Panama Canal Cruise...Week 1

  I signed us up for a 2 week Panama Canal cruise nearly a year ago. It was one of those "bucket list" things. Paid for it and kinda forgot about it until November. Then I realized, stupid person that I am, that I was still going to have to do pie night (13 pies this year), have house guests, clean, cook & shop, fix more food for Thanksgiving, get my house ready to leave, pack and plan to be gone for 2 weeks. What was I thinking???? I would advice NEVER going on a cruise for that long sandwiched in between 2 major holidays, unless you have no children and are skipping any holiday festivities!!! It was pretty crazy.
   Once I was on the ship, though, all the stress was forgotten. Since I don't ever sleep much for 3 days before any trip, I was pretty close to a crash & burn state induced by lack-of-sleep.!!
   The main reason for doing this cruise was that it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually go through the Panama Canal.
   Plenty of cruise ships go down to Panama where you can get off the ship and look at the canal. But only a few ships each year actually go through the canal.
The reasons they don't all go through are: 
1. a lot of the newer, huge cruise ships are too big to fit. Ours was the Carnival Paradise, an older mid-sized ship. These locks were built 100 years ago and they built them as big as the largest war ships were at the time. Our ships only had 2 feet on either side as we were in the locks. But todays ship are bigger. They are building a set of new locks right now that are bigger. They hope to have them done in 2014...the 100 year anniversary.
2. it takes 2 weeks to go there.....you go down one side of the continent, go through the canal and then have to go back up the other side. That's a long time to be gone from work if you have a job. We found that the majority of the passengers were either older or retired. (watch out for the walkers, wheelchairs and canes) We were some of the younger ones on board. Other passengers own their own business, or are on holiday from a foreign country or were with their even older parents. There were only 12 children total on this cruise. 
3. it is expensive to go through the canal.....meaning its costs money for each ship that goes through. It cost our ship $400,000.00 to go through the canal. Panama charges by the # of berths and weight.  You can imagine that they do have to pass some of that cost on to their passengers. And you can imagine the weight of that ship with 2 weeks worth of food and the all-you-can-eat mentality of most cruisers!!!!
    
    Day 1: We left out of Long Beach. We did take a nap and then you try to find your way around and get your sea legs. This ship had two salt water pools, 6 hot tubs, a walking track & mini golf, a library, an interior atrium, two main dining rooms, inside & poolside buffet, shuffleboard, ping-pong,, video arcade, casino, spa and of course, 24 hour pizza and ice cream.
   

Day 2 A sea day. Most of this first day was finding our way around, eating and sleeping. I was finally starting to think straight again and relax.
        Every night, the ship offered a live show of some kind in their big lounge. We watched a ventriloquist, a magician, a violin player, song & dance routines, comedy, Motown, etc. We had early dinner at 6 so we usually went to the 8:30 show. Then there were the later comedy shows and several nights with late night dining AGAIN and salsa lessons, talents shows, etc. etc


Day 3     Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
    We have been to Cabo before. Not that much to do in the town itself.  The water isn't as warm as you think  it should be. You either walk around the town and shop, or take a water taxi out to Lovers Beach. We had done both before. Cam wanted to stay on the ship but I convinced him to go into town. He had us walk past and up behind the central market place and there we found a beautiful condo development. We walked right past the security guard and found a lovely, new property with a mini golf course, fountains, several pools, grass and gardens and the best part was that on the back of that property was the other side of the ocean. We were able to go right out onto the beach. No pesky native sellers, no touristy things, just a lovely, clean, nearly empty beach. Nice find, hubby.


Luckily for us, Fun For Less, had placed us for dinner at a table with 3 other couples that were about our same age, with grown children and a few grandchildren each. After eating together for 13 nights, we became friends and knew quite a bit about each other. So we started off not knowing anybody on board and left with many new friends. We went to some of the shows together, played cards together, and were on some of the same shore excursions. We had the same waiter, the whole cruise. Kris from Hungary. Tall, handsome and very charming.
Each night during dessert, all of the waiters, did some kind of line dance.

Gaylene & Tom Byers

Cam dresses down on formal night!!!

Teresa & Gary from Rock Springs

Doug & Judy from West Valley

our waiter Kris

Day 4     Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
     We have been to Puerto a few times also. Already done the jungle canopy zip line thing and another time rented a boat and went out snorkeling, fishing & whale watching. So this time we just walked along the pier, went to Wal-Mart, found a shopping mall with Wi-Fi, and found a couple of other decent shops to buy a few recuerdos from. Back by the ship they had the cutest baby donkey...or is it a burro??

 what a photo opt!!!

Day 5, 6, & 7 were days at sea.
Our typical day at sea, consisted of trying to find ways to burn calories so that we could eat again!!!! We were on the 4th deck and climbed every morning 156 stairs to then walk/jog our 3 miles for the day, on the track. Some days the wind was so strong that we were the only ones brave enough (foolish??) to be up there. But it was always warm and sunny.
Then I got to be Cam's personal trainer in the gym. I showed him how to use all the machines and we did core and strength training together. Now he knows what his money pays for at the gym for me back home!!! We then would eat fruit or yogurt or something light for brunch. Our first 2 days out we tried eating 3 meals a day and knew that we couldn't keep that up, or else we would have to find a place to buy bigger clothes......so we had to cut back!!!!
Then we would find a deck chair and sit in the sun and read or sleep. Into the pool or hot tub, then out on the deck chair again. I would have to move into the shade quite soon. Cam tans up pretty nicely. I know, I know...it's a hard life but somebody has to do it, right!!!
More time in the sun, more napping, maybe watch a movie on TV and then dress for dinner. It really is very nice to truly dine. No jumping up & down to get things. No dishes. Just point a something on the menu and it shows up for you to eat. Just sit there and be waited on!!! I could handle that on a permanent basis. You always must be on deck at sunset, then go back and walk the deck in the dark, to see the stars. Walk a lot!!!

Day 8   Puntarenas, Costa Rica


I've had people tell me that Costa Rica is a beautiful place. We put in on the Pacific side of it. I wasn't too impressed. Maybe over on the Caribbean side it is nicer. This place was just another typical cruise port with the streets lined with shops & vendors selling mostly the same things probably from China. You had to walk and look hard to find something that really represented the country or people. The beach was right there but so was the poverty and litter. We had booked a shore excursion to the jungle so we spent most of the day in the rain forests amidst flora and fauna. 
First we took a bus from the pier to a private property where we then took a very slow, bumpy tractor ride out to a boat ramp. We went out in a flat bottomed boat into the Tarcolitos River. The boat driver is also part crazy/part animal trainer!! He stopped the boat on a sand bank, got out and fed the crocodiles that were plentiful, big and hungry. 

Our jungle hike took us over 5 suspension bridges high above the ground. The trees there were alive with large ants. See them in the above picture carrying off chunks of leaves. You could follow their trail off into the jungle quite a ways. The jungle was gorgeous and lush with hosts of blooming trees and vines. It was almost dark at the bottom. 

The tour operators forgot to tell some of the older people on our tour that they couldn't take their walkers over the suspension bridges nor up and down the 2 mile, rocky, unlevel ground. There was a heavy, older lady with bad knees in our group that had to be practically carried out the last part. It started raining just as we were leaving but it was a warm, light rain. Made you feel very native!!!

Day 9 another day at sea and then we were at the Canal.


Next post will be the actual canal passage, with more history plus our stops to Columbia and Grand Cayman Island.