OK, I am retired . . . well, more or less . . .

But I’ve always loved cruising and working on ships is something I’ve always wanted to do and it turns out I enjoy it and folks like me doing it . . . so, what the heck! It beats being a greeter at Wal Mart!

So I spend about half the year lecturing on ships and traveling around the world, and about half the year in “Paradise” on my beautiful farm outside of  Boquete, Panama.  It’s a nice life!  Not that it is without challenges, as you know if you’ve read this blog, and it really IS a lot of work!  On a world cruise I’ll have 40-45 lectures to give, plus scenic cruising commentary and sail-in commentary from the bridge.  All of that has to be done when I am home in Panama on “vacation.”  So it is a lot of challenging work.

But, in case you’re wondering, here’s the answer:

“How do I get a job like yours?”

Richard Onboard

Booking Information

Richard’s Books

Sample Lecture Clips

“Holy Cities” - This is the first 15 minutes of a lecture on the “Holy Land” for ports in Israel. The entire port lecture was 60 minutes. This was recorded on PACIFIC PRINCESS to be run continuously on cabin TV. Unfortunately due to limited equipment the slides are recorded by a camera filming the projection screen (sometimes moving with the ship!) and not pulling directly from the computer so the quality leaves much to be desired.

“Enchanting Egypt” – This is a 15 minute clip from the middle of a talk for Port Said and Cairo for a series of Egypt cruises on Princess calling in Egypt 8 months after the 2011 February Revolution. The interesting thing about the first part of this clip, is that once I started asking people to check out the prices and quality of cartouches onboard before going off on tour to Egypt, the number of cartouches being sold in the jewelry shop on board zoomed from 2 or 3 per cruise to as many as 27 per cruise.

“Let The Adventure Begin”  - This is a clip from a video designed to be shown to guests on ZUIDERDAM on embarkation day.  Part of my assignment as Travel Guide was to soft sell shore excursions.  This section deals with Panama and a little part of Costa Rica.

“More Than Johnny Depp: The History of Piracy” – This is a 15 minute clip from a 55 minute talk on the history of piracy, tracing it from it’s beginnings right up through the present day.