The Daily Cruise and Travel News "Podcast" with Tom Drake · Tom Drake

March 26, 2026. Does anyone believe TSA agents Google of the seas are trained for six months?

·38 min·2 clips

TSA training takes four to six months, yet Tom Drake asks whether airport screeners seem that prepared.

Tom Drake starts by greeting the morning, the day, and anyone still awake enough to keep up. He nearly calls it Wednesday before correcting himself to Thursday, March 26, 2026. He laughs at himself for that. He keeps the self-mockery going by calling himself the podcaster and the listener the podcastee. He says he was up since five and already at work. He also talks about the new company, the strict platform protocols, and the need to stay clear of copyright trouble. The tone is casual, rushed, and a little defiant. Then he pivots hard into a rant about an airline idea he thinks is ridiculous. The target is the proposed lie-flat seat concept in economy. He says the pictures are misleading. He says the space shown is much larger than reality. He says nobody wants the middle seat, and selling it as a luxury stretch-out option is nonsense. He jokes about how even the old days of lifting armrests for a nap are gone. He remembers doing that on an awful Hong Kong flight years ago. He says turbulence is not a friend. He also compares a main cabin extra claim about six inches of legroom to a joke about a honeymoon measurement. He keeps pressing the same disbelief. He says lay-flat seats belong in pods, usually up front, where nobody has to look at somebody else hanging out in the aisle. He imagines the same thing shoved into economy with a track suit sliding down around someone’s knees. He tells that idea to shut up. He then takes a swipe at the presentation itself, noting that the event was staged in a hangar at LAX. He treats that as proof the whole thing is trying too hard. After the airline teardown, he moves back into cruise and travel promotion mode. He talks about an October hosted cruise with fall foliage. He says it is a New York round trip, probably out of Brooklyn. He lists Boston, Newport, Halifax, and the Bay of Fundy. He tosses in a line about a great Italian restaurant there and the draw of high tide. He follows that with Majestic Princess and more hosted cruises coming in 2027. He reminds listeners that there are still a couple of New Year’s spots on Crystal Symphony. He thanks people for their support and for sticking with the show while it was off the main platforms. He says everything is back to normal. He points people to his USA Today article. He closes with a last bit of nonsense about waking up the duck and turning the volume up because the duck is too timid.

As heard by us

A brisk, messy cruise-news rant that lands hardest when Tom turns an airline gimmick into blunt disbelief.

This March 26 installment has Tom Drake doing what he does best: starting with a date check and moving into a brisk cruise-and-travel monologue that treats airline gimmicks, platform rules, and cruise marketing with equal suspicion.

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Why you'd press play

You want early-morning cruise and travel gossip with blunt commentary.

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