12 days in...

And I have to say I am beginning to wear out a bit. We started out with a good mix of sea day, port, sea day, port. But the last few days have been essentially all port days. Yeah, I know that we didn’t actually get off the ship in Panama yesterday, but we did run around from one deck to another and side to side and to and fro for about 9 hours. Well, Tom did. I stopped to-ing and fro-ing after the first set of locks and just enjoyed the scenery from my balcony, but still we all barely made it through the show last night and headed to our rooms around 8:30 for needed sleep.

Today was a flurried morning in Cartagena, Colombia. We had a short port stop here, only 5 and a half hours from 8-1:30. We did a stroll through the Old Town of Cartagena and while we loved the old architecture of balconies and cobbled streets within the fortress walls, we were less than enamored with the traffic, the heat, the humidity and the non-stop peddlars. We’re skipping the dining room tonight and hitting the early show, as we have another port day tomorrow - Aruba where we are all going snorkeling and won’t care what the humidity is.

As proof, I am including some pictures with this post. A very bedraggled victim of the humidity and heat, a traffic situation on the way in that had us all laughing, and a couple of the lovely streets of Old Town.

Transiting the Panama Canal

Arising early, before dawn, we were treated to a spectular view of the Southern Cross, the lights of 50 or so container ships lined up for a slot through the canal (unlike cargo ships, ours was purchased 18 months ago so we had a priority slot) and then sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.

Yep, that is not a mistake - the sun rose in the east, but because of the way Panama has a big S curve, it was over the Pacific. Look at the map.

After all that we headed into the Miraflores locks, a true engineering marvel opened in 1913. We watched as the canal workers rowed out to pur big ship in a little two-man rowboat to throw a line that allowed us to hook up to the little train car called a mule that drags us through the locks.

I will try and include a few pictures of the locks, the infamous Culebra Cut (8 miles of mountain that still continues to slide into the canal today) and some of our fellow ships taking The Shortcut.

Catching Up

Whaaat ? ! ? I haven’t blogged since Huatulco. Oh my, I think you had better fire me as I am obviously not a very good blogger this trip.

So in an attempt to play catchup:
We have stopped in San Juan del Sur, Nicaraugua, a sleepy little fishing village that mostly survives on surfing tourists. Who do not spend their time in fancy resorts, so there aren’t any. But there are numerous little bed and breakfast and hostel places with a couple of rooms for rent above the family living quarters. And if they have no rooms to rent, they offer laundry services. We walked down an entire street of rentals and laundries, and then sat on a bench on the seaside boardwalk and just watched the families on the beach, the vendors strolling by (No thank you, I do not want an ocarina, bird whistle, carved bowl or beads) It was all very picturesque, including the lady on the boardwalk with two monkeys on a leash just like pet dogs. No, I don’t have a photo as she was charging for pictures.

While Jackie and I meandered, Tom, Pam and Gene went ziplining. I have seen some of the videos, and it is very reminiscent of the zipline in Belize (that’s for you Barbara and Richard). I am well past the ability to do that sort of adventure any longer and it was a good thing that I chose to just take it easy that day.

After another sea day (meaning: Sleep in, eat, watch a performance or lecture or show, eat and repeat) we stopped in Costa Rica yesterday where we did an eight-hour 10 in 1 tour. We saw capuchin monkeys (photo to follow), birds and the rainforest, Carara (sp?) National Park (also a rainforest but on the mountain top), banana and fruit plantations where they make fabulous fruit smoothies including the mango-papaya-coconut combination I tried. Plus a replica old plantation town, even more unusual fruit trees and birds, termites, giant ants, some sort of beetle about four inches long (ick), waterfalls, macaws, and general jungle mayhem. THEN we went crocodile hunting, but since all wildlife are protected in Costa Rica it was the photo sort of hunting. We saw little young crocs (3 feet long) up to adults about 25 feet long. These were about 50 years old, but crocs live about 150 years, and continue to grow their entire lives, and can get much larger - up to 45 feet long! Most of us were just plain worn out by the end of all this, and we all fell asleep pretty quickly after dinner.

And slept some 9-11 hours according to reports this morning. We’re not quite the youngsters we used to be, even though we sometimes try.

Today is a sea day (see above description for daily agenda) and we just finished the first meal of the day at 11:30. It is now noon, and I think I will have the Drink of the Day, a Caribbean Cooler.

Tomorrow is the Panama Canal adventure....starting at 6 am. I will try to blog, but do not be surpised if I must apologize yet again. <sigh>

Huatulco

Although today was a port, we did not do too much. Walked around, sat at a beach bar and had some beers. Forgot to ask the price first and got ripped off by twice the worst price at any of the other bars. We should have known better and won’t make that mistake again. So came back to the ship instead of spending money out in town. Their loss. The town is an adorable little fishing village and we would enjoy coming here again.

My Guilt Complex

Yes, I am feeling guilty about not blogging. There have not been any truly blog-worthy moments that I can remember, which is not to say that those events have not happened, I just keep forgetting about them.

So in no particular order:
- We won musical Bingo! Me, the one who has no musical ability nor the memory for songs. Our prizes were the New! Rubber coasters with the ship name. Yeah, people fought over trivia answers so much that apparently corporate decided to cheapen the prizes from $1.95 down to 99 cents. Still, a win is a win.

- Have I mentioned how much I love this ship? Perfect size (1950 passengers, 1000 crew) and never feels crowded. There is a line for anytime dining when we leave the dining room around 7:00 each night, but that has never impacted us with our traditional set time. Nothing else requires advance planning. One can find seats in the theater 5 minutes before a production show, there is always a seat in Horizon Court buffet, there are plenty of chairs and sofas along the windows in the public hallways....yep, we love this ship enough that we checked out the next couple of year’s itineraries to see what we may want to do. Answers are Alaska in the summer, Panama in the winter, and a Circle South America 60 day trip in February. The Island, (which used to be a twin sister ship until they added 50 cabins across the back) likely still feels much the same and it does the same itineraries except its 60 day trip is in the fall and is a Pacific Rim circle from Alaska to China, Japan, Vietnam and Hawaii.

- Yesterday we were in our first port, Puerto Vallarta. We didn’t do much, although Pam, Gene and Jackie went whale watching in a Zodiac boat and saw lots of humpback whales. Tom and I went down the boardwalk and met up with our Corrales neighbors who happened to be on a week long vacation in PV. Pacifico beers, homemade Pico de Gallo (I would have eaten that with a spoon it was so good), and chicken fajitas for four of us totaled $22. I can see why so many folks like to winter there.

- Today we hit the second of the many $10 Sales at Sea. I bought two Christams ornaments, a manta ray and a starfish. Congratulate me on not purchasing the purses, scarves, tee shirts and hats.

- The sea air and a few restless (knee) nights have caught up with me. I fell asleep somewhere around the third quarter of the Alabama-Georgia game and did not arise until about 9:30 this morning, which is about 10 or 11 hours of sleep, which I must have really needed. We have a marathon night planned this evening; dinner, then the Movie Under the Stars, then the production show Encore which is by all accounts is supposed to be a really fantastic new production show. Maybe I better go rest up. 😁

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun...

...as the saying goes. If I could sum up the flurry of the past three days, that would about cover it. We all got to LA safely, managed to find the shuttles, got to the hotel (some more efficiently than others - again the shuttles), and Tom and I even rented a car, zipped down to visit with Dad who is doing pretty well, and is on the upswing again, and then returned to the hotel via only two Sigalerts. (You have to have driven in California for a day or two to understand that one.)

Our group of five finally met up over club sandwiches at the hotel and we pinched ourselves knowing the ship was on its way. We confessed to several overstuffed bags, but figured we could get all five of us to the pier in our own shuttle car before returning the rental. And we did. Tom was the heroic shuttle driver who got everyone safely to the port, dropped us off and we managed to all get onboard within a few minutes of each other.

Of course, there was a serendipitous event first. Jackie and I had agreed to sit and wait just outside the entry doors until Tom was able to join us after gassing up the rental car, returning it and walking back to the pier. Because Jackie and I can sit and talk just about anywhere, this was easy. And as we sat and talked, we looked across the broad sidewalk and saw this group of men in blue suits who were guiding guests to the doors and assisting those who needed wheelchairs. During a lull, I looked across at them and said, “Do any of you gentlemen know Peter Wyrick?” Whereupon one of them said “I’m Peter...” but he left unsaid the “who the heck are you? ? ?” part. Well, Peter B. Wyrick was one of Tom’s commanding officers in the Marine Corps, with the VMA-214 Blacksheep. We had heard he had started working at the Los Angeles Harbor as a greeter....and we had found him. After we tried to have Peter sneak attack Tom (Tom recognized him right away) and much catching up of what happened over the last 35 years, Peter escorted us through check-in and we walked right on to the ship.

Since then we have been exploring the ship, eating and drinking at nearly every opportunity, getting turned around and lost on a nearly hourly basis and laughing all the way. We are very pleased with the size of the Coral Princess and the mix of passengers. A very nice change from what we encountered two months ago on the Emerald. This ship only holds 2000 passengers, but has nearly the same amount of public spaces. Meaning there are few crowds, one can always find a seat in the venues AND the buffet, and we have yet to encounter any of the boorish personalities we saw on a too-regular basis on the last trip.

Today is our second sea day, and we already have too many things to do and not enough time. The sun has just risen at 8 a.m. Tom, Pam and Gene have met for deck walking (lovely wide promenade on one deck) and some weights in the gym, while I write this and listen to a wonderful presentation ( History channel production maybe? ) on the construction of the Panama Canal while also deciding what we want to do during our first port visit tomorrow in Puerto Vallarta. One thing we do have on the agenda for PV is visiting with one of our Corrales neighbors who happen to be on vacation there. Oh, and a slot pull tournament. And a luncheon in the dining room today. Oh, so much we want to do and then sometimes we decide it is just more important to sit and watch the ocean drifting by.

This is turning out to be one of our favorite cruises already.

And we’re off to the Big Ditch

Having just finished the long, boring read of how the Panama Canal was created, well...Tom read the whole thing. I gave up after the French and right about the time Teddy Roosevelt got involved. Mostly because politicians were just as self-serving and unethical back then as they are now. SO I read the Wikipedia version in about 10 minutes with added emphasis on the engineering marvel of the Culebra Cut and called it a day.

I ‘ ll be blogging more sporadically this time. Not necessarily daily, but certainly when there is something interesting to say.