I am so glad I wasn’t at Cruise International Magazine’s awards ceremony last night. Yes, I really am happy. That’s because there would have been that moment, as in all award ceremonies, when the nominations are read out and you’re sitting there waiting to find out whether you’ve won or lost. And I would have been sitting there with the President of Cunard, and talented (and in some cases bearded) writers who unlike me are proper journalists worrying about what face I was going to pull when the envelope has been opened and the winner has been revealed. I would have not been able to hide my anger and despair if one of the other buggers had won and if I had been there to hear that I had one I doubt the glamorous and influential cruise people gathered there would have been too impressed with the sight of a fat bloke jumping up and down and punching the air in delight shouting “take that Shanksey.”
However, I am in all seriousness in awe of the people who were nominated; all are much worthier winners than I and I salute their talents and most of all, the one common denominator they all share is their passion for this brilliant industry.
Thank you Cruise International Magazine. I am truly honoured by this award and I wish you continuing success with your excellent publication.
Cheers
John
Look, friends — there are a few things you should remember before you comment. The space below is for you to post your comments about the post I've just written above. If it is something that's unrelated, please use the Ask John tab above. Now, while I may not be able to reply to your comment below, I do sit in my underpants almost every morning and read everything that is here. So feel free to comment on the comments and then if someone wants to comment on the comment to the comment then go ahead as well. Please be courteous unless the poster is French...........then you can say whatever you want.
Well done, John. You deserve it.
You are one of a kind, John. Congratulations!
Congratulations, John… a fine way to honor your hard work and also conclude your time on Magic. Well earned!!
Congrats, John. Much more than well-deserved. Bet those other writers don’t make their readers laugh every day
Thank you for my daily smiles and laughs.
Congrats John. I love your blog, I love all the help you give passengers, you do Carnival proud.
Just an FYI John the correct term is “won” the award, not “one”
I forgot to include the Congrats on winning the award which was the best part of your post!
All of us here already know you are the #1 cruise blogger. That’s why you have 11,000,000 slaps on your thingy. Why you have had 4 Bloggers cruise with #5 already set. Why even Micky Arison even tweeted his Congratulations to you.
I’m sure your Dad will find a place for this award in the John Heald room. He must be so proud of you.
Big Ed
CONGRATULATIONS JOHN, It is very well deserved and we all look forward the time we spend with you on your blog and facebook page.
<3
WOOHOO!! Congrats, John, you deserve it!
Di
Big congrats john. Well done. U deserve it
Woohoo John!
Congrats John you are so deserving!! What a wonderful way to go home to the girls, Other than hugs and kisses when you get home I bet there will be a few HUGE smiles on your face! Ec
Excited even more spending the week In March for a fun packed blogger week with you John…and all the other bloggers
Congrats John!!!
Linda (Mom of your friend DJ)
I take it by re-reading this missive a couple of times, that you must have “one” this award? :- )
If so, John, you deserve this one.
Hi John,
Congratulations !!!
You made our cruise even more special.
Thanks for the joy and friendlyness.
All the best.
Dutch couple (op je boze bolletje)
Rob and Hannie
Congratulatios to the nicest and funniest cruise director EVER!
Just goes to show what a really good job you do….and how much you mean to the industry. I pray you have continued success and happiness in your career. Very proud of you.
Congratulation John ! ! !
Without you and your staff Carnival would not have as many passengers as they do now. Thumbs up friend
Just watched your acceptance speech and have a comment about your weight. I do believe you need to visit a tailor while you’re home. You’re looking fantastic! You’re swimming in that jacket, John, time to have it nipped and tucked. Keep up the outstanding work!!
Congratulations John. You deserve it.
Someone needs to get that man a Red Aston Martin !
CONGRATS JOHN !!!!!
You are very deserving of this award…. But we all knew that !!!!!! have a wonderful holiday with Heidi & Kye… See you soon….
Your Dad’s buttons will be popping off of his shirt.
congratulations john and please enjoy your time off with your lovely girls. we’ll miss you but not to worry, we’ll still be here when you get back!
smiles, bee
xoxo
Congratulations John. A job very well done indeed. Have a great time off with your girls. Take care and heal that car-pool-tunnel thing-a-ma-bob!
John good job but it’s won not one.
Hugs and kisses
John,
You put a smile on my face everytime I read your blog. Through your writings..you’ve let us all know that you are a funny, compassionate and giving person. Sure would enjoy meeting you someday. Congrats on a well deserved award!
Congratulations John… Very much deserved! Thanks for the information you provide us with and all of the laughter you cause in the process
Congrats.I hope you got a cash award so you can buy that little car you so much deserve.
JR
Congratulations…….a most deserved award!
Way to go, John. You may not think you’re deserving…but you are. You do us all proud, and you do so with a sense of humour (spelt correctly), a sense of humility and most of all, love. Enjoy your time with Heidi and Kye and I look forward to reading your blog for many years to come.
A well deserved award John. We are faithful blog readers and look forward to it every day it’s published. Have a wonderful week off with your girls!
CONGRATULATIONS, Well Deserved!!!!!!!!!!!
Nobody is more deserving than you, John. My most sincere congratulations! Keep up the good work!
It truly is one of a kind with a behind the scenes, honest, straight forward look into the life of a top cruise director and all that goes with it. I applaud you for doing it with your very busy schedule as well as the Carnival corporate suits (and beards) for letting you do it with your own style.
Congrats John! Well done, proud of you though I hardly know you!
Congratulations John. You ARE worthy!
Congratulations John you do deserve the award. You are the best, you keep us informed on Facebook and your blog. Enjoy your time with the girls and rest your hand. Don’t forget to let me know how Kye likes her Dog stuffed animal.
Keep up the good job.
Alice
Congrats John. You so deserve this award !! Looking forward to your next adventure. Enjoy your trip home.
Congrats, John! WE all know you’re the best, now other people do, too! Have a wonderful week with Heidi and Kye
.
Congratulations John! You truly deserve this award! Thank you for your blog and for all the time you spend making each and every one of us feel special! Enjoy your much deserved vacation with your girls! {{{Hugs}}}
Congratulations John!!
Way to go John
Well done you are the most generous kind hearted person in the business. Good luck in the future enjoy your family in the next week. Hope one day we meet you again on a wonderful Carnival cruise.
John, you are very deserving of this award. This blog of yours is very special because you write it, those are your words and your thoughts. You are so humble and you have such a big heart.
Congratulations John you deserved it. I love your blog.
Like we really needed any confirmation of what we already knew: John Heald, you are AWESOME!!!
)
)
KUDOS TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Enjoy that holiday with your lovely family. You certainly deserve it!
Congratulations! You deserve it.
Congratulations John!
Congratulations John!!! You are so deserving of this award. Love FB and the Blog. You put smiles on many faces everyday. Keep doing what you do best. Have a wonderful time at home with your girls. Take Care.
I will miss your blog for the two weeks but hope everything goes well and you can spend some great time with your girls. Hurry back.
Congrats John. Will miss you for the next two weeks.
I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award than you. You have already earned your wings! Now lets work on that Halo! HA! HA! Enjoy your time off with the girls. Where are you off to next?
Ciao, Linda
Congratulations John! See ya in Galveston….that lunch offer still stands!
Bloody bewdy John! It’s so richly deserved.
Congratulations from down under Oz.
Phil James
And you can watch John’s
<a href="http://cruise-international.com/cruise-blogger-of-the-year-john-heald-video" title="acceptance speech video here!"
Well done, sir
Wonderful news John. Over the years (I think most of us will agree) you have made us feel like ‘family’. When you hurt- we hurt; when you are sick – we all feel it; when you are having fun – we all laugh; when we feel your love for us – we love you back immensely – and like I said, you ARE family and we couldn’t be prouder than ‘one of ours’ has deservedly won!
John, through your blog you create a singular, intimate connection between your readers and CCL (and the cruise industry). You are doing CCL, the industry, and your readers a great service. We love reading your missives because we feel that you are an honest, forthright, and very often, a humorous man. We applaud your accomplishment, but more than that, we applaud the man. Congratulations.
Congratulations John-
It is well deserved.
Well done John!
Talent always rises to the top!
B&D from Canada
Congratulations on your award, however, you failed to mention what it was for. I am certain,however, that it was well deserved!
Enjoy your vacation……
Congrats John keep up the great Job you do for your guest and us readers
Great Job love you BLOG!! Enjoy time with your girls
what a way to start a vacation! hard fought and definately earned!!! congratulations!
Congratulations to you. It’s well deserved. Frankly I don’t know how you do it.
Enjoy your time off with your girls. Looking forward to your future ramblings. They make my day.
Carla
John the award was well deserved. You truly are one of a kind. It is nice to be recognized for all that you do and I am sure the beards at Carnival realize it as well!!
Congratulations! What a great way to start off your time at home.
Congratulations John A well deserved award. Love you and your blogs, GLoria
Congratulations, John, on an award well deserved!
Well done John. Truly deserved. Love from all the girls at Cruise Connections in Caton, Lancashire.
John –
You basically was the first blog I ever began following and you will always, IMHO, be the quintessential blogger in the cruise industry.
Congratulations on this great honor and keep the great work up (but, please, get voice recognition software so that your wrist will get better – BEARDS, are you reading????)
STILLmissingthesmokefreeparadise
Congratulations lad.
see you soon
JC
(your favorite beard)
Awesome …..Well done
Congratulations John! Well deserved!
Fabulous job! Well earned and deserved!
John – Congratulations on a VERY well deserved award. Looking forward to seeing you again on BC5. Hi to Heidi and Kye.
Congratulations!!!!! Well deserved!
John – you are every inch the rightful winner of the Cruise international Award for blogging. After all you were the one who inspired me to blog. However you are right – had I been there and seen you win I would not have been happy – I have always told my daughters that ‘it’s the winning that matters – not the taking part.’ Best Regards – Peter Shanks – Cunard Line
Way to go John. This news is even more wonderful now that I’ve found out I can read your blog for free in the library of the Miracle. I’ve been using my vauluable minutes up to now.
John,
Certainly this comes as no surprise to us. We applaud Carnival Cruise Lines for continuing to let you pour it out, day after day, warts and all. Bravo to you and Carnival!
“CHEF’S TABLE RESERVATION NEEDED”
Charles and Lisa Schultz
Thank you!
Charles Schultz
Please send request to Ask John page.
Thank you,
MR
John
Thank you sooo much for your blog. You are a wonderful person to put up with all the comments that you receive.
I, myself have contacted you twice last year and am very appreciative of the answers you gave me and the advise you gave me.
I have been on 10 Carnival cruises in the past, I would say, 12 years. My husband and I did our last cruise in June, 2010. It was a back to back on the Carnival Dream and I have to say it is a dream.
Anyway,this is our 11th cruise and we will be on the Carnival Miracle the week of Thanksgiving 2011. We have sailed on this ship before and we remember that it did not have a Serinity Deck. Has the ship been dry docked in the last few years and a Serinity Deck been put on.
On the Carnival Dream, the Serinity was absolutley wonderful. It’s not that we dislike children or anyone else but we thought it just was a wonderful way to relax while we were sailing. We always get a cabin that has a balcony but it’s just not the same.
Any information that you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
And, by the way, we will never sail on anything other then Carnival It’s the greatest line and we always recommend Carnival when asked by relatives and friends.
I hope you enjoy your week off with your family and God Bless.
Thank you
Charlene Szwec
Dear Sir John, (Yes, I believe you should be knighted!) For all of the hard work and long hours you put in, for your wonderful sense of humour (even occasionally of the potty variety), not to mention your hectic schedule and hands-on approach to everything you do, I think that there is no other individual in the cruise industry that makes the impact that you do (especially on the water slide!) Keep up the brilliant work. You certainly deserve all of the accolades that you receive!
Congratulations John! Certainly well deserved. You make me laugh every time I read your blog. Keep up the great work. BTW…a small group of us just got off the Carnival Miracle on Monday……………….had a great time.
Awesome news John. Kudos to you for sure!!!! Well deserved to say the least. You should be as happy as a turkey who lived to see another Thanksgiving come and go without being on the platter!!
heyy john i resently boarded the carnival magic and i seen your blog so i thought i would send you a message i loved you and calvins morning show so hilorious lol thanks very much for makng my stay on the magic i lovely stay xxxx
Congratulations! Well-deserved!
John – we just returned from an 8 day sail aboard the Freedom. Super great cruise! Your good buddy “Jacques De lange” said to be sure to mention his name. He was a delight.
For the first time (after 8 cruises with Carnival), I won the past guest award! Too bad I cannot eat that much food – I love the Steakhouses on your ships. However, all was not lost, we met a soldier and his wife and was able to invite them to dinner. PLUS!!! The matire’d made sure my husband and I received a special bowl of my favorite French Onion Soup at our regular dinner the following night.
Note of caution: the Houston Firefighters are coming back April 15, 2012 – we are sailing out of Galveston aboard the Magic. We will make sure our firefighters are wearing their formal blue uniforms – seemed to draw a lot of attention last year on the Conquest – or was that just because we were on board with you!
Great times! Thanks to all at Carnival for great vacations!
Have just returned from Aug 26th sailing of the Magic. Would like to single out the two chefs on the “Mongolian Wok” station on Lido deck for special praise. They work that station from early morning (omlettes/eggs) till late in the day without much of a break. They are always smiling and well mannered, which cannot be said for some of the guests. “Please” and “Thank you” seem to be words that alot of people do not know how to use. However, these two individuals are always politeful and pleasant no matter how rude the guest. They certainly deserve special recognition,
You deserve it!
John please reply.
We are back from our Sept 11 Miracle cruise. It was an outstanding one with a couple of things I should mention.
First let me thank Carnival for delaying sailing until 6 30 so we could be part of the 911 commemoration.
We were debating between booking the NCL Gem and Miracle for this cruise and luckily picked the Mireacle because she made it to Bermuda and the Gem did not.
Food was excellent and service was the same.
Had an outstanding time in Bermuda and we intend to go back in next few years.
Comedy club was outstanding especially the last two comedians.
Peter in the piano bar was very good but unfortunately there were some very bright colored lights in there that started causing my wife migraine so we were not able to spend much time there.
Music Unlimited is an excellent group and we have heard them before but unfortunately all of the smokers on the ship seem to spend all of their time in there.
Platinum debarkation was the best ever with Your event coordinator (do not remember his name) doing an excellent job taking us off the ship). He also set up the presentation to the capt very professionally as well.
Only negative was entertainment and let me explain.
This is the fourth cruise on the Miracle in about 3 years with the previous one being Jan 2011 and we expected the same production shows. Expensive to change and that is fine.
Welcome aboard show is the same old as well as Legends show so we now skip those but no problem as we find lots of other things to do.
What did get us a little annoyed is you had the same flyons, Comedy juggler and Comedy Ventriliquist as January. They did exactly the same act as January. Would think they would be bored with same act done a million times. Could Carnival not ask them to freshen their acts periodicly?
You had asked for our cabin number and I sent it but guess in changing cabins 3x in last week due to ES upgrades (love ES)suspect someone in our previous cabin got something from you and was scratching their heads as to why. Not a problem at all.
Overall one of our best cruises ever and our best CC roll call ever.
Cannot wait for our next cruise on the Valor in Jan. Hope the new platinum benefits are out by than.
Your mate Stu
Congratulations my friend. You are one of kind which means, you are SPECIAL.
Paul F. Pietrangelo
Ha John, I wanted to thank you for thr strawberry’s, Champaign and the “Magic” trophy. We had a great time on the last cruse, our 3rd. We tried to find you to thank you personaly but we were always on the go. My Sster and Brother-in-law, Deb and Ray McTeague are on the Oct. 7th voyage. I guess you will be on vacation. Best to you and your family, Frank and Connie Castro cabin 10290
Congratulations John. It is well deserved. Can’t wait to cruise with you again in the future.
Congratulations John!
You Rock!
“or” not “are”
“had” not “has”
“won” not “one”
John, Congratulations on such a wonderful award to a well deserved guy. There are many cruise lines and many more fabulous cruise directors but you have made many friends online for your distinctively ‘brit” humour and honest approach to sharing what things are like behind the scenes. I have had the pleasure to cruise with you but more than that I have had the pleasure of reading your comments on Facebook, your blog and am grateful for all that you share. You are a blessing to the industry even when there is not so good news, you report it like it is. Hope you win many more awards. Hugs – Teri and family.
hey john having a great time on the liberty sure hope you r here on oct 1 to big ed THANK YOU THANK YOU will never forget this cruise burrito bar WOW hot dogs WOW
dear dear john
congratulations on your award. we are all so proud. i will be cruising on Carnival Magic trans atlantic and wish to please ask a favor. this is my first cruise since my husband passed away and i think i would be much more comfortable seated with other single ladies. i am in cabin1335 riviera deck. early dining. i tried your other web site but don’t have the right password or code or whatever. thank you so much for your efforts
ann
dear john. congratulations on your award. i’m sure your family is ever so proud. i tried to make this request on ask john but no luck. i am cruising on CarnivalMagic on 28 oct this year and wonder if you could please arrange for me to be seated with other single ladies. i am in cabin 1335 riviera deck . early dining. this is my first cruise since my husband passed away and i feel i would be more comfortable than at a mixed table. thank you so much.
ann