Costa Rica to Panama City

Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Panama Canal, Panama
Dec. 10. At Sea. Mimosa day! 85, sun, clouds, a passing shower. 
Due to a last minute scheduled Grand Voyage dinner tonight, we changed our Pacific Rim dinner reservation from tonight to last night. I think Lissy and Hardy enjoyed it, but there is very little on the menu that appeals to me. Not even the green tea ice cream. We all skipped the show and had after dinner drinks in the Observation Lounge. We were about the only ones there. Today, after puzzles, we had 2 excellent lectures in the morning. The first on the history of the Panama Canal and the second a continuation of the “golden years” of Broadway. After lingering on the pool deck for lunch, we spent the afternoon in the room. I watched a chick-Flicky Rom-com, “Maybe I Do”. Silly movie;great cast.  Our Grand Voyage dinner in La Veranda was great. Most of the senior officers were there greeting us. We four, by chance,  sat with the chief engineer, who was quite young (38) , Bulgarian, and very personable. The food was really good too, choosing from an exclusive but limited menu. After dinner we went to the ABBA dance party in the grand foyer. None of us danced, but the music and people watching was very fun!
Dec. 11. Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. 84, sunny . (They claimed 84, but it felt like 95!)
We docked at 8, but our tour wasn’t til 1pm and most of the tours left by 9, so we pretty much had to boat to ourselves all morning. We lolligagged between La Veranda and Coffee Connection. I did walk a mile or so on the jogging track, but it was too hot to do more. The cruise port was a fair walk away, so we didn’t go there. Out tour was a 3 hour “Eco- Jungle Cruise”. We drove 1/2 hour through the port town to a natural brackish water canal. The port town is not as developed as Roatán, but way nicer that Guatamala. There is lots of barbed wire and bars on the windows. According to the very good guide, there is little violent crime in Costa Rica, just lots of stealing! We also learned that now the number 1 industry here is high technology! They produce microchips for Intel, Microsoft, etc. Software development is also big. Mercedes Benz is one of their customers. Who knew? The guide said because Costa Rica has no Army the government money goes to education and health care, and these are the reasons that the high tech companies are attracted to here. At the canal, we boarded a flat open air boat for a 1 hour 45 min. leisurely float down and around this river/canal. We were close to civilization, but still in a jungle environment. We saw Howler and Spider monkeys, a sloth and many, many species of tropical birds. The only one that was new to me was the Tiger Heron. I wasn’t able to get pictures of the monkeys as they were too camouflaged and high up in the trees. It was a very pleasant tour, and miraculously, not a mosquito to be seen! We were back to the ship by 4, and rested up, and cleaned up before meeting Lissy and Otto for cocktails and dinner in CR.  All except O went to the show, a Broadway review. The singers are very good, but I was hoping for more sing-alongside and many of the songs were not familiar to me.
Dec. 12. Panama Canal crossing. 87 and sunny and humid.
We picked up our first pilot just beyond the breakwater at 7:15. We went up to the fantail for breakfast and got a great table for viewing. We stayed there til 8:30,   going under the beautiful expansion bridge that didn’t exist in 2017 when we last were here. Last time Bobby Sue and I snuck down to deck 4, to watch the locks from close to sea level. On this ship there is an infinity pool on the back of deck 5, so we went there. Only us, one other guy and the GM had figured out this was the best place to experience the locks! We stayed there till we entered Gatun Lake around 10:45. As we floated across the lake we enjoyed a Bloody Mary with lunch on the deck pool. As we entered the cut, we returned to our room and watched and listened to the commentary from the bridge camera channel on our tv. It was just too hot and humid to stay out of Airco any longer, and actually this was a good view! We entered the first of the Pacific locks around 3:15, and we got to see the high tech 2 men in a row boat method of getting the lines from the mules to the ship! It’s just so fascinating that all of this was conceived and built over 100 years ago, and it all still works! We crossed Lake Miraflores (1 mile) and entered the Miraflores locks about 4:45. We were out and into the Pacific by 6pm, just in time to meet Otto for drinks in the Observation lounge. It was dark by them so we didn’t see going under the Bridge of the Americas. We had a fabulous dinner in Prime 7, as standby’s, with the best table in the house all the way in the back with a fantail view of the lights. We watched the docking from our table at around 9pm. The entertainment tonight was a dance party on the pool deck, but for us, too hot and humid still for that, so we took a roadie from Prime 7 and enjoyed that in our suite. We are overnight in Panama City, with tours here tomorrow. 
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Comments

Rich and Janeen
2023-12-12

Panama Canal is a must see for us. Glad you got to see it again. Keep blogging we’re following closely. Love the photos! Enjoy

Kim and Rob
2023-12-13

So fascinating-and agree, hard to imagine it was such an engineering marvel all those years ago!

Marge Fisher
2023-12-13

We are so enjoying this blog Dori. Thanks for sharing. The Panama Canal was one of our favorites - we even missed a meal so as not to miss anything! 😂 How ‘bout a pic of the ship? Love to see it. Know you are enjoying.

2025-02-10

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