John Heald (born 22 January 1965) is the Brand Ambassador and senior

cruise director A cruise director is a high-ranking or senior officer of a cruise ship with responsibility for all onboard hospitality, entertainment and social events, who acts as the public face of the company. The cruise director reports to the hotel director, ...

of Carnival Cruise Lines and a

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ger for the cruise line. He first became a Carnival cruise director in 1990. In 2004, he was named the senior cruise director of Carnival. Heald blogs about the daily occurrences in his career as a cruise director.

Blog

Heald introduced his blog during the first sailing of the ''

Carnival Freedom ''Carnival Freedom'' is a operated by Carnival Cruise Line. She is the 22nd operating vessel in the fleet, and the last of the ''Conquest''-class ships. The ship was built as part of a four-ship deal with Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard and wa ...

'' in March 2007. He was asked by Carnival's management to write a blog. The blog was initially planned to be several months long, but Heald's "engaging personality" and "candid commentary" were so well received by his readers that he continued blogging. Heald plans to blog "as long as it stays fresh and people keep tuning in". Every day, Heald answers about 60 questions about cruising. The blog has received more than 17 million hits by October 2013—up from 4.5 million in February 2008—and many of Heald's daily posts receive from 50 to 60 comments. Heald's blogs are about his passengers and the events that occur to him while he is cruise director. His blog has a

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, saying that the "views and opinions represent my own". He has been nicknamed "

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at sea". Gene Sloan of ''

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'' wrote that Heald is "famously irreverent" and "known for his candid, funny and sometimes outrageously inappropriate daily missives about life at sea".

Cruise career

Heald was a commodity

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er for

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. In 1989, he began working for Carnival Cruises as a wine steward and a

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waiter. He is the first Carnival Cruise director who did not begin working in the

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aspect of cruising.

Cruise ship director

John Heald introduces actress Marcia Gay Harden on Carnival Dream

John Heald became a cruise director at Carnival in 1990. By 2004, he was promoted to the position of senior cruise director. As the senior director at Carnival, John Heald is appointed the director of most new Carnival ships during their first sailings. Before each new voyage, he creates

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s, telling his passengers about the cheapest excursions. Heald has a

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with Carnival, in which he works for six consecutive months followed by two months off. He oversees the

aspect of the ship, including the dancers and the

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. John Heald was the cruise director of the ''

Carnival Splendor ''Carnival Splendor'' is a operated by Carnival Cruise Line. As she is the only ''Concordia''-class ship in the Carnival fleet, she is also referred to as a ''Splendor-''class ship. Her other sister ships are part of the Costa Crociere fleet. T ...

'', when the ship's engine room caught fire, stranding the passengers at sea off the coast of Mexico for more than three days. On his blog, he discussed the incident, which the ''

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''s Mary Forgione called a "lurid personal account of being stranded at sea". In September 2007, Carnival gave Heald the "Sea Going Employee of the Year" award.

Bloggers cruise

In January 2008, Heald led his first "bloggers cruise", called John Heald Bloggers Cruise, which was a week-long cruise attended by 700 of his "hard-core fans". He entertained the attendees with a "welcome aboard reception", a

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session with him, and several meetings where he answered questions. During one of these cruises, he and 100 of his passengers on ''

Carnival Fantasy ''Carnival Fantasy'' (formerly ''Fantasy'') was a cruise ship operated by Carnival Cruise Line. She was the first ship of her namesake class, which was the largest by number of ships, before the scrapping of the Fantasy, Inspiration, Imagination, ...

'' helped paint a school that was struck by Hurricane Katrina. On "Bloggers Cruise Community Service Day", Heald and his companions helped plant trees and clean up waste in

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. "Big Ed" is the moniker of Ed Konefe, who was the first poster on Heald's blog and who is "arguably the most notorious participant". During the bloggers cruise, Konefe said, "We started as bloggers, went from there to being friends, and now we're family."

Personal life

John Heald was born in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England on 22 January 1965. In 1995, John Heald met his wife, Heidi, then a flower market auctioneer, when he was eating at a restaurant in

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. He sent her and her comrades

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, and Heidi and her friends paid the bill for Heald's and his friends' meal. Heald characterized it as "love at first sight". In May 2009, John and Heidi had a daughter, Kye. Kye's name means "beautiful ocean". In June 2015 at the

Fincantieri Fincantieri S.p.A. () is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2014 ...

shipyard in Italy, Kye officiated over a ceremony where coins were fused to

Carnival Vista ''Carnival Vista'' is a cruise ship operated by Carnival Cruise Line. She is the lead ship of her namesake class, which includes two additional Carnival ships, and , as well as two Costa ships, and . History The ship was delivered on April ...

to commemorate the finishing of the new ship's exterior. Carnival anointed her the ship's "godchild". ''

'' said six-year-old Kye is "believed to be the youngest person honored at such a ceremony".

References

External links

John Heald's Blog
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Heald, John Living people 1965 births Carnival Cruise Lines English bankers English bloggers People from Sussex English male writers British male bloggers