, clash ships, huge ship, so many amenities.
And then coming home I was on Carnival Glory, another what I would call small to mid-size ship. Got it. Got it. And why do you do so many transatlantics? so many reasons. Some that my clients have said that are important and that are important to me. oh, and there you saw I was moving There we [00:04:00] go. The first is the, cost. So price-wise, transatlantics tend to a little cheaper than other cruises. First and foremost because you have so many sea days and they that the second is
To avoid airports, airfare is not cheap. You have the headache the last couple of years with the airlines canceling or moving your flights. You have the rush to the airport. You have security sitting in a tiny seat for hours on end. Jet lag. That's a lot. So with a transatlantic, you avoid all that.
And yes, it takes a little longer but you're going through time changes. An hour a day, not 10 hours. At a whack, right? So that's lovely. Third, you. Have the opportunity to meet and really know some fantastic people that you would never meet in your daily goings, [00:05:00] uh, because you have people that have come over from Europe to take the transatlantic back
it's not a five night or a seven night where everybody is so busy with their family or their excursions that you're done. You have all of this time to get to know people and their backgrounds and their histories, and so that really is just fantastic. But I think the best thing, and it's the thing that you and I discussed, is that luxury of time.
because there are so many sea days, there's nothing that's going to keep you so busy that you're exhausted. Yeah. the Transatlantics offer you so much more so than a regular 3, 4, 5, or seven night cruise. So as a general rule, cruise lines will bring on guest lecturers for Transatlantics and so on.
This last one, on [00:06:00] Harmony of the Seas, we had three different guest lectures. One of them was Don Knots. And talking of all about his life and his career. So that was interesting. one year we had a Titanic expert. He was absolutely fascinating. So not just about the sinking of the ship.
But how it was built and some of the families and the China, and that was really interesting because that particular cruise ended up in South Hampton. Where in South Hampton in the United Kingdom, they have a huge, uh, Titanic museum because that's where it was built. Mm-hmm. So that was really
One cruise, they offered a few lessons in Portuguese, so that was fun. Napkin, folding towel animals, they always have trivia. so if you want to be busy, and of course you know they have a casino and a pool on harmony, there is a, huge central park in the center of the ship. [00:07:00] And so if you wanna be busy with all of that, that I mentioned, you certainly have the option.
You could book yourself one thing after another, but if you don't want that, especially like I said, on those O ACEs class ships, you have this huge park in the center of a ship and in the mornings you go and you have your coffee. You're sitting in a park setting with trees and bushes. You can hear bird song.
The sun is shining down. You have no idea that you're actually on a cruise ship. It's stunning. You can sit on your balcony or go up on deck and listen to that whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the waves, and it's so calming and grounding and all of the things that you might have in your day.
Cooking and grocery shopping and the family and bills and cleaning and everything that could be an issue in your life is suddenly [00:08:00] purged with that. Very nice. Well, yeah, you said so much and I wanted to touch on a couple things. Well, the first thing you said was the price.
Absolutely. Your. Per day per person price can be significantly lower. And I think it has to do with especially for. north Americans and Americans, we're not used to taking more than a week off at a time. And the transatlantics are generally more than 10 days, usually more like 12, 14 or 16 days, depending on which two ports you're going to.
And so. They are per night, generally less, which for some people, especially if you can work remotely or if you're retired or if you have the leisure time, um, or if you just wanna take the two weeks off, you just have a lot of time off. It can be a really. Per night, an economical way to go.
And uh, the other thing too that we noticed which was not a positive for us because we were doing our transatlantic with our two kids, but there were [00:09:00] very few kids on that transatlantic especially school aged kids, teenagers, you could count on one hand. And my daughter was one of them. And for people who want a more
Adults only experience, a transatlantic can really fulfill that not necessarily having to be on an adult only cruise line. And I think the one thing that you touched on too is sort of like the daily, what I found on mine is. I realized that I couldn't just leave my day to, the whims.
I did much better when I actually had I'm like, I'm gonna get up at this time. And what I found too, and you tell me if this is true, mine was a celebrity ship. Tell me if this was the same on Carnival and or Royal, but like the activities were predictable. There was a semi unpredictable schedule of this is the time, the trivia always is, and then there's some adult craft, and then there's a talk, and then it's lunchtime and then it's this.
So [00:10:00] it was very predictable, which meant that I had some vague sense of a schedule. Now, if I didn't wanna go to adult crafts, I could take a nap. I could, read on the balcony or Outside, uh, you know, you could go for a swim, whatever it was. And when the weather was good, of course the kids were in this pool at all every afternoon, no matter what the weather was.
But but yeah, I think that is such a nice way to cruise. Unlike a shorter cruise, even seven days, you've got all these ports and. Maybe you're excited to go on if you're a relatively new cruiser. Maybe not. It's like you're gonna go to this excursion and you're gonna go here, and then you're getting off the ship and just the toll, I don't know how many times you've been to Nassau, but just the physical toll of getting off the ship in Nassau and doing a little bit of shopping in the port area and getting back on.
By the time you get back on, you're like, oh, I need the chair again. I need the chase again. Well, so, we go outta Galveston. And we have the Western Caribbean repeatedly. That's all we really have. [00:11:00] And so ours is Cozumel cost. May and Roan Honduras. Yeah, I don't need to get off really because I've been to them so many times, like I said, 95 cruises.
But you're right about getting into that routine. So most of the ones I've been on, you find your people. My people are the crocheters and the knitters. Mm-hmm. And so on. Every transatlantic I've been on, there's been a group of folks and we have a place and on sea days, we meet there every day at 10 o'clock or whatever the time is.
And so you're right, I have a schedule. I get up, I go to the cafe and get my coffee and maybe have some breakfast. And then, you get into your routine of what you're gonna do every day. And with my work schedule I don't wanna say on-call 24 7, but it sometimes works that way.
Uh, especially if I'm in Europe. Seven hours [00:12:00] ahead, right at two o'clock in the morning. I'm answering the phone, but yes, sure, I'll book that for you. Um. But the great thing is, even 10 years ago, you couldn't go on a cruise and expect to work because the wifi simply wasn't there.
And now I really do, I'm able to pretty much conduct my business no matter where I am now. There's always gonna be a few days. Uh, weather is the biggest thing. If it's cloudy, if it's overcast, uh, you may not have a great signal, but for the most part, I can get everything done. And then I will go back to your comment about kids.
So celebrity is what we consider a luxury line. Uh, well, or a premium line. Uh, you start out at the family lines or family slash value lines, those are gonna be like M-S-C-N-C-L, carnival Royal. And in those you're gonna have more families. And even on a transatlantic, [00:13:00] while you certainly are not gonna have the amount of children that you're gonna have on other ships, or, you know, during.
Shorter sailings, but you will have a good number of homeschool kids. And because it is those family value lines, that's where you're gonna find enough, where they'll have a group to kind of hang around with. Once you bump up then to that next level, which would be princess uh, celebrity Holland America, and Disney and Virgin Voyages.
And now of course you're getting to a level where because prices go up. Tend, that tends not to be a family line. Right. And then of course, once you go from there and go to Silver Seas or Seven Seas or Viking Ocean or any of those, really the chances of seeing children is slim and none. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it was a celebrity I thought, becauseit was spring break and I know that spring break [00:14:00] for the contemporary lines that you. Mention like the prices are outrageous and it is, you're gonna have on a ship with five or 6,000 people, at least a thousand of those people are gonna be kids of all ages.
But I thought this is spring break. I was amazed at the bargain basement price I was able to get for this cruise over spring break. and I think that celebrities sometimes especially during peak season. Can be very competitively priced with some of the family lines because there isn't as much of a draw to them during those peak.
During maybe a little bit more, not as much during Christmas or New Year's, but definitely during spring break. I've just, and also just booking and boarding. On cruise lines, you know, you're getting in, line at the airport and you see where people are going. And definitely the Carnival and the Royal and the MSC have all the kids and then the princess and the celebrity.
There's a couple kids, but that, not quite as many. That's so interesting to know. Yeah. The [00:15:00] homeschool yeah, that would be, a fantastic opportunity for homeschoolers to be able to see the world. And it is fantastic. It's in a, a whole new avenue of education.
Since COVID, we've seen a lot more homeschool families vet crews, and. a fantastic way to supplement your education, not simply by reading about a location or a war or archeology, or a culture, but actually visiting that country and seeing those things. Yes. And that has a value.
So far beyond the cost of a cruise. Yes. absolutely. I couldn't agree more. The question that I had for you was, so the transatlantics, and we can also talk about Transpac Pacifics, but these. sailings tend to be seasonal. Yes. They tend to happen. So I'll let you, since this is your business, talk about the seasonality of [00:16:00] Transatlantics and Transpac Pacifics.
And I'm very curious that if maybe you can weave into your answer is how you manage to find a transatlantic. In, I think it was like late March, early April, going from Europe to the us. I was like that's a fine, that was how you made your whole trip possible without having to go on a plane at all.
So I wanna hear that story. So yes, you are correct that there's definitely a cruise line schedule and so most of the cruise lines inundate the Caribbean. During the summer in the spring. So if we start off in the spring and it didn't use to start until April, but now they've started bumping it up to March.
I think the weather Is not as nice as when they moved it to April. But that being said, so in the spring is when you have your ships going to Europe, in May, we have ships that are headed to [00:17:00] Alaska. So this is when people are going everywhere moving those ships into those locations because the Alaskan season is only made of September.
So you have to have all those ships up there and that's where they stay until September and then they get rerouted to the Caribbean and just like going to Europe, same thing. Then everything stays there through the summer, and then everything comes back in the fall. Because again, we gotta move them to the warm weather where we can fill them up.
I was very lucky. and obviously I have a, help, right? 'cause I'm a travel agent and I keep an eye on things. But Glory had gone in for some maintenance and so it had to go in for maintenance and come back and Glory had come over. There were people on the return flight that had been on three cruises on Glory.
So they came over. Then there was another [00:18:00] loop they did. Then the ship went into dry dock for a week. And then it did the transatlantic. So there were folks that had done all three, they came over on it, did another one, did some land, and then did the transatlantic back. So yes, that was fascinating.
But you have to keep an eye on those and that is not something that you'll see a lot of that's just, you have to know. I would mention one other thing, and it's a transatlantic, but not in the way that we think about it. There are liners and ships
So cruise ships are the ones we're talking about. And the reason that it takes 13, 14, 16 days to get somewhere is because of the size of them and the way that they're built. They're going at a particular speed. Ocean liners are built very differently and they can go much quicker. So there is an option for folks that if you need to come back and you don't wanna fly over [00:19:00] the ocean.
The long flight and it's not spring or fall, Kard is actually the only one that offers every seven days from Southampton to New York, and it only takes seven days and you know, you're Southampton to New York. They emptied, they load back up, back to Southampton. So it's another really great option for folks who either.
Are afraid of flying, don't wanna fly expense or whatever. Uh, because a lot of times you can find inexpensive domestic flights from New York to wherever you happen to live. Yeah. That's a good reminder that, yeah. I can't remember. There's only one Ocean liner right now. It is ard. It might be the Queen Mary two.
It is one of the Queen twos, but I don't remember which one. Um, it's Queen Mary. Yeah. Yeah. And so yes, like you could do a quick five day over between South Hampton and New York and that's definitely a dream of mine. Not because I don't like flying, but just because I think it would be [00:20:00] just such a great thing to do.
Totally different experience. And I liken Kard more to river cruising. So you're not gonna have swimming pools and casinos and slides and things like that, right? It is classier. It is more old school. It is, A level above and so that's wonderful. But really. I hate to say it, almost apples and oranges.
River cruising and ocean cruising are nothing alike. Yeah. Both are amazing, but for very different ways. And let me say also because we've discussed the different types, the value family lines, the premium lines, the luxury lines there is a pro and a con for each of the lines in all the way up.
Absolutely. that means there's something for each person. And you know, I have people who are carnival [00:21:00] people and they will not budge. I have loyal to royal people. I have people that will not get off Oceania. It's Oceania, a penthouse suite because their food is excellent. But at the same time I have Asara people.
You know, you have the Silver Sea I think either you find your people or you find your comfort zone. And like I said, I've tried to go on all of them and I do, I find pros and cons on each one of them. Now, the pro and the con is my pro and con because it truly is a subjective pro and con, right?
Do I like the food? The best food I've ever had was on the river cruises. Good. Amazing. There's only 128 people on that cruise . And everyone has different tastes. I have heard both ways. Right? I have heard the same cruise line, river cruise line.
Someone has said the food was just average and other people said, oh, this was compared to a Michelin star restaurant. [00:22:00] So it really is subjective. But your point is that, you're reminding me of, uh, something else around what you said is that you're gonna find your people. I do believe there is a cruise line and a type of cruising for everyone.
If you are open to. Looking, but the other thing that you said was around finding your people and you said you found the crocheters and knitters. And what I also love about cruising in general, but it's just amplified on a transatlantic, is this is a group of people. It's a, it's sort of a pre-established group of people who are all interested in the same thing as you are.
Whether it's using this mode of transportation, whether it's learning about, like the cruises that we did went to the Azo, we stopped in the Azores learning about the different, you know, to Maal Yes. Pun dug. And so [00:23:00] you have an established group, you're going to find people.
And I also think that in general, cruisers are some of the nicest. People to travel with amazing. And so you're gonna find people to talk to. You don't have to talk to anybody. You don't have to talk, you don't even have to talk to the people in the buffet if that's where you wanna eat all your meals.
And you can always find someone to talk to if you really want to. Well, and I travel solo a lot. My husband is not yet retired, and so we always joke that I'm the scouting team. I'm going to all these places to see what is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Right? But that being said, and back to your point about amazing places, this last cruise, I got to go to Gibraltar, which was absolutely phenomenal.
I stood on the top of this mountain and I'm standing in the United Kingdom and there is Spain and [00:24:00] there is Morocco. So I am. Three countries, two continents, Europe and Africa, and then two bodies of water, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Sea. And there is the Hercules sign, right? Just fantastic.
They have, that's where the monkeys are the only wild monkeys that are there. Amazing. and they're just very fascinating. St. Michael's cave, this beautiful cavern where they have theater productions now. Just gorgeous lit with the fluorescent lights. And then I ended up with, a tour through the World War II tunnels there's more tunnels.
Under Gibraltar, then there are streets for the pedestrians and all of the history and the setups they had below and the tunnels. And then I walked all the way down the stairs to the bottom of Gibraltar and had a phenomenal fish and chips because it, you know, it was the United Kingdom.
[00:25:00] Phenomenal fish and chips before I made my way back to the ship. Absolutely stunning day. And that's because it was a cruise that I gotta go to a place. And the other thing too that I sort of mentioned without saying, and you just mentioned without saying, is that the transatlantics allow us to see ports that you otherwise don't see.
Like we had in our transatlantic, we had two port stops. One was Bermuda, which is like, you can get there all the time, like not a big deal. But the Azores, most people only go on a transatlantic. You might be able to get one out of Barcelona or out of South Hampton, but it's not that often. Same thing with Gibraltar.
I don't know. You can tell me maybe some of the Mediterranean ones go to Gibraltar, we mentioned Alaska and yeah, some of the cruises and some of the lineswhen you leave Alaska to go back to the Caribbean, they have to go through the Panama Canal.
That's not something [00:26:00] the all the way through, not just halfway through and back. There are so many cruises. I look at these all the time that leave from Alaska and then go to Australia because our winter is their summer cruise season. Exactly. And so you are going through, hawaii, Hawaii, you have multiple stops in Hawaii. There's multiple, like Fiji, Bora, Easter Island, all of these amazing places. Fantastic. Yes. That you otherwise, unless you're gonna basically fly to Bora, you are not gonna get on a cruise. Well, and they have several now that are leaving from Vancouver to Tokyo.
Yes, yes. So you've got that option. And honestly the Asian market has really opened up a lot. Um, we have a new airline. Oh, now it just escaped me. Gosh, what is it now? I can't, now it's lost. I'm having a mature moment. But leaving outta Houston, that, that's going to Japan and to Singapore and so that's been [00:27:00] fantastic opening that up.
Australia is a long flight, and those flights aren't cheap. And so being able to go to Australia on a cruise and see all the things on the way In my mind, the value of not having to pay that huge airfare and mess with the airport and the customs and the jet lag and all, and the tiny seat, regardless of where you're sitting, they're all tiny seats.
That cost, not just financial, but that cost is so much higher yeah, and the physical emotional cost of getting to the airport, making sure you're on time, having all your paperwork. A lot of times, especially for England and other places, you need specific visas.
Even for England and Europe these days, even Americans need visas. Just all of that. I mean, you still need it on a cruise ship, but It just adds to it all. Well, and quite frankly you know, let's talk about a first class seat, not cheap, right? You can do a transatlantic in a suite. and so you're talking [00:28:00] about 16 days in a suite.
Yeah. For the similar price, A first class plane ticket . , It still might Be 12 to 15 hours, but hopefully you're sleeping for a lot of it. Exactly. And you know. We're talking luxury. And so luxury is usually going to be defined as those sweet glass cabins, right? Which is fine.
And I've been in the Junior Suites, in the Grand Suites and been up in one of the Aqua Suites on Royal Caribbean. Oh. And so all of those are phenomenal, but I'm gonna tell you, it's also luxury if you are simply traveling solo and you have a cabin all to yourself. Yes. That is a luxury of I don't want to get up right now.
I want to go to bed early. I wanna stay in the casino for another hour. I wanna eat the buffet instead of going to the main dining room. You know what, it's two in the morning. I think I'll have pizza. it's a luxury [00:29:00] to not have to think. That's so awful of anyone but yourself, just for a little bit.
I love that. I absolutely love that. Anything else about a transatlantic cruise that you think we haven't covered today?
I think one of the greatest things about transatlantic cruises is it gets you to a place. I'm gonna go back to my last trip. Uh, I have family, I do genealogy as well, and I have family that were from the SSO Lorraine area, and I didn't know a whole lot. I mean, I had census data from when they got over here.
But because I was staying in France, I actually took two days and did some genealogy research. Now, that's been on my mind for 30 years. But I don't know that I would never have said, okay, I am gonna fly over and we're gonna do genealogy. I'm gonna find these folks.
I [00:30:00] simply certainly wouldn't have done that. But because I was going over, I knew I had 10 days between cruises and I had the whole world, what am I gonna do in 10 days? And so in those 10 days, I did go to get to go to Switzerland and Luxembourg, which were two countries I'd never been to, which was fantastic.
But it also gave me that opportunity to do a little research and talk to some folks locally and see local churches and things like that. It gives you the impetus to realize some of your dreams, that you weren't necessarily thinking that you'd ever achieve those things that you thought I would love to do the Swiss Alps, but.
I did a river cruise last year for my 60th birthday. and always I was a sound of music, and because we were going to Salzburg, that was it. I had to do the Sound of [00:31:00] Music tour and while they. Are very happy to let you know that the movie is nothing like the real story.
I stood and was the ugly American singing doe a dear, a female. I was you know, 16 going on 17. You know, I knew all the words and people would sing along with you, and it was a dream since I was a kid. That I don't think I would've said, okay, well we're going over simply to do the sound of music. But it was something I got.
So the Transatlantics and the Transpac Pacifics actually give you that excuse and the opportunity to realize dreams that you thought would never be reached, That's the thing I love about my job because even if it is a seven night cruise, even if it is those shorter Caribbean cruises or an Alaskan cruise if I can help somebody have that dream come [00:32:00] true, when they come back and say, oh my gosh, it was amazing Cindy you know, to be able to send somebody to Alaska and do a seven night land concierge, and then the crews. And so they've gotten to see Alaska by land and cruise, you know, the interior and then all along the coast. And just those kinds of things really.
Dreams come true. And so that is the luxury people today, sometimes I think don't have hope. Hope and realizing dreams is a luxury and it's a luxury that folks like you and I can help people realize. And so I'm so grateful that you gave me an opportunity to talk to you, and to share my passion really.
Oh, I'm so glad that you came on the show. Tell us, what do you have in store? Like what's on the schedule coming up? Cruise wise, or not cruise wise, [00:33:00] luxury transatlantic. What's on the schedule? I have one big one. It's for my birthday next year. Highly recommend because it hasn't been offered in a while.
So I am doing a princess cruise. It's a 12 night, eight country cruise, and it's round trip from Copenhagen, Denmark, and it's doing all the Baltic capitals now, obviously we don't get to go to St. Petersburg. But, but we're doing Denmark and Norway and Sweden and Lavia and Poland, and so all of these places I've not been to any of these countries.
So these are more bucket list items. so that one I probably is the most fascinating one that I've got coming up. We do a lot like. My husband's birthday's in June, so we're doing a seven night on Symphony outta Galveston. I'm doing a back to back, uh, in October because Liberty of the Seas is coming back to Galveston [00:34:00] and I've got some folks on the transatlantic bringing it back, but I'll be doing it once it gets here.
Next June, we're doing Alaska, on Princess Round trip from San Francisco, which is a different location because a lot of times, most of our cruising when we're thinking about doing Alaska, it's Vancouver, Seattle Anchorage. Those are our, main, uh, Whittier, And Whittier is, you know, that's the hard part 'cause it's three hours from the Anchorage airport. Those cruises are less expensive, but That's a big long drive. But then going from Seattle, coming home, those flights are horrible. So I'm very excited because going outta San Francisco, you've got good flight capabilities.
Right. And it's an excellent itinerary even though it's only seven days. So, and that's on Princess as well. That sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. If anyone is interested in booking any of these cruises or any other cruise or travel with [00:35:00] you, how could they get in touch with you? Uh, so the easiest way I've sent you a link to my website, and so that'll be on here somewhere.
I'll give you my office number if we can do that. Uh, that's 8 3 2 5 2 9 1 3. Zero. Zero and my name is Cindy Perle. P-I-R-T-L-E. Sounds like a turtle, but spelled a little different. And so my email is C perle@expediacruises.com. I'm on Facebook just as Cindy Meadow Perle. I don't do a business page.
I do everything off my personal page, and part of that is because. The majority of my clients have become such good friends and my new clients are almost all referrals. Yeah. it's very rare that I meet someone new and they go, oh, well what do you do? Most of mine are phone calls going, so and so said you booked their crews and you did a great job and we love you.
And so. But I'd love to help anybody. [00:36:00] And the nice thing is questions cost no money. As a travel agent, I cost no money. All travel agent commissions are already built into cruise line fairs. You should never have to pay a travel agent to book a cruise. And we've got excellent. group rights with celebrity and with Royal Caribbean, and a lot of times we have,
Groups already set up on River Cruises and Transatlantics. This Transatlantics, I had about 35 guests of my clients. Wow. 'cause I had set up a group for them early on, so we had great rates and so anyway, I'm sorry I could talk for hours about cruising. It's amazing. Likewise. Your enthusiasm definitely.
Comes through. I so appreciate you being on the podcast. That's how we were referred through. One of your clients, who's a friend of mine, said you have to talk to Cindy. So I'm so glad we connected. I hope you will come back. Um, maybe we should talk about anytime Hyper Cruise experience next year I can tell you about the Baltic [00:37:00] Capitals.
So listeners, thank you for joining me and until next time, I wish you safe and luxurious cruising.