A Blustery Day in Amsterdam

Saturday, July 25
Our first night in Amsterdam was a lovely one and we quickly learned that we are located in an excellent part of one of the largest tourist areas of the city called Rembrandt Square. It is a bustling area of tourist shops, hotels, cafes and coffee shops. We had read that coffee shops aren't noted for their coffee but are instead marijuana shops, so we decided to not try to and buy our lattees there. We saw lots of people in all of the places and lots sitting outside around the square and park who had chosen to purchase some non-coffee products in those shops.  The smell in the air was indicitive of a 1970's rock concert.
We found a nice little place for dinner that was listed as a great local sandwich shop. We ordered some local Dutch food and enjoyed it very much. The food was not only good, but the prices were the best that we have seen since arriving in Europe. After dinner we strolled through the area with a thousand or so of our closest new "friends" as it was very crowded.

A bicycle parking lot

We had heard that bicycles dominate here so we watched the streets and sidewalks both directions as we meandered through the area. We were surprised to not only see such a dominance of thousands of bikes but not a one was fancy or even something that an average America would consider riding. They are all one style, single speed and mostly flat black in color. A few have hand brakes and most have racks or attached grocery or children carts but none are even new looking by our standards. With Amsterdam being so flat, there seems to be no need for anything more than the simpliest in design as they probably never see a hill or a need to change gears. We also hear that bike theft is the most common crime in the city so no one probably wants a bike that would stand out in the crowd. The bikes are everywhere and there are even parking garages and barges solely devoted for parking bicycles. Our only question is how in the world do the owners find theirs after work or shopping when they all are so similar?
This morning we awoke to a cloudy morning but the temps were warm. We went down for a lovely buffet breakfast in this newest hotel and then decided to venture out to see the city. We decided that it would be best to purchase a hot-on-hop-off bus ticket for 24 hrs so we could get a good overview of where all of the sights are located. With so many canals cutting through the city, that seemed to be a way to get our bearings. We did that in Paris and it helped us navigate much easier on our own for the next days. We wanted to hear the narration and learn some interesting history of the city. We even saw the last windmill in Amsterdam.
We also wanted to take a canal trip as that is listed in all of the tour books as a "must do" so we purchased the combination boat and bus pass and walked across one the many canal bridges to the boat dock and realized that the weather was starting to get worse the farther we got from the hotel. John was smarter than me as he took his anarack and wore jeans and tennis shoes. I only wore capris, sandals and left my anarack in the suitcase thinking that the light weight warm up jacket and an umbrella would surfice...WRONG!
With the rain starting to come down heavier,  we stayed on the barge boat for the whole loop which took over an hour and then got off and grabbed the bus for that loop tour of the city. We were glad that both were covered and that there were enough seats so we didn't have to wait for another bus.
The city of Amsterdam is filled with gorgeous canals and homes and buildings that line each canal. It looks like something out of a tour book everywhere we went :) We didn't get off the bus until we had made the full circle and got off as close to our hotel as we could figure from the map. Luckily, John had again marked our hotel spot onour walking GPS or we would have wandered around for a long time in the wind and pouring rain.
We found our hotel after about 15 minutes of walking. I chose not to use the umbrella as it was blowing so hard that the umbrella would have turned inside out, much the same as many of the others we spotted had done so we quickly returned to the hotel. 
It was nice to reeturn and take off some wet things and make some lunch and just stay inside watching the city down below from our excellent vantage point right over one of the main squares, canals and lovely huge flower market areas. We were much happier to be up in our 4th story room than down in the blustery streets dodging wet tourists, passengers on numerous trams going every direction and thousands of crazy bicyclists trying to make their ways to their hotels or homes to also escape the July storm.

Rijksmuseum

Life on the canals

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.