Finishing Up the Panama Canal Cruise Story

We finished our Panama Canal cruise almost 11 months ago. I never finished writing about it, I didn’t write about the trips we took following that cruise.

I’m not sure why. The cruise ended with us missing our last port of call, really rough seas passing Cuba, and me finally loosing at the craps table.

We weren’t told why we were refused docking in Jamaca, but if we had to miss a port, it’s the one I would have passed on. No real reason, but we didn’t have a really great excursion planned.

The Bird Sanctuary in Colombia

They also wouldn’t let us dock at Princess Cay, so I’m guessing we were above the threshold for Covid, 

We did get to go to the Sloth rescue in Costa Rica, but they had restricted the visit and dropped several activities we were looking forward to.

We will cruise again, most likely in late 2023 or spring 2024 to Alaska.

In the meantime, there are a couple of other places to see.

 

Birds and a New Hat

Our second port on the Panama Canal cruise was in Cartagena, Columbia. Frankly I had doubts about getting off the ship in Columbia. But after doing a bit of research, I figured we would be ok taking a trip to a private beach on an island just off the coast. 

Of course, that excursion got cancelled. 

I was looking for something pretty stress free and reading about how the locals would get in your space to try to encourage you to let them have your business didn’t sound like a lot of fun. 

So, we opted to head to the National Aviary.

We boarded the bus at the cruise port and in no time were headed through the city. 

As we passed through the countryside, I was reminded of the many days I spent in remote parts of Baja California shooting off-road racing. 

The Aviary was very nice, but we were on a guided tour, I would have preferred to spend the time discovering the Aviary alone, but they kept us on a pretty tight leash. 

When we got back to the cruise port, we wandered thru the shops. I managed to find a pretty nice Panama Hat. It was made in Columbia, not in the traditional Ecuador, but what the heck, it was reasonably priced. 

Loving the new hat

Rum, Sand and a Burger

Our first stop, Grand Turk. We docked at about 7am and were off the ship by 7:30.

The Cruise Port at Grand Turk

We signed up for the Rum Tour “Party Bus.” At first, we were a bit concerned about being to “old people” on a party bus, but like I told my wife, this isn’t Carnival. There is a chance that we might be the “fun” couple.

The Rum Bus

Turned out we were in the middle.

The Rum Bus wasn’t our first choice. The original plan was I was going to do a scuba excursion and she was going to do the lighthouse tour.

Covid threw the wrench into that plan. I needed to get in a couple of refresher dive classes (it’s been a long time since I have been underwater), I never got the classes scheduled, so no diving. The excursion she had scheduled was cancelled. So, we went for the Rum Bus.

According to the internet, the Turks and Caicaos archipelago is made up of 40 low-lying coral islands.

It seems that the main tourist area is on the island of Providenciales, we went to Grand Turk Island, which is a bit more austere.

When we got off the ship and went into the cruise port, I was really impressed by the port. It was very nice, most of the buildings seemed new or at least, well maintained. There were shops, a flowrider surf pool, a very large pool and the Caribbean’s largest Margaritaville.  

Grand Turk Cruise Port

Once we left the port, the scenery changed dramatically.

From what I understand, about 10 years ago the island was hit by several severe hurricanes. Much of the island has yet to be rebuilt.   

That said, we got to see some sites, drank several glasses of rum punch on the bus, enjoyed a rum tasting at the lighthouse, then went to Governors Beach for a 1 ½ hour swim.

We were back on the ship by 12:30 for a 1:30 sail-away.

Once back on the ship, we relaxed until our reservation at the Crown Grill for dinner at a private table for the 1st formal night of the cruise.

The Steak and Lobster in the Crown Grill

Great way to start off 2022, and I hope most of the troubles of the last couple of years is behind us.

Oh yeah, I did have  the Burger in Paradise at Margaritaville. 

Sea Day

The first day of our cruise was a sea day. We seriously thought about sleeping in, but we were too excited to get this vacation started. We got up and went to breakfast. I know what you're thinking, "how bold." Hey, we live on the edge. 

After a pretty good breakfast, we went back to the room and just chilled. Somewhere around 10 am we decided to take a walk around the ship and get a little exercise.

The promenade deck is a good place for an outside stroll, we did a couple of laps around the ship and then headed up to the lido deck. 

We wandered around the lido, past the multiple swimming pools, then went up to the sports deck at the stern of the ship

We stopped at the stern of the ship, found the putting green and did a bit of putting practice.

We wandered thru the shops, went to an “enrichment” show, and had a lesson in wine tasting.

We went to the 7pm main stage show, a Motown review (which was pretty good) and headed back to the room to get some rest before we arrive in Grand Turk tomorrow.

On Board

The day of the cruise was finally here. After months of prep, plans and changes we were ready. 

We got up, dressed, packed and called for an Uber. 

This time was much better, the car showed up pretty quickly. I told the driver that we were headed to terminal 2 at the cruise port.

When we got to the port, the port sign said was at terminal 21. I said something, but I guess the driver didn’t hear me. 

As we approached the ship, I pointed that it was the wrong ship, we stopped and asked, our dock was on the other side of the port. Needless to say, I dropped a pretty big tip to make up for the extra time.

We dropped our bags and started thru the serpentine line to get to security. After about an hour, we made it thru the first hoop. We then went upstairs and were greeted by an even longer line for health screening. 

After health screening, we were directed to some chairs to wait to board the ship. 

View from the Lido Deck

Apparently the ship had a tough time leaving Jamaica the night before, they said high winds kept them in port. They had arrived three hours late and when we got there, they were still offloading the previous guest. We were finally allowed on board about three hours later. 

We couldn’t go to our rooms, they were still being sanitized, so we did what we were told and went up to deck 15. 

We never did hear an announcement that we could go to the room, but it seemed like people were leaving so we went to deck 9 and found our room. 

Our Mini Suite, not bad for a cruise ship room

Leaving On a Jet Plane, Part 2

It’s just about an hour until our dinner time on the Emerald Princess. We made it to the ship, but it was certainly not an easy trip.

Our flight to Fort Lauderdale was cancelled at 1030 pm the night before our trip. We didn't know, so we got up around 2am for the 5am flight. At least we knew before heading to the airport, so we chilled in the hotel for a couple extra hours.

Turns out our seats were downgraded to main cabin, and our 2nd flight out of Atlanta we were stand-by passengers. I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic.

We originally were scheduled to arrive in Fort Lauderdale around 4pm. We finally landed after 10pm.

We had a rough time with Uber, when the first one showed up it was a small car (who picks up at the airport and can't handle two people two bags and two carry-ons?)

The second one didn't show (waited around 5 or ten minutes, he never moved on the app, I called, and they didn't pick up).

The third didn't move for a long time, I finally called, he said he was on the way. I let him know we were at the ride share pick up platform waiting at station 6, he pulls up to station 2 and makes us walk to him.

We get to the hotel and are both starving. When we got up, we had leftovers from dinner the night before for breakfast. We have had nothing to eat since, but two small packs of almonds and two packs of cookies.

The bar at the hotel had closed, they didn’t have room service, so we tried our luck with Uber Eats. “Food” finally showed up about 1:30 am. It was Denny’s, not my favorite, but it was all we had.

After a couple hours sleep, we were off to the cruise port.

Merry Christmas, You’re Not Going Anywhere.

Me on my first cruise, leaving Venice

We’ve been planning a New Year’s cruise. We are supposed to leave next week from Fort Lauderdale on Princess Cruise line for a 10-day partial Panama Canal cruise.

A little over a week ago, our son-in-law came down with Covid. He had a bad headache, chills, and a fever for a couple of days.

We haven’t been around him for several days prior to his getting sick, and it’s been over 10 days since he got sick. I figured we were in the clear.

But on Christmas day, before the family got together, we took home Covid tests. I went first and came up clear.

My wife went second, and we waited the required ten minutes.

When she pulled the test strip, she said, oh no. I thought she was joking, but sure enough, it was a positive test.

She retested about an hour and a half later, but still came up positive.

She’s not showing any symptoms, but I guess we’re grounded for a couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, this is the second time we canceled a Panama Canal cruise. We were scheduled to take a 15-day full passage from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles when the pandemic hit.

Hope I can get all my money back (but I did buy insurance, so should be good).

UPDATE - My wife went for a "real" test today, we're good to go! Looks like the home kit gave a false positive. 

I should have waited before cancelling hotel and flights.

Rebooked with Marriott, now I get to wait for two hours to get someone on the phone to stop Delta from cancelling our flight. 

UPDATE2 - After about 3 hours got a call back from Delta, got the flights rescheduled. It's now just after 4am on the day of our flight. We got up at 2:30 to get ready for a 5am flight, only to find out it was cancelled overnight. 

They rescheduled us for about 1pm today arriving after 10pm, however, they don't have seats for us on the connecting flight. So, waiting again for hours to speak to someone at Delta.