It’s hard to believe that this is our first US port in 127 days.  We’ve used WIFI almost exclusively on this trip but now, for one day, we turned on everything to Verizon and updated the apps on all of our devices.  We’ll have to go back to WIFI once we leave San Francisco for the last…

Today we arrived in the resort city of Cabo San Lucas located at the tip of Baja California on the Sea of Cortés.  It’s one of Mexico’s top five tourist spots.  The coastlines are filled with hotels and timeshare condos.  It’s a great place for boating, diving, deep sea fishing, parasailing, and just laying around on the beach…

Today was a late arrival so we didn’t arrive in Huatulco until 2:00pm.  However we’re not leaving until 10:30pm.   Huatulco is a small tourist town but very beautiful.  We were able to walk into town from the ship in just a couple of minutes.  It was crowded today as a fishing contest had just started with a cash…

As with Corinto, we arrived around 7:00 am.  We had been here in 2017 and visited the Mayan city of Tikal.   As with most port towns there’s usually not a lot to do or see.  So we took an excursion to the city of Antigua. Antigua is an old city in the central highlands of Guatemala.  It sits between…

We arrived in Corinto around 7:00 am and were greeted by a band and some of the local children who performed several dances for us.  Very entertaining.  The band stayed around most of the day. We had visited Corinto in 2017 and decided to make it an easy day.  So today’s excursion was a visit to the Flor…

Here we are again in the Panama Canal.  We went into the canal around 7:00 am and we’ll leave on the Pacific side around 5:00pm.  Weather today is hot, muggy, and a chance of thunderstorms. Nothing more to say than what we’ve blogged about before.  One item we haven’t mentioned are the white panels along the canal, usually…

In Cartagena we decided not to take an excursion and just walk around the city with our friends Allen & Martha. Cartagena was founded on June 1, 1533 by the Spanish commander,  Pedro de Heredia.  It became the main port for trade between Spain and its overseas empire, and was a key port for the export of…

We arrived back in Fort Lauderdale around 5:30 am.  Since 28 passengers from the Grand World Voyage were staying on board we had to wait until 10:30 am before clearing Customs/Immigration and getting back onto the ship.  Most of the other World cruise passengers had already been cleared and were on their way home. Once the ship…

As Ron said in our Bantry blog post, “the end is near”.  There is a different feeling on board that is a mixture of relief, nostalgia, homesickness, and anxiety about getting everything done in these few days.  The trip home is the time for the Mariner Lunch and Mariner cocktail reception.  Everyone has medallions based on the number…

The end has come.  This is our last port then we’re on our way back to Ft. Lauderdale! (But not the end of our cruise.  We’re on to Seattle after this.) Today’s excursion is all about the countryside and is entitled “The Beautiful Beara Penninsula”.  Beara Peninsulais a peninsula on the south-west coast of Ireland bounded between the…