Day 11 Irie, You’re in Jamaica, mon!

After a sea-day to recuperate from the previous 3 port days, during which the most strenuous activity was Monica and Barb participating in the Princess Cruises ‘On Deck for the Cure’ 5K breast cancer walk (that’s 9 times around the Promenade Deck, if anyone’s interested), we’re ready for our stop in Ocho Rios.


The last time we were in Ocho Rios was almost 20 years ago, Norm counted back to 31 years and Barb has never been here before. So, needless to say, it was like a brand new stop for all of us given the extent of changes that have been made over the years due to the increasing number of cruise ships.

Our tour visited three attractions: Shaw Park Gardens, a beach resort and Dunn’s River Falls. Although we had different guides at each attraction and they did, as almost all guides do, ask for tips at the end of the tours, they were not quite as ‘in your face’ as we had expected given our previous experiences. There are always people selling things, especially at Dunn’s River Falls, but even they were not too annoyingly intrusive.

Shaw Park Gardens had originally been built as a high-class hotel in the 1950s, but because of the layout - the property is a bit hilly and the trek between the hotel building and its pool was quite steep - it didn’t take. It is really too bad, as the pool is fed by a bubbling stream at the bottom of a waterfall and drains into another small fall as the stream continues below. It is also surrounded by beautiful plants and some very, very old trees; one of the Banyan trees has been standing for over 100 years.

After about an hour touring through the Gardens, we headed for the beach.  The resort we went to is the Shaw Park Beach Resort and Spa, about a ten minute drive from the Gardens and in a relatively secluded cove outside of town. We had two hours to laze on the beach, take a swim and grab a bite for lunch.

We spent about a half-hour in the water at the beach



...and we can't forget Norm's 'beer tour' - he liked this one the best!


After that, we headed for the highlight of the tour, Dunn’s River Falls. Norm and Barb had decided early on that they were going to climb the falls. Norm had done this about 30 years ago and wanted to do it again. We ended up being ‘the paparazzi’, taking photos not only for ourselves and Norm and Barb, but also for one of the other ladies on the tour who had no-one to take photos for her. It took them about 45 minutes to climb from the beach to the top - here are some photos to show their accomplishment.

We got back to the ship about 15 minutes before ‘all passengers aboard’ and finished the afternoon with some relaxing around the pool.

Sunday’s add-on: Since today is the last sea day and ‘packing day’, we haven’t got much planned. We did, however, manage another 5K walk around the Promenade Deck, and wondered if we were actually on two ships instead of one. One side of the ship was wet and cool, and the other was dry and a little warm, even though there was a steady breeze all around. Is this Mother Nature getting us ready for the frigid cold back home??? We’ll be flying back to Buffalo tomorrow and driving home on Tuesday morning.

Thanks for traveling along with us on this cruise; we hope you’ve enjoyed the reports and the photos. Next up is in June to the Baltic and Norwegian Fjords. See you then!

Day 9: Introduction to Eco-touring

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica - not much of a town but then many of the places on the Caribbean side of this small country aren’t geared to resort-style tourism. For that, you need to go to the Pacific side. Because of the dense rain forest here, this is the place for the active eco-tourist - zip-lining, deep sea fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving, kayaking and rafting are the big activities on the east coast.


And today was the day that Norm and Barb have been looking forward to (with a hint of trepidation, perhaps). We had pre-booked the Grade 2 White Water Rafting tour with some understanding from our side of what Grade 2 meant - rapids, a few rocks here and there, but no flying off small waterfalls like we did in New Zealand. So we figured it would be safe enough.

After an hour’s bus ride into the interior where there are many rivers coming down out of the central mountains (and volcanoes) we reached the ‘base camp’ where the tour company has showers, change rooms and a lunch buffet for afterwards. Since the requirements for the tour were bathing suits or clothes that can get soaked and rubber-soled water shoes (we all have Tevas), once everyone got changed we were off again to the launch point, where we were fitted with the rest of our gear - helmets, life jackets and paddles.

The worst part of the trip was actually getting to the rafts. The riverbed is quite rocky and we had to trek about 50 yards, across small boulders and a branch of the river, to the boats. This required a little ‘fancy footwork’ over wet, slick and often submerged rocks. And did we mention the water wasn’t exactly warm?

Once that was done and everyone had taken places in the rafts, the fun really began. We hadn’t gone more than 100 yards downstream, in a fairly swift current, before our guide sent us into the first three-foot waves and we were soaked! At least it gave us all a chance to get over our initial uncertainty about the water and the waves and get settled into the rhythm of taking paddling orders. It’s hard to be nervous when there is water flying in every direction at the same time!! Yes, we have video that includes Barb, she of the ‘non-stop giggles’, and Norm, ‘I know we’re heading for a big wave when everybody screams’. While not as intense as the Grade 5 rapids from our New Zealand experience a couple of years ago, there were enough bumps and twists and unexpected turns, not to mention soakings too numerous to mention, to keep us all busy! And very wet! Unfortunately, we don’t have any video of the raft-to-raft waterfights - we were too busy spraying the other guys!

We traveled about 7 miles down the river, hitting a few more rapids with crashing 3-foot waves (hey, they look even bigger from a small boat!) and even doing a 360 in one spot! Of course, each time we heard new rapids up ahead, Larry would tell the rest of the team that it was the sound of the 15, or 20, or 30, or 40, or 50 foot waterfall coming up. That had a couple of the older ladies in our raft giving him the evil eye the first couple of times until they caught on. Then it became the running joke of the trip.

All too quickly for Norm and Barb (well, Barb at least), we soon reached the landing point and the trek back through “the jungle” to our waiting bus. Once we got back to the base camp to change, we were served a typical Costa Rican lunch which was very tasty. Then we had the ride back to the ship, where we had to stop at the port building to buy that staple for our kitchen - Costa Rican Britt Coffee. We had just opened up our last package from last time not long before we left on this cruise. Now we’re good for another couple of years! Once back onboard Barb couldn’t wait to get to a computer to e-mail “her boys” that they had actually done it and had the pictures to prove it!

All in all a great day and another new adventure to add to the list.

Day 8 - Panama Canal Two Ways

The highlight of this cruise for many passengers, including Norm and Barb, is the partial transit of the Panama Canal. Having already done this four times ourselves, we could probably give the lecturer a hand on the bridge…


The Captain promised us sunshine and somewhat cooler temperatures in the Canal than yesterday in Cartagena. After the promised early start - we were up at 6:15 - we headed into the first chamber of the Gatun Lock. Of course, since we don’t have a covered balcony on this cruise, what happened? The Captain lied!!! It started to drizzle, of course! Then it started to rain, making it impossible to stay outside to watch. Fortunately, it didn’t last long and by the time we were set to be raised to the first level, it had pretty much ended, but it was extremely humid. Fortunately, the Captain is a better boat driver than he is a weatherman!! Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the ship to see the line crew at work; that had to wait until a little later.

Once through the lock, we anchored in Gatun Lake and the tenders were dropped to take those participating on shore excursions into the Colon Yacht Club. Well, that’s something of a misnomer, since there were no yachts to be seen, and there wasn’t much of a yacht club building - in fact there wasn’t any building there at all. It was more or less a dock with an awning and a walkway, and a parking lot for the tour buses. So calling it a “Yacht Club” might have been a stretch, but who would want to visit the Gatun Parking Lot??

We actually had a bus ride of over an hour to get to Gamboa, where we boarded the tour ‘ferry’, a three-deck tour boat that held about 300 people, for the balance of the transit. This bus ride avoided the tour boat having to cross Gatun Lake; instead we boarded just where the Chagres River meets the canal. The importance of the river is that it and its many tributaries combine as the main source of water for the canal and it was from this river that the initial flooding was done to create Gatun Lake.

Once on board, we set out and our guide explained that we were the “lead” boat in the “southbound convoy” and would be sharing our lockage with the ship that was behind us - an NYK car carrier that looked like a floating apartment building with no windows. When full, it could carry as many as 3,000 vehicles. This became the highlight of the day for all of us, even those of us who have transited the canal before. It is a completely different experience to be sitting at the front of a 1,000 foot long, 109 foot wide lock, watching a 900 foot long, 106 foot wide ship come in behind you. Most of us were just hoping that its brakes worked and it would be able to stop in time, with help from the 8 mules guiding it, before it turned our boat, and us, into driftwood!. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of the perspective we had on that ship…

The entire trip went from the docks at Gamboa, through the Gaillard Cut, the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks, under the Bridge of the Americas and out into the Pacific, thus completing our fifth, and Norm and Barb’s first, transit of the Panama Canal.

Shortly after we got underway the bar opened, giving Norm an opportunity to compare Panama’s beer to Colombia’s beer (same beer, different can) and the staff served a very nice buffet, complete with water (YES!) and soft drinks. Since it had been AT LEAST four hours since most of the people onboard had eaten, there was a mad rush for the food. Fortunately none of the boat staff were injured in the ensuing stampede! You would think these people had never seen food before!

Overall, it was a great day and a very interesting new perspective on the canal. From that angle, it really looked like the Trent-Severn canal system locks on steroids, and it was really neat to be up close and personal with lock walls and gates that are almost 100 years old.

One of the other highlights was seeing some of the work that has already started on the new locks at each end of the canal. These are set to open on the centennial of the canal, in August of 2014 and will be able to take post-Panamax ships, meaning anything that is currently afloat or on the drawing boards that can’t go through the current canal system. The locks will be 80 feet deep, 1400 feet long and at least 200 feet wide…Personally, we can’t think of anything that could be that big and still float! Well, we guess there IS Oasis of the Seas, but…….

And for a bit of a ‘blast from the past’, the featured entertainer this evening was Adrian Zmed. Anyone remember ‘T.J. Hooker’, the cop show that starred William Shatner? Well, Adrian was the rookie partner with all the hair (no, not Heather Locklear, the other one). He has done quite a bit of performing in Broadway musicals (especially ‘Grease’) and put on a really good show. He performs both here and on Island Princess.

Day 7: One Short Day in the Emerald City!

…with abject apologies to the composer and lyricist of ‘Wicked’…


Cartagena - the one place on this cruise that none of has been before. Not for lack of trying, though. The last time we had it on an itinerary in 2006, Crystal’s insurance company decided it was too dangerous to stop here so Curacao was substituted . The government and policing situation has improved markedly since then, especially in the tourist cities, so nowadays there’s no such problem.

Our walking tour really didn’t take us around too much of the old city area, but we did visit the walls, and a handicrafts/jewelry/ticky-tacky souvenir market, and then a church and a museum, and a jewelry store…do you see a pattern developing here? The only funny thing was that none of the major jewelry stores in the Caribbean - Diamonds International, Effy and the others - and most notably Colombian Emeralds International itself, were nowhere to be found. And for the length of time we had to stop, it would have been a real rush if anyone was looking for emeralds, so none of us even bothered.

The original fort built by the Spaniards in the 1500s

The old city is really quite beautiful and would be an even nicer walk around if there was a little more time and a lot less humidity (the natives, though, have not been complaining since there’s been more rain than usual in the area since November and they were happy for the break). The architecture, Spanish colonial, is very pretty. Many of the buildings are painted, some have ornate balconies and many of these are covered with beautiful flowering bougainvillea bushes.

The Cathedral

And just so everyone knows our streak is still intact - there's scaffolding on the altar of the cathedral!!!

Although we didn’t do any shopping, Norm decided to try a local Colombian beer. He decided it tasted quite ‘light’, sort of along the lines of Budweiser, we guess, but pronounced it ‘Okay’.  We can now say we have been to Colombia. Oh, and we did buy a pound of “Colombia’s Finest”. Coffee! We bought coffee!

Off to the Panama Canal tomorrow. It will be an early start as our transit through the Gatun Locks is scheduled to start around 7:00. Tour time is still up in the air depending on when we get to the Colon Yacht Club.



Days 3 - 6 My How Time Flies……….

…when you’re having fun!!!


We arrived at Coral Princess without incident and in time for lunch on Friday afternoon. All Larry’s hard work paid off as he was presented his shiny, black Elite Boarding Card, while Monica had to make due with her “Newbie” Blue Card. What’s the difference? In Princess’ loyalty program, the Elite Level is for those guests who have completed at least 15 cruises (or sailed 150 days) with Princess. In other words, the most loyal clientele, or people they really want to keep coming back! Princess’ agent education programme rewards those who complete the entire 20+ courses with Elite membership and all the benefits that come with it. Our experience in the first few days is that the staff do take notice of the Black Card, as one of the ladies in Larry’s office said they would!

Back to Friday…….. We arrived at the ship about 1:30 and were quickly through check in and onboard. The ship is 91,000 GRT and carries about 2000 passengers. It’s not the biggest ship we have been on, but it’s close. After lunch we spent the next two hours exploring, getting our bearings and, most importantly, sampling as many of the bars as we could! The ship is well laid out and has a really “comfortable” feel to it; something like what you would expect from an “old school” country club. Lots of comfortable chairs, leather and dark wood paneling. It’s very much like we suspect the original passenger liners would have been set up. Our Mini-Suite on Deck 9 is not overly large, actually it’s a bit smaller than we had anticipated, but it is comfortable. Of course we were not terribly impressed with the twin beds we found on arrival, but our cabin steward quickly fixed that. The only real drawback to the cabin is that Princess puts these suites on a lower deck with the “standard” balconies on the decks above, meaning the balcony has no overhead cover, making it useless in the rain and very hot in the sun. Not to mention everyone above is looking down into our balcony. No fooling around on the balcony this trip!!!

The sitting area in our mini-suite

Since our first cruise in 1988, we had always been among the youngest on any ship we have sailed. Of course the reality is we haven’t been able to say that for several years. Until now that is! While we are not the youngest by any stretch (even allowing for the half-dozen children onboard), we are certainly not the oldest. By several DECADES! Given the type of cruise, ten days to the Panama Canal in early January, we expected an older crowd, but we don’t think there are ANY walkers left in the Continental US. They are ALL on this ship! Along with several dozen wheelchairs and more electric scooters than we have been able to count! The average age of the total passenger load, children included, has to be close to “Deceased”! And that 91,000 GRT we mentioned previously? That is the combined weight of the passengers! Larry and Norm look like under-weight and under-fed orphans next to some of the people on this ship. And the less said about the 300 pound “gentleman” sunning himself by the pool in a Speedo, the better for all concerned. Larry’s eyes are still not fully recovered from stumbling on this guy at the pool yesterday!

It is now Monday and we have settled in to a nice little routine with Norm and Barb. We spent most of the first two sea days at the Spa Pool, one of the two main pools and the one that is covered. The first two days were windy, cool and periodically damp, so “cover’ was important. Here is the Lotus pool area, quite nice, and even better as we saw that Toronto had 15 cm of snow and a temp of -13C!

The food - of importance second only to the bar, of course - has been as well-prepared and presented as we had heard, but the selection in the main dining room is not quite as varied as we had hoped. Nonetheless, everything has been quite tasty, and all of the staff (especially in the bars) so far has been very friendly and helpful - pretty much to the same standard that we’ve come to know on Crystal.

Last night we had dinner at Sabatini’s, Princess’ alternative Italian dining room. The dinner is quite an experience, as they give you a menu that lists antipasti, pizzas, soup, pastas, main courses and desserts - and the ONLY things you actually pick are the main and dessert. The servers bring out platters of the other items and give you as much of any of them (or all of them) as you want. Needless to say, PACING is the order of the day here, and doing laps around the deck the day of the meal AND the next day is a requirement to work it all off. Here’s a picture of our main courses, including Norm’s dinner, which we have dubbed the ‘Lobsterfish’ since he ordered sea bass with a side of lobster tail…



No, this wasn't a drink - it was Larry's dessert - complete with a chocolate roll that looked like a straw!

 Of course, we’ve found the bars - even Crooner’s, the martini bar that has on its menu an entire page of chocolate martinis. Barb thinks she has died and gone to choco-heaven!!! Here’s a look at a couple of them, along with a few other pictures we thought you might find interesting:



Norm waiting for his drink to be shaken and poured.  Martini and a floor-show, anyone?



Today’s first stop was Aruba, where there was enough time to either 1) take a short island tour, or 2) shop. We needed to look for a couple of things, so we opted for choice #2 - and hardly bought anything. So we spent another relaxing afternoon by the pool, and walked another few laps of the Promenade Deck…

Not to be outdone by either of his kids, here's Norm with his lunch of Fish 'n' Chips and Guiness...Of course, he had his at a much more reasonable time, unlike Mitchell who ordered it at 8:00 in the morning (see earlier blog posts for more details).  Traditional English Pub Fare lunch was on the specialty menu for today, and of course we couldn't pass that up!
More tomorrow after Cartagena - one place we’ve never been before.

Day 1 and 2 - Pre-Cruise Hotel, anyone?

Firstly, our requisite Thomas photo. Because the suitcases were out for a couple of days before we left, he had a chance to sit in each one as it was being packed, but those pictures are becoming commonplace. So we’ll stick in one of him relaxing in front of the fireplace on the mat that Mom made him for Christmas…

This cruise will be Norm and Barb’s first time to many of these ports and also their first experience with the Panama Canal. Our ports include Cartagena (Colombia), Limon (Costa Rica), Aruba, Ocho Rios (Jamaica) and a stop in Gatun Lake (the Canal) to pick up our tour boat for an excursion through the rest of the canal. So, with that intro done, on to the trip -

You know how cruise lines usually offer pre- and post-cruise hotel packages to extend your vacation? Well, we decided to make our own package…

We left home on Wednesday afternoon to drive to Buffalo. Fortunately the snow that fell Tuesday night had pretty much been cleared up from the roads until we reached Hwy 405 to take us to the border, and the flurries started to fall a bit while we stopped at the duty-free, but otherwise the journey was uneventful and took us less time than expected.

Hotel night No. 1 was at the Millenium, the main features of which were: 1) its location across the parking lot from the Walden Galleria Mall, and 2) being able to leave the car in their parking lot for a nominal charge. Our first official meal of the trip was at the Cheesecake Factory - and anyone who knows Barb or the boys will know that the first stop on our way home will be to pick up a cheesecake for Jason and Mitchell (oops, was that supposed to be a secret??).

Thursday morning brought an early wakeup and a very frosty 6:00AM shuttle ride to the airport. After a standard, uneventful flight to Ft. Lauderdale On SouthWest we arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel at about 12:30, checked in and wandered around for a bit. What a difference from the Millenium!



The pool area.  There's also a sand beach and beach volleyball net.


The hotel is near the Florida Turnpike, so it is a fair distance from the beach, but it has a lovely pool area and a huge restaurant/club campus. You could stay here for a week and never eat dinner at the same place twice. All of the restaurants are quite large, but since we were here on a Thursday, there was no crowd to speak of. We had lunch at the Bluepoint Seafood Restaurant, and, except for two ladies at the next table, were the only ones there.

We met Annette and Abe and some friends for dinner and had a fabulous Italian meal at Martorano’s, a Philadelphia-Italian restautant. Every meal was big enough to share and our waiters had a great time dividing everything up between the eight of us so anyone who wanted a taste of another dish could get some.

One of the waiters went to a lot of trouble to try to split the desserts - 1 piece of cheesecake, 2 cannolis and a serving of Tiramisu - into 8 pieces. It wasn’t the neatest job, but everybody got a share and we all had fun watching.

We’ll be heading for the port to board Coral Princess in the early afternoon. Larry spent much of last Sunday afternoon and Monday working to get Commodore status in Princess’ sales education program. This is supposed to come with a lot of shipboard perks. Follow along and we’ll let you know what they are…