'THE' one and only George Leppla!

After I had so much fun on the Hell Freezes Over group cruise on the Voyager of the Seas, I thought about doing another group on Royal Caribbean. Lori and I had been talking on and off over the past few years about doing a group together...thus was born The Mother Of All Group Cruises. A great ship, a great itinerary at a good time of year for a Caribbean cruise....and best of all, the chance to share this cruise with friends. I swear that I have the best job in the world! We've done 3 GGCs (GGC2000, GGC2002, and GGC2003) and are booked on GGC2004.

Lori and Barry Cunningham

Lori and Barry Cunningham, owners of Skyscraper Tours. Join us for the grand daddy of them all! Lori has booked and traveled on many groups such as the original GGC and several Bermuda Summer Group Cruises, not to mention her agencies New Orleans Mardi Gras group cruise(s) and others!

Together with George this will be one heck of a cruise we 'gaw-ron-tee'!

Eddie and Annette

We are transplanted Bostonians living the good life in Florida, Eddie still works full time and is a Fred Astaire wannabe,Annette is a shopaholic(unreformed) and our passion is cruising and each other!!. This is our 4th group cruise-(GGC2001,GGC2002,Paradise plan b) and our 30th cruise over all. We tried to twist Doc Johns arm to go on this cruise,but, we found out he already booked it..Looking forward to seeing old friends again,and meeting some new ones as well.

Becca

"I had such a wonderful time on the Voyager,

I can't wait to cruise on the Explorer!"

Robert Munro

This will be my 24th cruise and my 2nd Group cruise with George. I am sharing a Jr suite with my good friend Karen and my mother Margie. I look forward to seeing my friends that I met on the "hell freezes over" cruise.

Joe and Charlotte Cognato

Joe and I loved the Voyager last May and just had to do the Explorer. We are looking forward to seeing some of our old friends and meeting new ones of course.

Frank and Susie Fuselier

We are veterans of 3 GGCs and are looking forward to renewing numerous cruise friendships. You will find us on board wherever trivia is being played, folks are dancing at night, or friends are just gathering for fun together. Frank is a semi-retired physician who spends his spare time working in the garden, reading, and surfing the internet. Susie is a retired school secretary who spends her time working on genealogy, reading, and planning our next vacation. We both also spend lots of time doting on our four granddaughters.

Eddie Burke

The Mother of All Group Cruises will be my 25th cruise. For my silver anniversary cruise, I feel that I selected the two best travel agents to handle my cruise affairs. This indeed will be best of them all. A great ship, great friends and a great itinerary will make this cruise "one to remember". I have been on all the GGC's, a few MGC's and SGC's that have been organized through rtc and it has been quite a ride. I have made wonderful friends and have been on wonderful ships.

On a personal note, I live on the southern shore of Long Island, NY, just a few miles from the open sea. My apartment complex joins a wonderful state park where I spend a lot of my leisure time walking the trails and dreaming about my next cruise. I will be sharing a balcony cabin with my friend Maureen Marino and I will have my cruise mates and long time friends, the Cognato's and Palmeri's nearby. I will see you all in January 2005, if not sooner.

Mike and Kathryn Quint

We are from Massachusetts and are veterans of four group cruises as well as many family cruises. We love to cruise with our many friends we have met on the r.t.c. and the yahoo groups. Finally after many years of manufacturing radio pharmaceuticals I have enough vacation time to support our cruise addictions. We still only have one grandson, and three out of four of our kids still at home. We are looking forward to getting away and seeing all our you, some for the first time. The Explorer OTS is larger than we would book for ourselves, but looks like a great ship to party with this group on. And we are going to “parr-dee” as we say in Mass

Maureen!

Hi. I sure hope I do not miss this one. My grandson was born on the day I was supposed to be flying to Florida for the GGC2003. Around 3:30 AM I was waiting for the car service at the Cognato's house along with the DiBernardos when the phone rang and it was my daughter telling me that her sister was in the hospital having my grandson.

I was so excited, I knew that I would not be flying with my friends. They went their way to the airport and I went my way. I am now booked on the Sleazy 3 (Halloween Havoc), and the MOAGC. Hopefully lightning will not strike twice.

John and Kathy Bruneel

Kathy and I are native Michiganders, but like to call the world our home. Married in 1965 we’ve had 20 homes or so since then – the military does that to you. We now live in Ocala, Florida where we enjoy the mild weather and lack of snow shoveling. We started cruising in 1995 and have 13 under our belts now with one more booked prior to the MOAGC. Our favorite line by far is Celebrity (4 cruises) and I have said I would never, ever sail on the Monsters of RCI. However because of some bad luck we missed out on the Paradise get together. When George told us about this get-together, we knew we were booking, just so we could once again cruise with the many friends we have made since the start of the GGC’s. We are booked in an atrium cabin with early dinner seating. We look forward to meeting all of our friends, once again.

Joe and Linda Mucha

Our second group cruise with George, the first one on the Paradise. Originally from Iowa & Chicago, Linda & I are retired in Clermont, Fl., just around the corner from Irv & Lorraine. Cruising to Panama and the ABC's in March 2004.

Looking forward to our next party on the Explorer with the joint Group.

Stephen Sykes

WOW!!

Seems like I have gone full circle on group cruises. Booked the original GGC in 1998, with Lori, within hours of plugging in my WebTV and asking the immortal question..."What's a GGC?"

Two more cruises booked in advance of the MOAGC, and many of y'all will be there as well;-) My cruise count is catchin up to my age. Drat...51 by then.

I sure wish we could all take a cruise on the SS Time Continuum

Tobie and Barb Gerbrandt

We are veterans of over 25 cruises, starting with our "Once in a Lifetime" cruise on the Fun Ship Tropicale in 1984 (Mexican Riviera).

We have sailed on all the Mainline Companies as well as some of the lesser known ships (Carousel, Canada Star, Stella Solaris). We have done a Tahiti to Hawaii (Pacific Princess) and a Galveston to Athens (Stella Solaris) and numerous Caribbeam and Alaska cruises.

We currently have 4 cruises booked ahead (Christmas 2003 / Island Princess, GGC2004 / Radiance ot Seas, Sleasy 3 / Conquest, and back-to-back GLC and MOAGC in January, 2005).

We truly enjoy these "Group Cruises" because of the wonderful people we have met, and hope to add to our list of friends in the future. We hope to see more Canadians joining in. With the more favorable CAN$, it does seem that it's possible.

Cynthia (Cindy) and Grant Simon

Retired early, our goal, and escaped from our hometown, Pittsburgh, to Naples, FL, in September of 2000. Grant was an autobody damage appraiser for a major insurance company. Cindy did secretarial/reception work for her day job. Also did various types of mystery shopping, and wrote articles for a local newspaper. Two sons, each reside in Denver.We are alumni of the original RTC-Great Group Cruise (GGC), of December 1998. (Lori Cunningham was chosen to be that group's TA.) To quote George Leppla's wonderful phrase, "meeting old friends for the first time" was so enjoyable that we've signed on for almost every GGC, and some MGCs (Mini Group Cruises), since. We've sailed on approximately 15 cruises, on various lines to various ports. These include several sailings to the Caribbean. Also to Alaska, Hawaii, Canada/ New England, and a repo from Miami to Boston, via Bermuda. We are booked for both the GGC2004, and the MOAGC in 2005.

Judy and Bill Picciano

We have been on many cruises, but never on a group cruise. We always try to cruise in late January to celebrate our wedding anniversary. However, when we saw this cruise from Lori, we decided we had to go a little earlier then normal since we have never met her or Barry and have gotten such great service from Skyscraper on many past cruises. We are both retired for the past five years and have been enjoying our grandchildren and cruising. We look forward to meeting all of you and having a great time

Ray Zegarski

Zegarski, Janet and Ray: zeesinnh@aol.com (GGC,GGC2000, 2002 and GGC2004 Alumni) Cabin 6208;We’ve been here in Atkinson, NH for almost four years. We are now both retired This will be our twenty-seventh cruise together, with four others split between us, before we married. Our first cruise together was our honeymoon on NCL’s Seaward (before stretch) in 1991. Other cruise lines we’ve sailed include Airtour, Costa, HAL, Celebrity, Premier, Carnival, RCCL, Orient and Princess. This will be the largest ship we have cruised on (hope we don’t get lost); time will tell how much/little we will enjoy mega-ship cruising.We really enjoyed our first back-to-back cruise on the Paradise this year. Prior to the MOAGC, we are booked on back-to-back Vancouver-Hawaii/Hawaii-Ensenada cruises on RCCL’s Vision OTS, and maybe something else. When not cruising, we both enjoy exploring the environs of our “new” home state, reading, watching snow fall (and pile up) and melt, trying new recipes aand wines.

Jim and Shirley Eisenmenger

We saw the Explorer in St. Martin and St. Thomas on our last cruise.

She is one big beautiful ship. Looking forward to see you there.

Jim & Shirley

Norm & Judy Bassett

This will be our 15th cruise overall, our 6th on Royal Caribbean, and our second on Explorer. We have been on Voyager twice (just returned from a Thanksgiving week cruise), Radiance, Brilliance (transatlantic), and will be on Brilliance again in January for an 11 night trip. We've also cruised with Norwegian, Costa, Princess, and Regal.

I worked for a major computer/ATM/retail systems company, and retired in 1995 after 28 years. For ten of those 28 years I traveled in the Middle East and Africa, which was certainly an interesting experience. Judy is a retired school teacher, having spent 30 years teaching psychology at the high school level. Both daughters are grown and married, but no grandchildren as yet. We do have one other child though - a 14 year old blonde cocker spaniel (Tyler). Our hobbies, other than cruising, include land-based cruising, reading, exercising, golf, golf, and golf. This will be our first group cruise, and we are looking forward to meeting a lot of new friends.

JANE & JOHN JIRGENSON

THIS WILL BE OUR 5TH. CRUISE AND THE SECOND ONE WITH GGC. WE HAVE MET WONDERFUL PEOPLE ON OUR PREVIOUS CRUISES, ESPECIALLY, IRENE & DICK PROULX (PROFESSIONAL CRUISERS), WHOM WE MET ON A HAWAIIAN CRUISE. WE ARE GOING ON THE GGC CRUISE IN MAY 2004 AND THIS ONE WHICH WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO, SINCE WE HAVE NOT VISITED THESE PORTS

Carol Mercer

I'm a next-town-over neighbor of George's. He's been helping me with cruises for about the past 10 years but have never had the chance to cruise along with him! Am certainly looking forward to doing so on the Explorer! Have done approximately 10 cruises but they were mostly kid oriented; now the kids are in college so my best friend of 40+ years and I will be sharing a cabin and looking forward to making new friends and having a relaxing week. Trying to convince some other friends to try the cruise and it looks like about 10 are up for it! Just seems soooo far away!

ARLENE and MILT LAPOFF

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Another wonderful group cruise to look forward to. There's nothing like planning a cruise far far in advance. According to our current schedule, the MOAGC will be #44, unless of course, we manage to sneak in a few more in '04.

Oh, you want info about us too? Well, Milt, the unretired podiatrist is back to working part/time in season and Arlene, the definitely retired management consultant is involved with her choral group and theater group.

We're always happy to cruise with the usual "gang" and also to welcome the newcomers into the fold.

Carol Wall & Larry Nail

Royal Caribbean is our favorite cruise line and the Voyager class is one of our favorite class of ships.

We love to cruise and try to go at least three times a year.

We have also raised 3 cruise addicts to follow in our footsteps. We live in California.

Irv and Laraine Spalten

Irv and Laraine Spalten, retired to Clermont Florida in July 2002 and still enjoy cruising after all these years <G>. Can't wait to see all of our old and new friends again. Irv retired from IBM and Laraine from SBC (the other phone company) and moved back to central Florida from Austin Texas. We are really looking forward to this cruise. It should be really great and we are ready to PARTY !!.

Lucille Spillane and Rose DeOrio

Bill and Judy Picciano, who are listed earlier in the posting, are submitting this bio.

Lucille (Lu) and Rose, both from NYC, have been best friends for over 50 years. Currently both widowed and retired, they love to travel and especially to cruise. Lu is Bill’s sister and Rose is our "adopted sister". They are a fun-loving pair who we love to travel with. We have been on many vacations and cruises together and always have a great time and enjoy each other’s company, especially after a martini or two. The photo being submitted is from the Carnival Legend 9/22/04. Don’t draw any conclusions because it was taken at the bar – they were really just listening to the music. (If you believe that, I can get you a good price if you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge).