Today we’d like to introduce you to Larry Appell.
Hi Larry, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I spent my 30+ year corporate career developing and managing businesses around the world, mostly in Europe and Asia. As a kid from Brooklyn, who thought Manhattan was another universe, I loved getting on planes and seeing places that I had only seen in books and movies. We did some retirement planning for my wife, who was retiring from her career as a Speech and Language Therapist, and found Cruise Planners; so she could stay busy selling travel. Long story short; after I sold my last business in 2019; I ended up putting all my time into our boutique travel business. We provide customized travel planning services for clients seeking luxury travel on land, rivers, canals and oceans. We plan and manage travel all over the world, but I do get special satisfaction when we work with couples and families to explore Italy; our personal favorite place to visit. While starting the business just as COVID appeared was challenging; we were beneficiaries of the pent-up demand for travel after 2023. Today we are busy creating memorable vacations for clients, and are gratified when they return to tell us how much they enjoyed their trip.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It is hard to imagine a career as long as mine being a smooth road, and it wasn’t. The throughput across all the companies I worked for, which were all labor intensive, service businesses, was my focus on the customer experience. That’s all I knew. All the numbers and business strategies I learned over the years never took the place of delivering value to the customer.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Cruise Planners?
We provide customized travel planning and management services for clients seeking luxury travel all over the world on land, rivers, canals and oceans. We do not charge a fee for our services, we are compensated by the travel vendors we work with.
We specialize in luxury land vacations, river cruises, expedition cruises and yacht or smaller ship cruises. We know the internet is there but our client base trusts us to find not only the right price for them but to guide them to the itinerary that makes the most sense for their time and money. What sets us apart is that we are not order takers or “booking agents”. The internet is filled with ways for travelers to do it all themselves; our clients value our deep experience; our ability to listen to their wants and needs while using the technology that Cruise Planners has built for us to provide great service.
We are proud of the smiles that our clients show us when they return from one of our planned vacations.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
My childhood was interrupted when I was nine when my father died in 1959. That became the overwhelming narrative of my teen years. Ironically, another intense memory of my childhood was watching the Yankees lose the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski hit a home run off Ralph Terry in the 9th inning. At that moment I was a casual fan, but that moment of sadness and disappointment led me to a lifelong passion for baseball in general and the Yankees in specific. I have a long list of favorite and happy memories of Yankee Stadium and the teams that I followed, and was able to see whenever I had $1.35 to sit in the upper deck.
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