Month: January 2019

January 31, 2019 Paul Groves

After completing the transit of the Panama Canal on Day 6, we anchored last night in Panama Bay at Fuerte Amador. Today we went on an excursion entitled “Monkey Watch & Lake Gatun Cruise”.  We took a tender from the ship to the bus which drove us to a small marina just off of the…

January 27, 2019 Paul Groves

It takes about 12 hours to transit the Panama Canal that involves moving through three sets of locks and a trip across Gatun Lake.  We were in place for the first set of locks at 6:30 a.m., but the real motivation to get out of bed were the “Panama rolls” served on deck. We arrived…

January 27, 2019 Paul Groves

Today we visited one of the San Blas Islands.  The are over 300 of them of which only 49 are populated.  The islands are inhabited by the Guna people.  These are not wealthy people.  One source of their income is from the sale of their needlework called “Mola” to visiting Cruise ships. The traditional costume…

January 26, 2019 Paul Groves

Today we spent over four hours touring the city of Santa Marta and some of its most important sites with our guide Jorge.  The city is a mixture of colonial (from when the city was under Spanish rule) and republican styles of architecture.  It was the first Spanish settlement in Colombia and it’s oldest surviving…

January 26, 2019 Paul Groves

The next couple of days will involve getting into the groove of activities on sea days.  Paul and I usually have breakfast together then head off to enjoy different events.  We also include some walking exercise during the day (3.5 laps of the ship = 1 mile) Today’s walk was challenging due to high winds…

January 23, 2019 Paul Groves

After a restful night at the Renaissance, it was off to the Ship.  Nothing has improved in the last two years so we still stood in line for an hour checking in.  Once onboard we headed to the Lido deck for a quick bite (after all it had only been 4 hours since we’d last…

January 11, 2019 Paul Groves

We are leaving at the end of January for our 113-day cruise on Holland America Line’s ship, the Amsterdam. This is the same ship we sailed on in 2017 but the staterooms and other areas on the ship have been remodeled and updated. We are anxious to see the changes. Our luggage is being picked…