Just Cruising Along

Day 9 –April 22 – Costa Rica – 50 Shades of Green

Bienvenidos

Today’s port of call was Puntarenas, located on the Pacific Coast of the country.  Costa Rica as a well-earned reputation as an ecotopia.  They disbanded their armed forces in 1948. Literacy is very near 100%. Everyone who wants to work can get a job.  This year, Costa Rica plans to abandon their use of fossil fuels entirely, with the exception of that used for transportation. 

Donna searching for souvenirs

As close as we can calculate, this is our sixth visit to the country and our third trip to Puntarenas, a port city of about 100,000.  We decided not to take any shore excursions and just took a walk into town.  We managed to find a restaurant with Internet and sent our blogs and checked our email.  We planned to return to the same supermarket we had visited four years ago.  Amazingly, after dodging the busy traffic and watching for holes in the sidewalk in the city, we walked right to it.  John even remembered the aisle the coffee was stored.  We bought two different brands of local coffee beans to take home for ourselves and Kari and Jim.

On our way to Panama

We returned to the ship and spent the afternoon relaxing.  We even went swimming in the ship’s pool. We have been astounded by the hundreds of positive comments we have been receiving from the passengers onboard the Legend of the Seas.  Whether we are dining, in port or just walking down the passageways, people are stopping us to let us know how much our presentations add to their cruise experience J.

Hasta maňana.

Day 10 –April 24 – at sea

relaxing on deck

Art Deco onboard

This being a sea day, we gave another presentation.  As opposed to our other programs, which had been scheduled for noon, this lecture was scheduled for 10:00 am.  The subject was the Panama Canal and all 800 seats in the theater were filled and there was standing room only! Everyone wanted to learn as much as they could before our arrival and transit through the canal tomorrow. Our show was also video-taped and broadcast throughout the day on the stateroom TV’s for those who were unable to attend in person. The praise from both the passengers and the staff just keeps rolling in.  We are looking forward to the canal transit tomorrow and are trying to decide on a good place on deck to view it.

Hasta maňana.

Day 11 –April 24 – Panama Canal Transit

Sunrise over the Pacific!

This is our fifth trip to the Panama Canal and we never cease to be excited about it.  We awoke at 4:15 and went out in the dark warm and windy morning to the promenade deck to stake out a couple of lounges for the day through the canal. We have found that this is the best deck to be on as has an unobstructed view. We went up and got coffee and then proceeded to watch the lights of the many ships lining up for the canal. We answered a lot of questions all morning, prior to our entrance to the canal, as we moved around the ship. We began our transit at about 8 am and we were glad that the ship had taken an expert on board to narrate the whole experience for the guests so we didn’t have to speak J.

a rare Pacific sunrise

We returned to our stateroom for a few minutes during the morning and noticed that we had a voice mail on our phone. It was our cruise staff coordinator inviting us, on behalf of the cruise director, to join in an exclusive party open to only a small number of guests. He wanted us to attend party and answer questions for these guests from noon on. We felt honored to do this as we usually don’t get invited to private functions on the ship. It was a lovely catered event with food and an open bar on a private deck at the stern of the ship. We spent the remainder of the day there answering questions and enjoying the fancy transport through the canal. The day was excellent and the canal was as interesting as always. We exited the canal and slowly moved around near our port for tomorrow, Colon, Panama. Moving from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans! The evening show was two young comedians and we enjoyed it immensely.

Locks are closing

a beautiful day on deck

entering the locks

crossing the continent

Day 12-April 25^th-Panama City

We had decided to only buy excursions in two ports on this trip and the Caribbean port of Colon was one of them. We have been in the canal on 5 different cruises but have never been to the capital in Panama City so we bought tickets for a day trip to the big city. Panama City is divided in three separate sections, one being the old ancient city which was destroyed by the pirates and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We also toured the restored second Panama City which was ^th-18^th century section. Unfortunately, our guide didn’t relay very much information so we were not able to gain much from this tour. We had hoped for more details but she didn’t add too much to the excursion. The third section was the modern large city with many high sky scrapers. It is the financial part of the city and we see that Panama is doing very well financially.

New-Orleans-style facades dominate the historic city.

We got back to the ship by mid afternoon and relaxed on deck until the evening show and dinner. The restrictions on food handling have finally been lifted in the Windjammer buffet after a few weeks of dealing with norovirus on the ship so we decided to eat there tonight and not have to dress up for dinner. The show was great as the ship’s orchestra each got the opportunity to solo and show their immense talents. On to South America tomorrow.

Day 13-April 26^th-Cartagena, Colombia South America

the hotel zone

Colombian flag tops the old city walls

enjoying the public beach

Cartagena's Plaza Mayor

This was our second time in Cartagena, Colombia and we wanted to learn more about this country and the city so we booked a ship tour for the day. We decided that the ‘hop-on, hop-off’ tour bus would fit our needs so we could visit areas where we wanted but found that staying on the bus was much better as we had a great tour guide who explained so much about the modern city and provided an excellent walking tour of the ancient walled city. We were surprised at the huge amount of building going on in the modern city and the enormous amount of sky scrapers we encountered in Cartagena. Since our last trip here a few years ago, the city has grown tremendously. The walking tour of the old walled city lasted for a couple of hours and we learned a number of things from the guide. The temperature and humidity were both very high so we decided to stay with the bus and the guide and not venture out in this steamy city on our own. This was a far superior tour today than the one in Panama for about half the price!

We came back to the ship and spent time on deck enjoying a nice breeze from the ocean before showering and dressing for the early show and late dinner. We enjoyed the entertainment from the a-Capella quartet that sang tonight.

We have enjoyed all of the many ports of call on this cruise and look forward our last two days on board and presenting our final two shows on Monday and Tuesday. If the comments that we keep hearing from the guests are any indication, we should have huge crowds attending again. We have had between 300-800 guests at each of our shows and that is definitely a record for us. Two days at sea and then disembarkation and home again on Wednesday.