Click the Tabs for additional information.

Insight Cruises have convened regularly since 2000:

Neil is the CEO of Insight Cruises. He had an "Aha!" moment while reading a Perl programming book on a cruise ship in Alaska in June 1998. Neil founded Insight Cruises one year later.

Insight Cruises taps the growing worldwide demand for adult education that encompasses knowledge acquisition and relaxation. Neil applied his rare blend of expertise in business strategy, business development and partnerships, operational innovation and publishing, and his creative strengths to develop Insight Cruises and its events.

For eighteen years prior to founding Insight Cruises, Neil was co-founder and President of ComputerTalk Associates, Inc, a publisher of trade magazines in vertical markets in healthcare.

More to the point, Neil’s inexorable affinity for computing devices and commerce surfaced at the age of four, when he learned to use his maternal grandparents’ abacus.

Around this time, Neil also learned to play chess. Ten years later, in 1969 he joined the Manhattan Chess Club and was honored, shortly thereafter, to have one of his games published in The New York Times. In 1971, Neil defeated RCA’s David Sarnoff Research Center’s mainframe computer in a game of chess — the first person to do so at the RCA Center.

This experience — melding technology and chess — fueled Neil’s interest in computers, which led to his purchase of an HP-65 the following year, while a junior in high school. At the same time, Neil was laying the groundwork for his computer knowledge learning programming on a PDP-10 at Rider College in Lawrenceville, NJ. Efficiently and effectively, Neil used his first few semesters at college to dispel any parental illusions about a career in medicine, and proceeded to expand his collection of punch cards while building a text editor and an IBM 360 assembler.

The first DOS-based computer Neil owned was a DEC Rainbow, which is probably still running, somewhere. He became a Macintosh owner in 1986, and has since established an operating minimum of 1.75 Macintosh computers per human family member.

Neil has become widely known for “Neil’s Law” which states that the potential loss of computer functionality is the only situation in which a discussion of “What If?” scenarios is permitted.

He credits his love of travel to his abacus-owning grandparents, who, by the time Neil was 10, had flown over 500,000 miles.

Neil holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics from Franklin and Marshall College (1978). He was born in Riverdale, Bronx, New York in January 1955. Neil and his wife, Theresa, a nerd herself, have two grown children.

Theresa Mazich is Commodore and COO of Insight Cruises. Too many sleepy afternoon continuing education lectures; windowless, anonymous hotel meeting rooms; and schedules without a break to enjoy the host city convinced her that interactive education in beautiful places could solve a widespread problem. At about the same time, Neil Bauman reached a similar conclusion, and soon afterward coincidentally discovered the pleasure of cruising. A business concept soon followed.

Insight Cruises taps the growing worldwide demand for adult education that encompasses knowledge acquisition, a global outlook, and relaxation. Theresa brings diverse experience and perspectives rooted in her native profession, health care, and, well, her background as a nerd. Prior to founding Insight Cruises, Theresa practiced medicine as a board-certified dermatologist, and actively studied medical computing. She set aside clinical practice and applied her knowledge and experience as a physician for 10 years working in medical computing, developing, marketing, and selling healthcare software and databases in domestic and international markets.

Theresa credits her love of learning to the value her parents placed on reading and being well informed. Her enjoyment of travel grew out of the countless childhood hours she spent reading travel picture books borrowed from the Thomas Beaver Public Library in Danville, Pennsylvania, and her great-great-aunt Nell’s insistence that Theresa visit Havana someday.

Wilkes University granted Theresa a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences, and she earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University College of Medicine) in Philadelphia. She is licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania. Theresa and her husband Neil have two children.

Click the Tabs for additional information.

Whether or not you live in California (which is regarded as having the strongest consumer protection laws in the USA), California State law protects you in your travel arrangements with Insight Cruises. International Technology Conferences, Inc. doing business as “Insight Cruises” is registered with the California Attorney General’s office of the California Department of Justice. (Registration as a seller of travel does not constitute approval by the State of California.) The California Department of Justice has identifying information on the owners of Insight Cruises, our relationship with cruiselines, and access to the International Technology Conferences’ bank trust account (which the California Seller of Travel law requires). International Technology Conferences’ registration, which we renew every September, is #2065380-40. The California Attorney General’s Seller of Travel FAQs are here: http://ag.ca.gov/travel/faqs.htm.

And if you are a resident of California, when you do business with a registered California Seller of Travel, you can file claims with the “Travel Consumer Restitution Corporation” (or “TCRC”) in cases of wrongful taking of money, bankruptcy filing, or closure of business. The TCRC, a nonprofit organization, was created to review claims and administer the Travel Consumer Restitution Fund. You can get the details at: www.ag.ca.gov/travel/consumer.htm.

How does California Seller of Travel law keep you safe? The Seller of Travel Act protects you in several ways. It requires:

• Businesses that sell travel to register with the California Attorney General.
• We keep your cruise fare payments in trust until your cruise sails.
• Insight Cruises’ participation in the Travel Consumer Restitution Corporation. The TCRC can be contacted at P.O. Box 6001, Larkspur, California 94977-6001.
• Automatic Refunds for event cancellations not in accord with your contract.
• Written disclosures from Insight Cruises at the time you make a payment to us. For example, when you book your cruise online, you read and agree to the content of the "Book Now" page on the Insight Cruises website, which tells about our payment and cancellation policies, and gives information about insurance options, refunds, and travel changes. After you book your cruise, we send you an itemized statement which includes Insight Cruises’ contact information, California Seller of Travel registration number, and instructions on how to make a claim to the TCRC.

And while we’re at it...

Insight Cruises is licensed to sell insurance by the State of California Department of Insurance. Our License Number is 0D91804.

What does Insight Cruises’ IATAN accreditation mean to you?

IATAN (International Airlines Travel Agent Network) promotes professionalism and administers meaningful and impartial business standards to travel industry professionals. IATAN accreditation is voluntary, and means that a travel business consciously works to assure you, its customer, of its legitimacy and commitment to the travel profession.

IATAN accreditation tells you that Insight Cruises is a serious, reputable, business-like, professional seller of travel. Insight Cruises is an IATAN Travel Sales Intermediary (TSI) agency. Our IATAN number, which can be found in the IATAN database by cruise lines, airlines, and hotels worldwide, is: 05-701953.

An IATAN accredited agency must demonstrate that:

• it has staff devoted to the affairs of the business, who have managerial skills and discretion.
• the business is a valid legal entity, and has appropriate business bank accounts.
• it can produce letters of reference from national or international travel industry suppliers or from national travel associations.
• its website and advertisements show how customers can contact the business.
• it complies with relevant federal, state, county, and local laws.
• in the case of Insight Cruises being based in, and serving citizens of, the State of California, that the business is a registered seller of travel.
• it has no pending or unresolved complaints at the state or local consumer affairs office.
• as part of the accreditation processs, agencies must demonstrate revenue consistent with being a significant travel business.