Face of Travel Results

I guess I should say right now that I didn't win the Face of Travel. Instead the female's crown went to Karen Eason from Sunshine Travel and the men's went to Ryan Inman from Cruise Thomas Cook. It's impossible to be a bad loser in this scenario as both really deserved to win.
Coincidentally, both winners used a superhero theme in their presentations, Karen unveiled a 'Travel Girl' outfit and Ryan pretended to be Clark Kent reporting back to Lois Lane from the ship.

The final was held onboard Royal Caribbean's newest mega-liner, the Independence of the Seas while she was docked at Southampton for her launch celebrations. I was one of the 16 finalists and we were all as nervous as each other - which in itself brought great relief!

Each of us had to face an X-Factor-style showdown during which we tried our best to persuade the panel of judges from TTG and Royal Caribbean why we should be the Face of Travel for 2008. After the presentations we had to wait a painful 6 hours for the result of the judges deliberations. In that time we fitted in a tour of the ship, an ice show, a concert by Scouting for Girls and quite a few glasses of champagne. In fact later that night we had the opportunity to meet Roy from the band who turned out to be a jolly nice chap - Hi Roy (he reads my blog all the time - lol!).

The competition was a great experience for me, I don't regret entering for one moment. I met some fabulous people and enjoyed my time on board the ship. I'm looking forward to reuniting with all the finalists on the Celebrity Solstice launch and of course, reading TTG to catch up with the latest antics from Karen & Ryan.

Just for a recap, the finalists were:

From the Boys Under 35 category:
Alastair Baker, Gill's Cruise Centre
Ryan Inman, Cruise Thomas Cook
Aaron McMordie-Ives, Bookable Holidays Ltd
James Revis, The Co-operative Travel

From the Girls Under 35 category:
Karen Eason, Sunshine Travel
Amie Fuller, First Choice
Emily Plunkett, Scotland’s Cruise Centre
Carla Prosser, Ideal Cruising

From the Boys 36 & Over category:
Ian Calvert, Have A Nice Stay Travel
Phil Dargan, Choose and Cruise
Nick McKay, Travel Designers
Mehmet Tepeli, Packyourbags Travel Store

From the Girls 36 & Over category:
Janette Bell, Future Travel
Deanne Gatfield, First Choice
Emma Sanger, Future Travel
Janet Whittingham, St Andrews Travel

CONGRATULATIONS we were all winners in our own way!

Update - Face of Travel 2008

I tried very hard to contain my excitement when i turned on my PC this morning and found out that i had made it onto the leaderboard for the Face of Travel competition. I let slip a little squeal of excitement into my coffee which couldn't be helped. (I don't think anyone noticed though)

I just want to thanks everyone that has voted so far... but if you havent't yet already, don't delay, vote today!

http://www.faceoftravel.co.uk/entries/me.php?id=57

Let the voting begin!

I'm not usually one for competitions, I don't like the randomness, the poor odds and I especially don't like the 'losing' part. But when I saw the opportunity to become the Face of Travel 2008, I knew this was my destiny. A little over dramatic maybe but hear me out.

The competition is only open to the travel industry and the winner gets to attend lots of posh events, write articles, wins a free cruise on the Independence of the Seas and becomes part of a trade campaign for Royal Caribbean.

After reading all that you should see why I had to enter, this is right up my street!

So this is the bit where I ask for your help... voting begins today and ends on April 11th. If you click on the following link you can submit your vote:

http://www.faceoftravel.co.uk/entries/me.php?id=57

It should take you no longer than 5 seconds to log your vote. Help make me a star... well, in the travel industry at least!

Thanks in advance ;-)