Saturday, March 24, 2018- Cruise Day 60; At Sea

Saturday, March 24, 2018- Cruise Day 60; At Sea

We have reached the last day at sea for this cruise.  Tomorrow we will be disembarking at Port Everglades.  We decided to book a disembarkation tour of the Intracoastal Waterway by Boat and Las Olas Blvd with transfer to the Fort Lauderdale airport, instead of just going to the airport at 9:00AM.  Our flight to Seattle leaves at 6:30PM, so this tour will keep us busy and store our luggage while we tour.  We get dropped off at the airport at 1:00PM so we’ll still have several hours to kill at the airport. 

After breakfast in the dining room, we had our final progresive trivia quiz.  This was number 8, and we had fallen into 3rd place after #7.  We had broken out Champagne and orange juice for mimosas to celebrate our last progressive trivia quiz.  Most of the final questions were pretty straight forward but the differentiators included what color is a Yorkshire rose, and what country is home to the world’s largest McDonalds restaurant.  We had to guess on the rose, starting with red, but then changing to white at the last minute, while we had initially guessed China for the McDonalds but then changed at the last minute to USA.  Well, it turns out our first change was for the better, while the second change went from right to wrong.  

There was some suspense while Robbie tallied the scores.  Then he announced the winners to be a team called The Sixth Circle with 66 points.  They had taken the lead after quiz #7.  Then Robbie went on to list 2nd place as Motley Crew and Loozers at 65 points.  He then went on to list 3rd and 4th places as Densa 6 and One Brick Shy with 61 points.  We were puzzled not to hear Santa’s helpers called out by now.  Then Robbie threw in, “Oh wait… We have another team tied for first with The Sixth Circle.  It’s Santa’s Helpers!”  We don’t know if he did that intentionally because we had criticized the Apple Computer logo and Hydrogen bomb answers, but we were very happy to have finished the progressive trivia tied for first place, coming back from a 2 point deficit.  Robbie ended up awarding prizes to both teams, which consisted of Princess string bags filled with an aluminum water bottle, coaster, wine bottle stopper, and hand sewn fabric coin purses from Panama.  We ended up giving away our water bottles because there was no way we were going to find room in our suitcases for those.  

We had our last lunch in the dining room and then Ben went to the fitness center for a quick workout before packing his workout clothes in the suitcases.  We watched “We Bought a Zoo” on the TV and then had a quick spot of tea for our last afternoon tea of this cruise.  Then we did the last afternoon trivia for the cruise.  We ended up 3 points shy of the lead on that.  The winners actually won ceramic beer steins with a nice metal Princess emblem on them.  That seemed like it could have been a more appropriate prize for the progressive trivia, which was 8 sessions, but those steins would have been hard to pack.  

The Showtime early show was a Lionel Richie tribute show by Derek Floyd, who put on a good show, backed by the Island Princess orchestra.  We then had a late dinner in the dining room- again our last for the cruise.  Janet had the turkey dinner and Ben had the New York Strip Steak.  They had Baked Alaska for dessert, but we got out of there before the parade since on this cruise, we had seen it twice before already.  Our last event was an International Crew Talent show.  They had several singers, one Brazilian martial arts demonstration, and a belly dance by Monique.  

We set out our large suit cases before dinner, and they were gone by the time we got back to our room.  We should meet up with them in the customs terminal tomorrow as we disembark.  

It’s hard to imagine how that 60 days went by so quickly.  When we disembark tomorrow, we will have travelled 16,146 nautical miles, circumnavigating South America, and then passing through the Panama Canal to cross back from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean.  We won 22 trivia games including the 8 session progressive trivia game during the last segment of the cruise.  We went through 2 captains and 2 cruise directors.  We saw more penguins than you can shake a stick at, and gone from tropical to Antarctic and back to tropical weather.  We saw the great human spectacle of the Rio Carnaval Samba parade, the great natural spectacle of Iguazu Falls, and the ancient mysterious spectacle of Machu Picchu.  But most importantly, we had a great adventure together.

Friday, March 23, 2018- Cruise Day 59; At Sea

Friday, March 23, 2018- Cruise Day 59; At Sea

It’s sunny, warm and muggy outside at 8:00AM.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then our 7th installment or second to last progressive trivia quiz.  The results were posted in the early afternoon, but there was a real doozy of a bad answer to a question.  The question was “What gas is produced in a hydrogen bomb explosion?”.  Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of a fusion bomb would know that hydrogen is fused into helium, releasing a huge amount of energy, like in the sun.  Well, the quizmaster’s answer was “Neutrons are released, along with a lot of energy, which makes the atomic blast.  The hydrogen bomb is all about fusion.”  So Neutrons are the gas that is made by the process of fusion????  Ben still hasn’t forgiven them for messing up the Rainbow Apple logo as the MacIntosh logo, and not Apple Computer’s.  We are currently in a 2 way tie for 3rd place, two points off the lead.  We just hate to think another team got into the lead because they came up the wrong answers that the quizmaster happens to have down as his answers.  

Ben hit the fitness center for a bit before lunch and we watched the passenger Drum Circle and Pop Choir performances because some of our Trivia friends particpated in those activities.  They also did the egg drop and scrap heap regatta today, but we chose not to participate because it was an awful lot of work just to win another string bag or wine bottle stopper.  One of our suitcases is half full of trivia prizes, so we don’t need any more prizes.  

The afternoon trivia brought us a clear win.  We scored 24/25 points, at least 2 points higher than any other team, so we won some more Princess string bags, which Janet likes to donate the less fortunate.  We’ll also give some of our trivia loot to our room steward when we leave.  

Tonight was the last formal night, but the menu was uninspiring.  They did have the lobster on the menu, but the lobster they have been serving is impossible to get out of the shells without shredding it into pulled lobster, so we opted to start packing our formal wear and go casual to the buffet instead.  We caught the early Showtime presentation of “Encore”, featuring a guest soprano with the Island Princess band, strings, singers and dancers.  We recognized the guest soprano as one of the female lead singers who had been on the Diamond Princess Singers and Dancers.  So apparently, they get rotated around a bit, and get to be guest features on other ships to change things up.  They did a lot of opera songs, most of which were in Italian and German.  The guest soprano was able to hit some really high notes with a good performance.  Inexplicably, they also had a Neil Diamond song sung in Spanish, and an instrumental medley of James Bond/Peter Gunn/Mission Impossible music, and a vocal solo of “Writing’s on the Wall” from the most recent James Bond movie “Spectre”.  They got a standing ovation, and deserved it.  The production shows have all be top notch on this cruise.  

We returned to our room to do more packing, filling our two larger checked bags, weighing and adjusting them so that they were each under 50#.  We worked up a sweat doing that.  

We returned to the Explorer lounge to watch a second performance of the comedian Troy Thirdgill.  The Explorer lounge is a much smaller and more intimate venue, making the show like a comedy club night.  He was funny and we had a pretty late night since his show finished up after 11:15PM.  

It’s hard to believe tomorrow will be our last day at sea on this cruise, and everybody is a bit saddened by this realization.  We wrap up our progressive trivia tomorrow morning.  We’ll be happy to have finished near the top of the class, despite some really bad questions, because it’s all about having fun and keeping our minds active.

Thursday, March 22, 2018- Cruise Day 58; Aruba

Thursday, March 22, 2018- Cruise Day 58; Aruba

Our alarm went off before sunrise.  It was dark, humid and a warm 78 degrees outside on the balcony.  The ship was within sight of shore, and still heading towards the dock in Aruba.  We had a quick breakfast and had to do an emergency back up of Janet’s iPhone because it had run out of memory to take new pictures.  That finished up just after breakfast, but then Ben’s laptop was complaining that it was running out of hard drive space as well.  To complicate matters, the SD card reader on his laptop wasn’t working reliably, making transferring files off the hard drive cumbersome, but enough space was cleared that he could also back up his iPhone.  Once all of Janet’s old pictures were backed up, she could go through and delete old photos and videos to make space on her phone.  

We had booked a UTV tour, a new one for Princess.  3 years ago, we did a UTV tour that hit all the tourist sites on the north and west end of Aruba including the California light house, chapel and gold smelting ruins.  This tour visits a natural pool in addition to the chapel and gold smelting ruins, so we were looking forward to seeing something a little different.  

When we boarded our bus, there were only 6 of us on board for this new tour in a 40 passenger bus.  That was a refreshing change.  We were dropped off at the UTV rental company, which was a few miles from the cruise ship dock towards Hotel row.  There were two other large Royal Caribbean Cruise ships docked on the waterfront.  We received a brief safety briefing and signed waivers before climbing into our UTV.  We drove follow the leader style through the streets of Orangestad to the windward side of the island, where we gradually encountered narrower and then gravel roads.  

The entrance to the National Park was unmanned when we arrived before 8:30AM.  We then drove through the rough off-road tracks across the park to the location of the Natural Pool, which required a climb down a steep hill to the water from where we parked the UTV’s.  The Natural Pool is actually like a giant tide pool.  It is rimmed by huge volcanic rocks.  It is partially open to the water on one side, but protected from the dramatic and pounding surf and wind by a wall of rocks shaped like a “C”.  As waves crashed into the rocks, water would spray over the top, showering the pool and causing water to cascade over the rocks like a waterfall.  The pool itself is only about 40’ in diameter and about 10 feet deep in the middle.  We had to climb around a rocky ledge to access the pool.  We had dressed in our swim suits, so we went for a dip in the refreshing 82 degree water.  Even though it was just 9:00AM when we arrived at the pool, the air temperature was probably in the mid to upper 80’s and it was quite humid.  We were the first to arrive at the pool and had it pretty much to ourselves for 20-30 minutes.  There were interesting spider crabs climbing around on the rocks.  Then we could see at the top of the hill, a hoard of tourists piling out of safari jeeps, and a long line of ATV’s and UTV’s begin to descend the hill.  That was our cue to get moving.  

Ben had taken his iPhone in it’s LifeProof case into the pool to take pictures, and had stuffed it into his swim trunks while swimming so it wouldn’t get lost.  As we were drying off and getting ready to leave the natural pool area, Ben notices a little water had seeped into the case between the display and case.  He took the phone out of the case and dried it with a towel.  Fortunately, it still seemed to work.  Although the iPhone 6S is not waterproof, it does have some waterproof featured, but not enough to earn a waterproof rating.  The next iPhone, the iPhone 7 was IP-68 water resistant rated.  That was a close call, and probably caused by the case being flexed underwater while Ben was swimming with it in his trunks.

It was something else to see the huge convoys of safari styled 4x4’s carrying 8-12 passengers like troop carriers, and long lines of ATV’s and UTV’s in caravans of 8-12 vehicles, compared to our 4 vehicles.  

We were nimble and made a run through the hard scrabble around the other caravans and made our next stop at the old gold smelter ruins.  After having seen the handywork of the Incas at Machu Picchu, this stone work as absolutely primitive.  It was no wonder it had largely crumbled to the ground.  It is still an impressive ruin to wander around.  On the nearby beach, 3 years ago, the entire beach was covered by rock carrens- stacks of rocks that totally changed the character of the beach, making it look a silly as the bridges around the world that are now covered with padlocks to mimic the one in Paris.  This time, it appeared that weather, or other forces had leveled most of the carrens, leaving a more natural looking beach.  

We drove west along the rugged waterfront. Waves crash against the rocky shoreline making for a spectacular scene.  The windward side of Aruba is desert, with cactus and sage brush.  There is quite a contrast between the sea and desert.  We came to the chapel, which was over run with tourists when we arrived.  There must have been 6 tour buses, but they soon loaded up and we were able to tour the chapel after the throng had moved on.  

From there, we headed back to the protected and sunny leeward side of the Island and Eagle beach, which has sparkling blue water and beautiful white sand beaches.  The hotel resorts are situated in a row on this side of the island.  It is very developed, looking a bit like Waikiki, but perhaps just a little less crowded. 

We dropped off our UTV’s and hopped the bus back to the ship, which got us back to our rooms just in time for lunch, after showers to get the saltwater off.  

We attended the 4:00PM afternoon trivia.  Princess is introducing Discovery at Sea branded trivia quizzes that are linked to Discovery Channel TV shows.  This one was called the Discovery At Sea Ship Shape Challenge, and appears to have been inspired by the “How it’s Made” TV series.  It had lots of questions specific to the Princess fleet of ships, and was quite challenging, even though all the answers were multiple choice.  We ended up scoring 15 points and came in our usual second place behind the winning teams (2) that had 16 points. The prize was water bottles, which we don’t care for because they take up a lot of room in our luggage, aren’t insulated, and dent easily.  

We watched the early Showtime performance of Troy Thirdgill, who is a new comedian who came on the ship today.  He was actually very funny, and had a lot of new material that had nothing to do with the worn jokes that all the other cruise ship circuit comedians keep recycling.  He was by far the most entertaining of the comedian’s we have seen on this 60 day cruise.  

We participated in a “Finish the Lyrics” trivia game at 7:30PM.  It was suprizingly hard to pick out the missing lyrics because most boiled down to just a word or two that could have rhymed out several different ways, and nobody pays that close attention to lyrics embedded in the songs beside the chorus or refrains.  We scored 25, but the winning teams had a 2 way tie with 30 points each. They had to answer a tie breaker of what year did Lionel Richie and Diana Ross release “Endless Love” in.  FYI, it was 1981.  One team got it spot on.  

We then picked up some glasses of wine from our stateroom while Ben changed into long pants and shoes for a late dinner.  We opened the Argentinian Malbec that we got in Buenos Aires at the Tango Show, and it was quite tasty.  The main course was filet mignon brochetets which were very tender and tasty.  They had a delicious citrus sorbet intermezzo that was so good that Janet ordered it for dessert as well.  

After dinner, we headed up to the Lido deck where the ship was hosting a Love Boat party, featuring the ship’s bands, singers and dancers.  It was actually fun to watch the people we have met and come to know on this cruise busting out disco moves on the dance floor with the dancers and cruise director’s staff.  One of the onboard activities has been a flash mob dance class, and the mob did break out into dance at the party.  It was a bit muggy, but breezy on the open deck, while the wind and ship’s wake did create a fine mist of salt water.  

It’s hard to believe our 60 day cruise is nearly at it’s end.  We received disembarkation instructions and luggage tags tonight.  This was our last port of call, and everyone is a little sad about that.  We just have two sea days as we beeline to Fort Lauderdale.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018- Cruise Day 57; At Sea

Wednesday, March 21, 2018- Cruise Day 57; At Sea

The Atlantic ocean is certainly not as placid as the Pacific was.  We awoke to find 4’ swells and 25mph winds whipping up the sea outside, despite bright sunshine and scattered clouds.  We had our usual breakfast in the dining room and then the next installment of progressive trivia.  The answers were posted by early afternoon, and we are now in a 3 way tie for second place at 51 points behind the leaders Motley Crew, who have 53 points.  Unless Motley Crew has an exceptionally bad last day, they look to be the winners, and we’ll have plenty of company in second place. Ben was upset that one answer was obviously wrong.  They displayed the rainbow apple logo of Apple Computer, but said the answer was MacIntosh, not Apple Computer, even though the rainbow apple logo came out 7 years before the MacIntosh was even introduced.  It first appeared on the Apple II computer.

We hit another Effy presentation and two consecutive drawings with no winnings.  But with all the presentations, we are learning more about gems and jewelry.  

The afternoon trivia was moved to the Wheelhouse lounge, which is way too small for the trivia crowd.  There were many teams standing around the perimeter of the room.  We ended up scoring only 9/20, but the winners only managed 11/20, so we didn’t feel too bad about our performance.  

We then attended a passenger talent show because several people we knew were performing.  We were mostly interested in seeing Ted from Edmonton, Canada play his bag pipes.  He had brought them to commemorate the last battle of the Falklands war, which took place at Tumbledown Mountain.  When we were in the Falklands, he took a cab to Tumbledown Mountain and played the Scottish regimental tune dedicated to the victory at Tumbledown Mountain.  It was one of the best acts.  There were several bad vocalists- like an extra karaoke night, but one passenger played a very good harmonica.  One woman recited a poem dedicated to her new second husband, which was a bit melodramatic but humorous.  

After a quick dinner in the dining room, we saw the early Showtime second performance of Michael Minor, the vocalist and ventriloquist.  We were mostly interested in seeing it because Roger, aka Santa, knew he was going to be picked to be the live dummy for the ventriloquism song “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.  He performed very convincingly, and the audience really got a kick out of seeing Santa on stage.  

We caught a little bit of a Whitney Houston tribute by the club band, which was actually a good performance.  Then we did the evening Movie Themes Trivia.  We managed to guess all but two movies, but didn’t end up with any bonus points for acting out scenes from some of the movies as we brought our answer sheets up for grading.  We didn’t win, but felt pretty solid about our overall performance on the Movie Themes.

Tomorrow is our last port of call.  We have a UTV and natural pool swim excursion booked for our Aruba port of call.  We have to leave the ship by 7:00AM, so we’ll have to set our alarm clocks. 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018- Cruise Day 56; Cartagena

Tuesday, March 20, 2018- Cruise Day 56; Cartagena

We awoke to find the ship entering Cartagena harbor, following a very long series of green and red buoys.  It was surprising to us to see how modern Cartegena appears as you approach it from the sea.  Parts look like industrial New Jersey, but other parts look like Miami with glistening highrises.  Yet other parts look like Europe with cathedral towers and red tile roofs.  We had breakfast as the ship executed a Y turn into it’s slip.  We tied up with the stern to the head of the dock, and bow out towards the harbor.  We could see the Holland America ship Westerdam coming into the harbor a short distance behind us.  They had transited through the Panama Canal in the same lane as us, but 3 slots behind.  We could see them in the distance from the stern of the ship.  

We boarded our tour bus on the pier and proceeded to drive into the center of Cartagena.  There is lots of traffic, although it appears much better organized and uniform than in Chile and especially better than the craziness in Peru.  Our first stop was the San Felipe De Barajas Castle, which was never a castle, but one of the most advanced and important Spanish built military fortifications in the world.  It is quite an impressive sight, covering a small mountaintop overlooking the walled city of Cartagena.  When we visited in January 2015, our excursion dropped us off for pictures at the base of the fortress, but we only had 5 minutes to take pictures and run the gamut of vendors before reboarding our bus.  This time, our excursion did include a walking tour of the fortress.  It was in the mid to upper 80’s with high humidity and blazing sunshine, so scaling the ramps leading up to the fortress was a bit of work.  But we took it one level at a time, and nobody in this particular group had physical disabilities that slowed the group disproportionately.  This fortress had all the must-have features of fortifications of the late 1500’s, with multiple layers of defenses and plenty of places to ambush and kill attackers.  There was also a series of tunnels throughout the fortress.  We climbed to the top of the fortress and walked through a few hundred feet of the tunnels.  The Spanish were pretty short compared with British invaders, so the low clearance in the tunnels would have been an impediment for taller races to attack.  They eventually dug some of the tunnels deeper so that tourists wouldn’t all exit with aching backs.  The views from the top of the fortress are very impressive.  Apparently, some of the scenes in the old movie  “Romancing The Stone” were filmed around the fortress.  We could have easily spent another hour there, but our guide rushed us out and onto the walled city for a walking city tour of the markets, cathedrals and a monastery.  There was a small museum of the Spanish Inquisition, but it had only a tiny collection of replica torture devices.  All the original torture devices were destroyed by the local population after the fall of the Spaniards.  Imagine that.  

We were also dropped off at Las Bovidas, which were originally dungeons and military store rooms, and now house a large crafts and emerald jewelry market place.  It seems our tour guides had some favorite vendors that they wanted us to patronize because they would take us into those particular stores and let the staff there give a sales pitch, and then say the group would meet back in that location in 15-30 minutes.  Frankly, we wished we could have spent more time in the fortress, rather than in those stores, but at least some of the stores were air conditioned.  The tour wound up in the Naval museum, which had dioramas depicting various naval battles around Cartagena and had some exhibits about Privateers and Pirates, including the famous Sir Francis Drake, who blew off the top of the fortress in one attack.  However, neither the French, nor the British were ever able to take Cartegena, largely due to the heavy toll the mosquito borne illnesses took on foreign soldiers.  

The tour ended with a sort dance program.  It looked like a local dance troupe of African dancers.  It didn’t even vaguely resemble what we would have thought to be Columbian folk dances.  The show we had seen in 2015 was much more professional and informative, but this show was fortunately very short and we got to drink some ice cold 250mL Pepsi bottles (Smallest Pepsi bottles we have ever seen). Then it was back on the bus to return to the ship.  

We dropped off our backpacks, hats and sunglasses in our room and relished in the air conditioned marvelous environs within the ship.  We had lunch, and then wandered back off the ship to visit the tourist visitor center at the head of the cruise pier.  They had a surprisingly well stocked and interesting little zoo there, complete with more peacocks than you can shake your fist at.  There were also pink flamingos, Kapuchin monkeys, anteaters, parrots, Maccaws and a tiny Columbian deer.  And the best part was it was all free.  You could get very close to the animals- sometimes too close.  Apparently, someone had bought some fruit at a market and set it on the ground next to their chair.  Some monkeys snatched the bag and started picking the fruit out of the bag.  When the man tried to grab his bag back from the monkeys, one ran up and bit him on the arm.  So cute, and yet so nasty- those monkeys.  

We returned to the ship and took cooling showers and then had a nice dinner in the dining room.  The Showtime presentation was a second performance by the Cuban singer, who spent most of her time on stage during her first show talking about Cuba, so we opted to skip her show.  There was a new sort of gameshow in the Explorer’s lounge called “Shylock Hole’s Musical Mystery”.  The cruise staff put together a radio play with several characters, and as the plot developed, blanks in the script had to be filled with words that came from the titles of songs that they played clips for.  So you had to guess the songs not only on the sound, but also with the hint given by the context of the script at that point.  For example, the script read “they bent over and picked up the remnants of…” and then played a short clip of the Benny Goodman band playing “Little Brown Jug”.  A lot of the clues came from ancient songs from the 40’s.  But the whole thing was new to us, and as entertaining as it was challenging.  We didn’t win by a long shot. We scored 16/25, while the winning team managed a perfect 25/25, which was very impressive.  

We move our clocks forward an hour at bedtime tonight.  We have another installment of our Progressive Trivia tomorrow morning, so we’d better set an alarm clock so we don’t oversleep.

Monday, March 19, 2018- Cruise Day 55; Panama Canal Transit

Monday, March 19, 2018- Cruise Day 55; Panama Canal Transit

We set an alarm for 6:15AM because we were supposed to arrive at the Bridge of the Americas outside Panama City at 6:20AM.  It was still before dawn, and a building in the downtown of Panama City was lit up light an enormous jumbotron.  The sun was rising as we cruised past the Museum of Biodiversity, designed by Frank Ghery.  We crossed under the Bridge of the Americas right on time.  There were 20-30 people on the bow of the ship on deck 10, but it wasn’t crowded, or difficult to get a good picture.  

We had breakfast in the buffet as the ship approached the Miraflores locks.  It was easy to see our progress since this ship’s buffet is situated on Deck 14 at the front of the ship.  We could see the entry to the new 3rd lane of the Panama Canal to the left of the Miraflores locks.  The new locks are 70 feet wider and 400ft longer than the original Panamax 110 ft x 1000 ft. A huge freighter was making its way into the new locks as we approached the Miraflores locks.  The new locks raise the ships the full 85’ to the level of Lake Gatun, bypassing the Miraflores locks, Miraflores lake and the Pedro Miguel Locks.  The new locks have sliding gates and water saving intermediate reservoirs, so they are state of the art.  

The Island Princess is a Panamax vessel, designed specifically for the old Panama Canal locks, so we used the classic route.  Aside from replacing some 85 year old electric motors powering the lock doors with new hydraulic pumps and cylinders, the working mechanism for the Panama Canal locks has not changed since they were built in 1914.  It’s a tribute to the engineering and worksmanship of the day that everything still works and has been working 24/7/365 for over 100 years.  I doubt the new 3rd lane will be able to boast that same service record.  

Our ship entered the western lane, so our balcony looked directly at the median between the two lane, where lots of activity occurs.  We also were able to see all the action occurring around the container ship in the east lane.  Ben set up his iPhone to do a time lapse animation of our passage through the locks.  We had a great vantage point from our balcony, which was eye level with some of the control towers.  It was sunny and 86 degrees outside so it was nice to be able to duck in and out of our air conditioned cabin.  It was certainly more comfortable than our prior passage on a small passenger ferry as an excursion on our last partial Panama Canal transit on the Coral Princess in January 2015.  We would recommend anyone who is interested in seeing the Panama Canal to book a cruise with a fulll transit.  It did take all day to make it from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, but we did it all in comfort and style.

After breakfast, we watched our transit through the Miraflores locks at  7:00AM both from our balcony, and then from the bow a short walk up the hallway from our cabin on deck 10.    We then went through the Pedro Miguel locks at 8:40AM.  We passed under the Centennial Bridge and the Culebra cut at 9:40AM.  We then could take a bit of a nap, and then have lunch as the ship worked its way through the passage between the Culebra cut and Lake Gatun.  We arrived at the Gatun locks at 1:00PM, and finished our transit down to sea level and into the Atlantic Ocean by 3:00PM.  

We had an afternoon trivia game where we scored 15/20.  The winning teams tied 3 ways with 17/20 and answered a tie breaker of how many islands, shoals and reefs make up the Hawaiian archipelago?  The answer was 132. 

We had an early dinner, featuring their Surf and Turf, which is probably the best menu item we had on this itinerary.  The shrimp were larger than the lobster tails they served when the did offer lobster, and the meat came out of the shells easily.  The petite filet mignon was also perfectly prepared and very tender.  

We attended the early showtime performance of Michael Minor, who was booked as a one man variety show, but who turned out to be a pretty decent club singer, who happened to learn ventriloquism and sang half his acts through his puppets.  To be honest, he could have done the show better without the distraction of the puppets and ventriloquism.  

There was an evening TV Themes trivia.  We teamed up with Roger, Erica and her Mom.  We ended up 16/20, but one team managed a perfect 20/20.  That was hard to believe because most of the people on that team weren’t even old enough to have seen half the shows that were featured. Someone must own the K-Tel album of TV Themes that the trivia quiz writers are using.  

Tomorrow, we arrive in Cartagena.  We had visited both Cartagena and Aruba in January 2015 on our first Panama Canal cruise, but we booked slightly different excursions, so we’ll hopefully see some new things.  

Sunday, March 18, 2018- Cruise Day 54; At Sea

Sunday, March 18, 2018- Cruise Day 54; At Sea

We turned our clocks back an hour last night.  The weather and seas are beautiful.  We have birds that seem to enjoy riding the air currents created by the bow of the ship.  They actually rise up on the air currents parallel to the balconies, and work their way up to the bridge.  Then they peel of to the side, sometimes diving into the water for a bite to eat, but more often they skim the surface of the water just ahead of our wakes, and then work their way back up the air currents again.  Yesterday the birds were predominantly white with black on the tips of the wings and tails, and a bright yellow beak.  Today, the birds look very similar, but are brown all over, except for the bright yellow beaks.  

We had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room and then attended the 5th installment of the Progressive Trivia with Santa’s Helpers.  We didn’t know how many strings a harp has, or how many countries Queen Elizabeth II is head of state for, and we couldn’t come up with rhythmic gymnastics as the second Olympic sport besides syncronized swimming that is women only.  We scored 9/12.  Our Nemesis, the Motley Crew scored 10/12, so they are back to 1 point ahead of us.  There is also one team that is nipping at our heels just 2 points behind us.  

Entered another Effy drawing, but didn’t win.  Then another store on the ship was having a drawing for attending a talk on Larimar jewelery, so we entered that as well, but didn’t end up winning there either.  We thought our odds were pretty solid because there was fewer than 10 people at that talk, but we still failed.  Darn probabilities.

After lunch and a trip to the fitness center, we did the afternoon trivia, but another team sniped our usual seats, so we had to improvise seats in front of the lounge.  We scored 21/26.  The winners managed to score 23/26.  

We had dinner in the dining room and then attended the Showtime Vocalist Noybel Gorgoy, who is from Cuba, but who now lives in Las Vegas.  She did a show with Santana and Miami Sound Machine songs, which were OK but she ended up talking a lot about growing up in Cuba, and how important music is to Cuban culture.  Her best songs were sung in Spanish, and she did end up speaking a lot of Spanish, even though there were probably fewer than 12 people in the audience who volunteered that they spoke Spanish.  

The were having a Panama Festival of the World party in the Explorer’s lounge, but that turned out to be just a band playing more Miami Sound Machine and Santana music.  

We hit the ice cream counter on the way back to our room to retire early.  We arrive at the Panama Canal tomorrow morning, passing under the Bridge of Americas at 6:20AM, so we’ll have to set an alarm to get up in time to watch it from our balcony.

Saturday, March 17, 2018- Cruise Day 53; Puntarenas, Costa Rica. St. Paddy’s Day

Saturday, March 17, 2018- Cruise Day 53; Puntarenas, Costa Rica. St. Paddy’s Day

We awoke to see the coastline of Costa Rica gliding past our balcony.  There were boils of baitfish erupting around the ship as it approached the harbor.  It was 82 degrees and sunny at 7:30AM.  

We had breakfast in the dining room and watched as we tied up next to the Holland America Cruise ship Masendam, which appeared to be about the same size or slighltly larger than the Island Princess.  After finishing breakfast, we returned to our cabin. There were suites midship across from our balcony that had an outdoor private hot tub and outdoor furniture including sofas and a dining set.  That must be an expensive suite.  We got ready for our rafting trip.  We sat in the Princess theatre until nearly an hour after our originally scheduled departure time.  Once we got on the bus, the guide apologized and said they had been sitting on the pier since 7:30AM, so it is hard to figure out why it took so long for us to get going.  Once we did get going, we drove along the coastline for a bit and saw some mangrove forests just outside the town.  We drove through the countryside 90 minutes to get to the Corobichi river.  There were many plantations along the way including a large but experimental pineapple plantation, skinny pencil like Teak trees, and banana plantations.  Traffic was pretty heavy on the 2 lane road, particularly about half way to the river where some construction was taking place.

The river rafting concessionaire operates a restaurant in addition to the river rafting operation.  They had a nice dining room with bathrooms.  After signing waiver forms, we boarded rafts with 6 per raft x 4 rafts and 8 per raft in 2 rafts.  There was very limited instruction and practice before we shoved off into what was the biggest bit of whitewater of the whole trip just in front of the restaurant.  There was a photographer taking pictures that they sold for $20 after the trip.  We got a bit wet in that first bit of whitewater, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant because the air temperature was probably close to 90 degrees and the water felt like it was at least 75 degrees.  Mostly, we got splashed across our laps, wetting our swim suits and aquashoes.  

We went through several riffles and around 3-4 mild rapids.  We did have to do some paddling, but didn’t have to work too hard.  We did get to see several trees with howler monkeys including some very vocal monkeys in the first tree we encountered.  There was apparently an alpha male in that tree.  We could also see some baby monkeys with their mothers in the trees.  We also saw quite a few iguanas on the banks of the river and even saw a couple of basilisks, or Jesus Christ lizards, for their ability to run across the water.  We actually saw one running across the water from it’s perch on a stump to the beach.  We also saw a tree full of white faced Kapuchin Monkeys, which were quite a bit smaller than the Howler monkeys.  

At one point, we nestled the raft against an undercut in the bank and our guide pointed out a colony of long nosed bats that looked like giant spiders against the rock face.  We wouldn’t have even noticed them until he pointed them out just 2-3ft in front of us.  

There was some playful splashing of oars between the boats of the tour, which did help to cool us off, but Janet was a bit concerned because of her hearing aids.  We came out of the river after 90 minutes and the bus took us back to the restaurant, where we got changed, and had a decent lunch of rice, beans, plantain, fish or chicken and mixed vegetables, which was supposedly a typical field worker’s lunch, or main meal of the day.  We also had lemonade and some ice cream.  

We mostly slept on the bus ride back to the ship.  After dropping off our wet clothes and putting on dry shoes and socks, we walked out on the dock and rode a mini train shuttle to the head of the dock, where we took some pictures of the sunset and met fellow passengers who reported that everything in the small marketplace was closed up, and even the locals were leaving the beach as darkness was approaching.  

We headed back to our ship, just as the huge Holland America cruise ship tied up next to us cast off its lines and thrustered off the dock with several loud and long horn blasts.  

We had dinner in the dining room and met a nice couple from Illinois who were also started the cruise in Fort Lauderdale.  We have met a lot of interesting and pleasant people on this cruise during our dinners.  We sit at a two top, but two tops are usually set up in 2’s or 3’s in a row, so it is possible and easy to strike up a conversation between the tables.  We find this much preferable to sitting at the large 8 and 10 top tables where people carry out conversations across the table, which is loud and hard to follow.  

We went to the library and round the 4th Progressive Trivia scores posted, and while we did as poorly as we thought, scoring 6/11, our nemesis The Motley Crew scored just 5/11, so we are now tied with them for first place.  There are also a few teams that are still nipping at our heels, just 2 points behind.  

We attended the evening music trivia which was “Best of Britiain”.  We did only so-so, missing most of the newest contemporary music by the Brits, scoring 16/22.  The winners tied with 19/22 and had to answer a tie breaker of what chart position did “Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones, peak at in New Zealand?  It peaked at #11.  

We stayed in the Explorer’s Lounge for “Pub Night” which was a fun song and dance program put on by the Island Princess, band, singers and dancer, and the cruise director staff.  There were some silly sing-along songs, and some tavern games involved.  Santa had to do a shuttle race transferring cotton balls with his vaseline coated nose, and won a Princess string bag and aluminum water bottle.  

Kathy and John had waited for the Effy Store to open as soon as our ship shoved off from the dock and won door prizes of red stoned pendants.  They were kind enough to give one to Janet, so we scored more booty in our treasure drawer.  

We then rushed to the Princess Theatre to watch the juggling and comedy act by Jeff Taveggia.  We sat at the back of the theatre, which was not very full, and watched a decent but not particularly inspired show of juggling and slightly worn jokes.  We were sorry to hear that we had missed a really good production show yesterday called On the Bayou.  I guess we were focused on the Escape Room, and forgot entirely to check the show schedule.  Oh, well.  We’ll probably catch that show on one of our future Princess cruises on another ship.  

We have another at sea day tomorrow as the ship turns around and heads for the Panama Canal.  That means another installment of Progressive Trivia awaits us in the morning.  We do have to set our clocks forward an hour tonight, so less sleep.

Friday, March 16, 2018- Cruise Day 52; At Sea

Friday, March 16, 2018- Cruise Day 52; At Sea

We had to set our clocks back an hour at bedtime, so we got an extra hour of sleep.  We had breakfast in the dining room and then joined Santa’s Helpers for progressive trivia #4.  We missed two questions that we should have answered correctly but choked under time pressure.  We think we ended up doing pretty poorly, only getting 5/10 correct, although the final score will depend on what the correct posted answers will turn out to be.  The answers and scores were not posted as of 10:00PM.  We crossed the Equator again, but we chose not to participate in the pool deck ceremonies since it was hot and humid, and we had been through it all before heading south. Robbie, who is running the progressive trivia was heavily involved in Neptune ceremony, so the progressive answers will probably be posted tomorrow since he was so busy today.

We had lunch and watched “You Have Mail” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks on TV, as well as Genius, a biographical movie on Thomas Wolfe, the writer.  Afternoon trivia had a few tough questions including what creature swallowed alive is responsible for 6 deaths every year in South Korea?  Octopus.  And who wrote the lyrics for Elton John?  Bernie Taupin.  DId you also know that Subway has the most stores of any fast food company in the world?  We ended up with 15/20, while there was a 4 way tie for first with 17/20.  The tie breaker was how many stories are in Trump Tower.  FYI, 58.  They won wine bottle stoppers.

This was another formal night, but there was nothing special on the menu. Since this is the 3rd leg of the cruise, the menus have been rotating, and we have had a chance to try everything on the menu.  We opted instead to stay casual and ate in the buffet, which was having a Mexican night with tacos, enchiladas, pork en Mole, and lots of guacamole.  

Unique for tonight was an Escape Room activity for a group of 8.  Most of our Trivia team- Santa’s Helpers- were in but Bob was not available, so Roger’s wife Judy joined us, as well as dinner table mates of Kathy and John, Heather and Matt.  The activity started with a ghost story about a body in the ship’s morgue that was clutching a vase. The vase was placed in a display case, but all sorts of paranormal things happened in association with whenever the vase disappeared.  The narrative was full of room numbers, deck numbers, suit case combinations, numbers on people’s uniforms and references to the occult.  We were then lead into the ship’s chapel where we were locked in and told to watch a video tape.  This hinted that the ship’s magician had disappeared along with the vase, and we had to find the vase to solve the mystery.  In a corner of the chapel was a stack of trunks with an assortment of locks.  Some were combination, while others required keys.  One trunk was unlocked, so that’s were we had to start our search for clues.  Without going into too much detail, there were a lot of red herrings that lead to a lot of wasted time, but with some clues from the puzzle master, we were eventually able to solve the mystery, unlocking trunks to find more clues and red herrings, and eventually unlocking the case containing the vase.  We solved the puzzle with just 2 minutes and 45 seconds to spare out of the 30 minutes allowed.  We learned that 80% of the teams had failed to solve the mystery in the 30 minutes, but one team did manage to solve it in just 18 minutes.  We were just happy to not have failed.  

Tomorrow we arrive in Costa Rica at Puntarenas.  We have a river rafting trip booked.  It’s sad to think this is our second to last port of call, and that our 60 day cruise is rapidly heading towards closure.  Tomorrow is also St. Patricks’ Day.  We were thinking there would be a St. Paddy’s Day trivia, but we will be off on our excursion for that.  

Thursday, March 15, 2018- Cruise Day 51; Manta Day 2

Thursday, March 15, 2018- Cruise Day 51; Manta Day 2

We woke to find a large hydraulic dredge ship next to us.  It took a while to figure out what it was because it was covered by huge pipes and cranes.  The air pollution did improve by morning.  We had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room and then headed off the ship to do a little walking around Manta.  The free ship’s shuttle did take us to the head of the port security terminal, which was where the jetty intersected with the beach.  It was 85 degrees, sunny and very humid.  

We walked to the Manta Museum of Cultural arts, which had free admission, and contained a number of pre-columbian artifacts.  For some reason, they had an extensive collection of incense burner figurines, all of whom were proudly displaying their genitalia.  The upper floors had some exhibits on the anthropology of the various tribes that inhabited the west coast of South America over the years, and modern art.  While the museum had interesting things in it, there were no English explanation plaques, and the building lacked air conditioning, so it was very hot and humid.  We had sweat dripping down our faces.  

Just a little further down the block was the Mall De Pacifico, which was a modern air conditioned multilevel shopping mall.  It could have been grafted right of an American suburb except for the lack of any escalators.  There was free Wifi, which allowed us to upload our photostreams, and a large food court.  KFC is popular brand in Ecuador, but not only do they do chicken, but they also had a free-standing KFC ice cream and desserts kiosk like a miniature Baskin and Robbins.  This gave us a chance to cool off and dry off after sweating profusely in the museum.  During the entire trip, Ben has had his eye out for an Apple Store to buy a watchband for his Apple watch that doesn’t have the magnetic clasp that his Milanese loop band has because it has demagnetized his room card more than 20 times during this cruise.  It took a while to figure that mystery out.  This mall actually had a Mac authorized store selling Apple computers and accessories, but they carried only one Apple watch band, which was a bright orange and red nylon band.  That might have worked ok with a teenage girl’s rose pink Apple watch, but it wasn’t going to work on a man’s wrist.  

While the mall had modern toilets, you had to buy toilet paper from a vending machine if you needed to do #2, which seemed very odd for a Mall that was otherwise state of the art.  We headed back to the comfort of the ship’s air conditioning and toilets with free toilet paper, ending our adventures in Manta.  We learned at the mall that a friend, who lives in Florida had managed to arrange a fishing charter that left at 5:30AM.  It was just $100 per person, so we are anxious to talk with them to see how that went.

We had lunch, naps, and then attended the afternoon trivia, which was a Discovery Channel branded Myth Busters trivia.  We pretty much bombed it with a score of 8/20.  The winners tied with 14/20, and they tied on the one tie breaker question as well, so they had to guess Wally’s age and month of birth.  We knew from an earlier tie breaker that Wally’s birthday was August 17, but didn’t know his exact age.  It turns out he is 31 years old.  His Peruvian genes make him look quite a bit younger than that.  

We had a relaxed dinner in the dining room.  We opted not to see the second performance of Mark Preston, opting instead to just relax and watch some TV. Before long, it was time for the evening trivia called I’ll Take Trivia for 100, which was their spin on Jeopardy.  Each team answered all the questions on the board, and then at the Final round, had to wager an amount on the final category, which was not revealed until after the bet was placed.  In the end, we answered the final question correctly, but didn’t bet big enough to win the game because we had only bet $500 out of our total $8900.  The winning team had bet all $8500 of their $8500 to win.  But we didn’t feel bad because our raw score had beat theirs.  

Tomorrow is another at Sea Day, and another Formal night.  We have another progressive trivia in the morning and an Escape Room activity booked for tomorrow night.