Panama Canal Cruise
We flew out of St. Louis on Thursday, November 17th after a nice airport lunch at the Pasta House.
Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we met Jim and Warren. They took us to our old favorite, the Ramada Inn CruisePort hotel. From there, we had a really nice crab dinner at the Rustic Inn.
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and decided to stop for a drink at the Tiki Bar. It was there that we met Randy and Mary from New York. They were on the same cruise and we ran into them regularly while on the ship.
Set sail on the 18th. It was a very quick process to board and before we knew it, we were settling in to our balcony stateroom. We had mostly unpacked by the time we set sail. With our unlimited drink package sticker, we were anxious to get up to the Lido to enjoy a sail away cocktail.
We had signed up for 7:45 PM Traditional Dining and that night, we met our new dinner companions. What an amazing group and how lucky we felt. Politically, we all had similar feelings about the election that had just happened in the US. Two of our new friends (Linda and Rena) were from Vancouver Canada, (Ria was living in Pembroke Pines Florida (near Ft. Lauderdale) and the other, Mancy, was her old friend visiting from London. Mancy had spent many years living in Egypt. Ria was born in Germany and grew up during WWII. She had then spent many years living in Trinidad.
The LGBT HH was at 9 PM in the Wheelhouse Bar. We met a big group from Canada including Mary who is a retired RCMP officer. We enjoyed visiting with them throughout the cruise. Below is a photo taken of us with Mary and Brenda (her partner).
Saturday was our first full day at sea. It was also the first formal night. The traditional champagne photo opportunity was in the main atrium.
Sunday was another sea day as we traveled towards Aruba. We entered the ping pong tournament up on the top deck. It was a lot of fun and a wild day at sea which made the game more interesting. The waves in the pool were pretty wild. We later realized that a hurricane was brewing up around us.
On Monday, we arrived and headed off to a repeat shore excursion to the California lighthouse. We went there only to have the wonderful coconut drink we remembered from a previous trip. It was as good as ever but the vendor has expanded the operations.
Our next stop was the beach. Our dinner companion Linda was along as well. The beach was a bust due to a heavy downpour. From what we heard, yesterday was much worse with flooding they had virtually never seen in Aruba . While we huddled under cover at the bar, we met an interesting young man who was bar tending there. It turns out he has a college degree and is a refugee from the violence in Venezuela. His parents are in Canada but he has not been able to get there so he is stuck in Aruba with no where to go and limited job prospects. He was telling us how his family was a successful middle class family and then everything changed politically. His father was a university professor so leaving was his only real option. It really hit home.
The other exciting memory from Aruba was watching the dolphins along side the ship as we left port and sailed onward toward South America.
Our next stop was Cartagena Colombia. There we had signed up for a Discovery recommended tour which would take us to the old fortress and city walls as well as the old city shopping district in downtown Cartagena. The city is now on the rise with tourism starting to grow. The vendors, much like in Mexico, are very pushy but as the guide explained, there is still a lot of poverty and this is their only income. The historic aspect of the city was quite impressive. We also enjoyed hitting a few recommended shops including the Cafeto where we found very reasonably priced Colombian coffee. We bought a couple of bags and what a treat they were once we returned home.
The last portion of the tour had us out on the water with a great view of the city. While out there, we also saw some wildlife near the shore, a cormorant, a brown pelican and a white heron. It was extremely hot and humid in Cartagena.
The next day, we were about to experience the main event. We were going to traverse the Panama Canal. It was such an amazing experience to know the history behind the canal and the engineering that went into it. During the traverse which only takes a couple hours, we went up 87 feet from sea level into Lake Gatun.
Because of Hurricane Otto, our next port, Costa Rica was cancelled. So we actually ended up spending the night in Lake Gatun. But first, we went on our amazing shore excursion which was at Lake Gatun. One stop was at the Embera Indian village.
I danced with them at the end of their presentation. Next up we went out into the Lake and saw the wildlife that we expected to see in Costa Rica but instead saw in Panama. There was a two and three toed sloth, a comorant and yellow finches. We saw howler monkeys playing in the trees. We later heard other groups saw crocodiles but none of us saw any Boa Constrictors which are common.
We saw a Mangrove swallow and a kite. At the Embera village, we saw a Quaker parrot.
Our tour also took up to different parts of the canal as well as a demonstration area right by the canal where we waved to sailors on cargo ships that were passing through.
Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we met Jim and Warren. They took us to our old favorite, the Ramada Inn CruisePort hotel. From there, we had a really nice crab dinner at the Rustic Inn.
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and decided to stop for a drink at the Tiki Bar. It was there that we met Randy and Mary from New York. They were on the same cruise and we ran into them regularly while on the ship.
Set sail on the 18th. It was a very quick process to board and before we knew it, we were settling in to our balcony stateroom. We had mostly unpacked by the time we set sail. With our unlimited drink package sticker, we were anxious to get up to the Lido to enjoy a sail away cocktail.
We had signed up for 7:45 PM Traditional Dining and that night, we met our new dinner companions. What an amazing group and how lucky we felt. Politically, we all had similar feelings about the election that had just happened in the US. Two of our new friends (Linda and Rena) were from Vancouver Canada, (Ria was living in Pembroke Pines Florida (near Ft. Lauderdale) and the other, Mancy, was her old friend visiting from London. Mancy had spent many years living in Egypt. Ria was born in Germany and grew up during WWII. She had then spent many years living in Trinidad.
The LGBT HH was at 9 PM in the Wheelhouse Bar. We met a big group from Canada including Mary who is a retired RCMP officer. We enjoyed visiting with them throughout the cruise. Below is a photo taken of us with Mary and Brenda (her partner).
Saturday was our first full day at sea. It was also the first formal night. The traditional champagne photo opportunity was in the main atrium.
Sunday was another sea day as we traveled towards Aruba. We entered the ping pong tournament up on the top deck. It was a lot of fun and a wild day at sea which made the game more interesting. The waves in the pool were pretty wild. We later realized that a hurricane was brewing up around us.
On Monday, we arrived and headed off to a repeat shore excursion to the California lighthouse. We went there only to have the wonderful coconut drink we remembered from a previous trip. It was as good as ever but the vendor has expanded the operations.
Our next stop was the beach. Our dinner companion Linda was along as well. The beach was a bust due to a heavy downpour. From what we heard, yesterday was much worse with flooding they had virtually never seen in Aruba . While we huddled under cover at the bar, we met an interesting young man who was bar tending there. It turns out he has a college degree and is a refugee from the violence in Venezuela. His parents are in Canada but he has not been able to get there so he is stuck in Aruba with no where to go and limited job prospects. He was telling us how his family was a successful middle class family and then everything changed politically. His father was a university professor so leaving was his only real option. It really hit home.
The other exciting memory from Aruba was watching the dolphins along side the ship as we left port and sailed onward toward South America.
Our next stop was Cartagena Colombia. There we had signed up for a Discovery recommended tour which would take us to the old fortress and city walls as well as the old city shopping district in downtown Cartagena. The city is now on the rise with tourism starting to grow. The vendors, much like in Mexico, are very pushy but as the guide explained, there is still a lot of poverty and this is their only income. The historic aspect of the city was quite impressive. We also enjoyed hitting a few recommended shops including the Cafeto where we found very reasonably priced Colombian coffee. We bought a couple of bags and what a treat they were once we returned home.
The last portion of the tour had us out on the water with a great view of the city. While out there, we also saw some wildlife near the shore, a cormorant, a brown pelican and a white heron. It was extremely hot and humid in Cartagena.
The next day, we were about to experience the main event. We were going to traverse the Panama Canal. It was such an amazing experience to know the history behind the canal and the engineering that went into it. During the traverse which only takes a couple hours, we went up 87 feet from sea level into Lake Gatun.
Because of Hurricane Otto, our next port, Costa Rica was cancelled. So we actually ended up spending the night in Lake Gatun. But first, we went on our amazing shore excursion which was at Lake Gatun. One stop was at the Embera Indian village.
I danced with them at the end of their presentation. Next up we went out into the Lake and saw the wildlife that we expected to see in Costa Rica but instead saw in Panama. There was a two and three toed sloth, a comorant and yellow finches. We saw howler monkeys playing in the trees. We later heard other groups saw crocodiles but none of us saw any Boa Constrictors which are common.
We saw a Mangrove swallow and a kite. At the Embera village, we saw a Quaker parrot.
Our tour also took up to different parts of the canal as well as a demonstration area right by the canal where we waved to sailors on cargo ships that were passing through.
The next day, we experienced exiting Lake Gatun into the canal and then out to the Atlantic Ocean.
After leaving the canal, we went to Colon, Panama for a brief stop. From there, we headed back towards home with one final stop remaining which was to be the Cayman Islands. Our excursion there took us to a store to sample Rum Cakes followed by a stop in Hell. After that, we went to a Turtle research center where we were able to actually handle the green sea turtles. It was amazing.
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