Fun & Fitness Travel Club was born out of pure luck. It began in 1998 when Cynthia Neu McCluskey was taking Jim Seeley’s (both shown top) water aerobics classes in McLean, Virginia. The whole class became very disappointed when they learned their recreation center was closing that August for construction work. Cynthia, who’d never cruised, knew if enough friends formed a group to go on a cruise one of them could cruise for free. She thought it would be fun to invite all her water aerobics classmates on a cruise that summer when their pool was closed. Her classmates loved the idea! And Jim agreed to go along too so he could teach them water exercises on board ship. Cynthia and Jim were looking forward to having a fun cruise with their classmates. Little did they know what was about to happen.
Their fitness cruise that August in 1998 was a huge success! After returning from the Caribbean Islands students from other local recreation centers in Fairfax County called Cynthia asking why they had not been invited to go on the cruise. When Jim learned about the calls he insisted they organize another cruise so as not to hurt the feelings of his students at other centers. Still more students in Virginia kept calling asking for fitness cruises. Cynthia’s media background led her to believe other water aerobics teachers across the country would also have students who would like to take fitness cruises as well. So she and Jim decided to share their idea with AEA’s magazine AKWA. They wrote their own personal story and provided photos from their first fitness cruise. They offered other AEA certified water aerobics teachers nationwide the same opportunity to take their students on water fitness cruises too. Hundreds of calls came in from readers of that first AKWA story published 17 years ago. Today thousands of club members and hundreds of AEA certified teachers have cruised with this top sales ranked, award winning Fun & Fitness Travel Club based in Virginia, just six miles from the nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C. “We began in 1998 cruising with 23 guests in our first group. Now we cruise sometimes with 230 guests at a time,” says Cynthia. “We love it! Our guests love it. Your students will love it too. We are living proof the free enter prize system is alive and going strong in America. Come cruise with us to try it out. You will love it too.”