Last night (in Venice) we had pulled the ship away. The ship was about three feet away from the pier

Starting his career with Carnival Cruise Lines as a wine steward in 1989, John Heald has worked his way up the ladder to become not only the senior cruise director mandarin oriental hotel miami but also the line�s Brand Ambassador.
His irreverent and honest humour has captured the hearts of many and sometimes grated on cruise mandarin oriental hotel miami fans, but it is largely because of this �face value� approach that he has become a force to be reckoned with in the social media sphere.
e-Travel Blackboard: You have become somewhat of a celebrity of late in the social media sphere, but what I don�t understand is how you find the time to answer all those questions, respond on Facebook, write your blog, post your photos and then do you regular role!
Vance reads my blog every day to proof read it. He�s the second pair of eyes to see whether there�s anything that needs to be looked at. But it�s getting harder and harder and I actually wrote that in my blog the other day.
My alarm goes off at 6am every morning and I do two straight mandarin oriental hotel miami hours when I�m writing my blog, so I write my blog between 6am-8pm, finish it off a little bit at lunchtime, have a grab and go lunch, eat and then write.
There are a lot of companies who have veered away from social media because they believe it gives their clients too much of a say. I think Carnival does the best job when it comes to allowing people to have their say online.
I think that social media can be a blessing and a bit of a curse sometimes if it�s not handled properly but Carnival mandarin oriental hotel miami right from our CMO down, their input and their energy in social media is extraordinary.
We have 2 million on Carnival�s Facebook page, we have the Carnival News that Vance and the guys pump out all the time and now with my Facebook page and the blog which has had 14 million page views since I�ve started, definitely we�ve opened the doors to people to see what goes on sort of behind the scenes.
e-Travel Blackboard: You were saying that sometimes you might make Vance�s toes curl. You are a bit risqu�, a lot of people love it but I can imagine that not everyone does. Where are the boundaries for you?
John: I think that�s a really good question and I�ve always said that the day that Carnival pick up the phone and tell me that they want me to say this and they don�t want me to say this and we want you to say that Carnival is the best and everything we do is perfect, is the day I shall respectively say OK it�s time for me to stop.
My line is probably a little further away than other people�s but all I can say is that sometimes mandarin oriental hotel miami I get someone saying that they�re surprised that Carnival allows me to do it and I guess there are times where I have even said that to myself.
I hope I answered that correctly, I do have a second pair of eyes and there are times that Vance will ask me if I�m sure I want to say something. Or maybe suggesting that now isn�t the time to mention something but that�s very rarely and I think they have been fantastically brave to allow me to do this and that�s a really good quote.
e-Travel Blackboard: Well, talking about being open, something I�ve been looking forward to every day whilst aboard Breeze are your afternoon calls with who has been late getting back on the ship and announcing their cabin numbers. Is that usual?
Last night (in Venice) we had pulled the ship away. The ship was about three feet away from the pier when a water taxi came up to the bow flashing its lights mandarin oriental hotel miami and the Captain could have just kept going, he was absolutely within his right to do that because there�s a certain amount of risk putting the ship back again in the dark plus the fuel expense of burning fuel for thrusters, but he was very wonderful and David and Catherine arrived back on board safe and sound.
mandarin oriental hotel miami John: They do and they�re a wonderful family from New Jersey. They are a little blas� about it and I�ve sort of unwittingly made them famous through my announcements even though I haven�t actually said �this is them�.
e-Travel mandarin oriental hotel miami Blackboard: I�ve heard that if a ship is late leaving a port then the ship is issued with a fine and if the reason is that a passenger is late (and not on a Carnival shore excursion) that they are then passed mandarin oriental hotel miami on that fine. Is that true?
But they are responsible for finding their own transportation and hotel. We have an agent who looks after us in each port and they will assist us with the bookings etc�but as far as the payment of the flight and the hotel, that�s all down to them.
The best ship is the one that I�m on at the moment but I do believe this ( Carnival Breeze ) is our best ship and I do say that with the greatest respect and I know that a lot of other companies tend to base their marketing around maybe one or two ships only.
The great thing with 2.0 is that it�s not just about one ship. In fact this is the second ship to have got it. Carnival Liberty got it first and then the next one will be Carnival Ecstasy then Carnival Conquest. So a lot of the stuff that you see here will be on other ships in the fleet. The Sunshine will also be designed very similarly to this.
John: Well I mean we have Princess, Holland America, Costa, Cunard, P O and one of the things we have never been able to do is have a combined loyalty program between all of the ships in Carnival mandarin oriental hotel miami Corporation.
The reason we couldn�t do it is because everybody�s loyalty program is so different and to grandfather it all in (it�s a new term I�m learnt recently... an American term apparently) is very, very difficult because one cruise will have your Diamond member after 12 cruises, another mandarin oriental hotel miami after 30 cruises and some base it on number of cruises rather than number of days cruised, so to combine everything together is impossible.
There are some who maybe think that shiny platinum mandarin oriental hotel miami card entitles them to more than what they�re given, but a majority of guests mandarin oriental hotel miami who hold them are just people who simply love Carnival who don�t necessarily cruise mandarin oriental hotel miami for the perks.
I mean I am a frequent flier with BA and I don�t fly with BA because after 50,000 miles I can sit in a chair and get a free bag of peanuts. I go with them because of their schedule and I like their bacon sandwiches on the plane, but you know very few people cruise for the perks, most people cruise for the cruising itself.
e-Travel Blackboard: When you are sailing aboard a cruise ship, you are the cruise director for that particular ship. How do you separate what you do to what the regular cruise director does who is also on that sailing with you? In this case, Butch, aboard Carnival Breeze ?
John: We have the new �Hasbro the Game Show� and it�s very complicated with buttons and cues and stuff so Butch was rehearsing a lot of the time in Philadelphia to learn that.� Which is why he�s here and running mandarin oriental hotel miami that.
I have quite a big staff and they take a lot of stuff away from me, allowing me to do this and that. After I�ve been here, I think I�m going to do two more cruises and then I shall hand over to Butch, then head away to do other stuff for Carnival as they have other big things coming up.
They pick up a microphone and they try to become mandarin oriental hotel miami someone else and all a microphone does is make your voice loud. Providing you�re always yourself and you always remember that, to me, that�s the secret of being a good cruise director simply just be yourself.