Photos–Panama Canal Cruise

Since I was unable to post photos in my blog I am adding the first batch now. More will follow:

Farmer’s Market, Ferry Building in San Francisco

Pier 27, new cruise terminal

From our cabin

Sail Away! George, Sharon, John, Darlene, Eric, Kathe, Tawny, Stuart

Under the Golden Gate

Welcome to Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico

Stuart and John

Port Authority

The famous (LARGE) Sailfish and John so tiny beneath it!

Pretty Little Gazebo

Anchored in Nicaragua

We saw this much of Nicaragua

Dolphins

Tarcoles River Tour Costa Rica

We saw many species of birds in just a few hours

Refreshments with George and Tawny after Tarcoles River Tour

View from the Pan American Hwy heading to the rain forest

Costa Rica Rain Forest Tram Tour

Torrents of rain in Costa Rica, made it off the tram just in time!

Food and more food!

Scheduled Flight Home

October 12, 2014 Schedule on American Airlines:

Depart MIA 2:00p-LAX 4:42         Depart LAX 8pm-FAT 8:55p

Day 15-Island Princess

The last full day of our cruise begins. We have had a enjoyable and relaxing time. Unfortunately I am ending the cruise with a cold but I do feel better this morning. I hope John does not get it or any other of our friends. I spent the day in the cabin but did attend our last dinner together. It was a fun time and some vague plan about a possible narrow boat, self-guided tour, in England on the canal boats. This has been on our agenda for a number of years. George is going to send me more information. Fond farewells of old and new friends…tomorrow we fly home. This will be my last entry before arriving home.

Day 14-Island Princess

Ugh, woke up sick this morning, well very early morning a crumby night. I wonder if it was from that woman coughing out a lung in the bus in Cartagena? Anyway, a very sore throat, darn. I will spend the day in the cabin so I don’t share this with anyone, hopefully not with John either! The sea is smooth and beautiful, lots of flying fish to watch along with a few dolphin. John went to the formal night dinner with our friends but I opted out, no need to spread germs. S&D gave me some fabulous throat drops, with essential oils, which helped tremendously. I will definitely be buying some of those!

Day 13-Island Princess-Oranjestad,Aruba

Smooth sailing last night despite what seemed like significant wind on our balcony. Our clocks jumped ahead another hour last night so it seemed we slept in later than usual. We are set to arrive in Oranjestad at 1p. A timely arrival but even though we waited a bit it was congested getting off the ship. We went to Iguana Joe’s up on a balcony with the original thought of having a margarita overlooking the area. However, the fruity sangria sounded even better so we had that and some spinach, artichoke, cheese dip with warm, green flour tortillas. It was very tasty. To our surprise Stuart and Darlene had the same idea, and shortly thereafter Eric and Kathe arrived as well. We didn’t sit together as we all arrived at different times anyway. From there we had a bit of a shock when we left the breezy balcony area and became engulfed with overwhelming humidity and heat. To me this was the hottest port stop. After a brief walk and looking around we headed back to the ship. Oh how wonderful the cool air conditioning felt in our cabin. We did venture out a few times on board and by dark we were sailing away toward our final destination of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This evening Stuart and Darlene have invited all of us to celebrate their 40th anniversary in the specialty restaurant Sabatini’s. It was fancy and lovely. The best thing ever was the artichoke soufflé I chose as an appetizer. There was an array of lovely things on the menu, it was hard to choose.  Happy 40th Anniversary to Stuart and Darlene, now off to bed!

Day 12-Island Princess-Cartagena, Columbia

My first-born’s BD today. I hope the flowers I ordered before we left actually get delivered today. I was able to call her on Skype from the ship internet, Viber would not work, not sure why. She didn’t pick up so all my effort was in vain. I was so flustered by the time I finally got through I said “Happy Anniversary” at first in the phone message. Of course I realized my mistake immediately…but… It didn’t work out to call my Mom the other day either. Soooo - Off we go for our excursion. We were immediately loaded on busses, I will say they seem very organized about excursions. First we drove through town on the “island” of Manga up to the La Popa Monastery built in the 17th century. We had excellent views over many portions of the city due to strategic location of the monastery. On the way up there were stations of the cross and I am sure at Easter there is a great pilgrimage here. 50% of the country is Catholic with a total of 75% Christian including the Catholic from what the guide said. From this point we went back down the mountain and saw a few significant buildings along the way, old churches domes, the clock tower, symbol of the city and various ocean views along the way to the Columbian Navy Museum. We saw various artifacts there and then in a building right next to it we watched a folklore show and were offered ice cold bottled water. Leaving this area we proceeded along the modern residential area of Bocagrande, famous for shops, restaurants and hotels. Along the coastline the shore actually crosses the road at some points. I didn’t quite understand and when he mentioned sewage I really didn’t want to know details. The places we went were mostly pretty clean whereas there were areas we drove by that were covered with litter and several areas where it was washed up into corners of the water flow. Our guide warned us the peddlers are aggressive but a firm NO GRACIAS will stop them. If you are at all interested, they really don’t give up. Braulio, our guide, also warned us they expect to bargain to about 50% of the initial asking price. I thought some cute “silver” earrings were nice but not for $20 since surely they are not silver. I got them for $5.  Our final photo opportunity was the largest Spanish fort in the New World, Fort of San Felipe de Barajas, originally built in the 17th century. It was pretty amazing as we viewed it from the Monastery as well. It was quite warm by this point in time so we were really glad we didn’t have the time option of hiking up to the top. I’m sure it was impressive. For us it was back to the ship by noon. We had lunch in the dining room, watched sail away and then watched a movie on TV. It was the Monuments Men, which is a movie I wanted to see when it came out a few years ago. It was based on a book, a true story, about the recovery of art at the end of WWII, we enjoyed that. Dinner rounded out the evening as we head toward Aruba.

Day 11-Island Princess-Panama Canal

Up early and we are queued for the Panama Canal, though we are not in it yet. Therefore, we went up to the Horizon Court for breakfast. It is very crowded because apparently there are a large number of people who want to sit inside the restaurant and view going through the canal from that vantage point. We finally found a place to sit and eat. After that we went out and walked around the decks until we could find a place on deck 15 that didn’t have glass in front of us. Unfortunately that was mostly near the back of the ship and it was getting hotter by the minute. We roamed around for a few hours and then decided we had the best view with shade, etc. from our balcony on the port side. Going through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks we used the eastern lock so we had great views of the western set of locks right beside us. It’s most interesting to watch the ships or boats along side since you get to see very well how the locks operate. We also had many views of the canal expansion from our balcony. The nice part was we could go in and cool off for a few minutes, get ice water and the entire process was shown on the cabin TV as well, complete with announcements so you really didn’t miss anything if you came in for a few minutes. I really didn’t look at the clock but I think the rain began about noon. Even with that it worked well for us as our balcony is half covered and we were able to take plenty of photos without getting the camera wet. Passing through the Culebra Cut we waited for him to announce the crossing of the Continental Divide. I was greatly disappointed when after the fact he said he forgot to announce that so of course we missed it. Our time in Gatun Lake seemed very short and before we knew it we had arrived at the Gatun Locks. Our journey via the canal was almost to an end and it seemed to pass so quickly. The rain is really coming down now! It was interesting to see a large tanker passing in the western lock just before we passed in the eastern lock we and it ended up side by side most of the time. We went through to the end with them and near the end there was a grinning young man who came out with a sign that said “stay far away 140,000 tons of liquid propane” – amazing because I keep wondering what they were carrying and it did say LPG on the side of the ship. I’ll explain why the sign was somewhat humorous; many people on the ship have made Panama Canal signs so they can hold them up as we transit the canal and have their photos taken. I’m sure this looked strange to the few men (and women) on this tanker. Nice to feel a small connection even as we are ships that pass… What an amazing feat to build this canal 100 years ago and still have it in operation and even expansion today. We are off to dinner now so I will post this early as nothing else is planned for this evening since we get to Cartagena tomorrow.