Panama Canal Here We Come

Another Cruise!

This time it is a cruise that I have always wanted to take. A Panama Cruise. We boarded on September 14 for a 17 night cruise down the Pacific coast thru the Panama to Fort Lauderdale onboard the beautiful Island Princess. We once again booked thru http://www.bestpricecruises.com/ and again they had the best price and even had a few extra perks like onboard credits and wine that sweetened the deal. Unfortunately our TA there John is no longer there but we had some great help when dealing with Pam.

This was our third cruise on the Island, the last two being just short repositioning cruises. Since both Bernie and I had only one week of vacation we managed to arrange to turn it into three weeks with banked overtime, leave of absences and trades. But in order to not take another day off I decided to work the day that we sailed. Yup I was up early working driving the bus knowing that in the back of my mind I was getting on board "The Love Boat" soon.

We had a lot of luggage, we always say we will bring less but darn it if we somehow never follow that rule. We had four bags (thankfully there is not fee for bags on Air Canada), and two bags full of stuff for the school in Huatulco.

We arrived at the port around 12:45 and we were on board the ship by 1:00 pm. I have never seen such a smooth boarding process. A quick trip to the cabin (E229) to drop our bag and then do our "I am on another cruise" dance. Many people were doing this cruise. We grabbed a bite to eat in the Horizon Court and noticed that there are quite of a few people staying on for the entire 17 nights. We were told there was 450 of us doing the entire voyage.

Beautiful sunny day so the sailaway was gorgeous. We met up with Anita (Richard was hiding somewhere) to enjoy the sailaway. With a drink in hand and a quick toast we were quickly under the Lion's Gate Bridge and on our way South to California.

Bye Canada we will see you in a while!

We only had one sea day before we reach San Francisco and I was determined to relax, and trust me I had no problem doing that. It was a little too cool to sit out and sun tan, but still very nice to sit out and read.

Lots of people checking out the stores today and we tried to buy a bottle of vodka to enjoy on the next part of our voyage, but darn it if they knew we were staying on for the entire voyage. So we schemed and went to see Anita and Richard, a passed them some money and asked "will you buy us some booze?" feels like high school all over again, getting someone to buy us alcohol. No problem she picked it up and we had a litre of Vodka to enjoy on our 14 remaining nights.

We had planned a group lunch for the Cruise Critic http://www.cruisecritic.com/ gang at 12:30 today. I believe there were 13 of us that showed up and we took over two tables in the dining room. Rex did up some lovely door signs for everyone, they were beautiful and it was great walking throughout the ship and seeing them on everyone's doors.

Tonight we heading to the Wheelhouse bar for a small drink, yup that is the drink. Margarita for only $6.95 - I think that is a steal, but many complained about the drink prices, but truely they are very comparable to what you will find in any restaurant.

We are sailing towards San Francisco and can't wait to see our friends John / Karin, and Rose / Jerry get on board tomorrow.