In just a few short months it will be July 2019 and Cruise Addicts will celebrate our Twenty Year anniversary. In 1999 I was working on my family’s business website hoping to sell Police Uniforms and Equipment online. We were very successful and were one of the first Uniform sites to be listed on Yahoo!. I remember how hard it was buy a domain name and website back then. We soon took online orders. It was exciting to see the orders show up in our Inbox. I remember making a big purchase of a handheld image scanner to scan images from the catalogs to add products to the website. We had a nice run and sold items all over the world. It was very rewarding. These were the days before Gall’s, Amazon or even online betting sites. To get away from my “real job” I fell in love with cruise travel like so many others. I searched for all the ship reviews and wanting to learn every little detail before my cruise. This led me to learn the best resources online.
How We Started
I was always working on the uniform store’s website. So with my girlfriends urging we created Cruise Addicts for fun. The name came from our table mate’s on our previous cruise who nicknamed us the “Cruise Addicts”. We honestly just knew too much about the ship and would share things with them over Dinner’s together. Little did I know that I would sit here almost twenty years later telling you about it. Our little idea has grown up and has left a legacy. On once small online forums soared and was considered one of the top three in the cruise travel world. Thousands of users from all over the world visited each day. I remember it cost thousands of dollars a month just to keep our website working. The community reflected life. Our members met each other “in real life” regularly. One couple even got married. Our members would often open their homes and host “meetings”. Forum members flew-in just to meet each other at these events. It was fantastic and the people wonderful. Many are still friends today and still visit our forums. Unfortunately we also mourned the loss of several key members over time. We shared each other’s lives with cruise travel being what brought us all together. These memories are special.
The Future
Today we continue to evolve our media offerings with industry news, ship reviews and travel tips. Always trying to innovate we created the first cruise travel ROKU Channel for Cruise Addicts of course. We also jumped on the social media bandwagon and have a social media following on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Just like in back in 1999, things continue to grow and change on the internet. It is always exciting to see what changes we can offer our users in the future. We even dabbled in offering our users a Podcast which we hope to begin updating regularly in the future. For a short time we even had an online radio station streaming music to the website. We played a nice mix of reggae music and other hand-picked songs. What’s exciting to me is creating something that people enjoy and share. It has been very rewarding and has allowed me to indulge my passion for creating, cruise travel and learning so much about the cruise industry.
Here is a recent Ship Review we produced:
This year we hope to offer even more features on our website and even bring back things we did in the past. Though we gambled in the early days, we are not the best online casino but, we always strive to be a great cruise travel resource. I hope you stay tuned for another twenty years. I think we are just hitting our stride. Thank you for joining me for this journey. Your encouragement and support have made many of my dreams come true.
