Panama Canal Transit

Thursday, April 19

Our day started early…even earlier than we had planned. According to the captain, the ship was scheduled to line up to enter the canal around 5 am and then start through the first locks around 6:30 am. I set my travel alarm clock for 5:40 and then decided it would be a good idea to set a backup alarm at 5:50 on my phone. Only problem…my phone was in airplane mode and the time zone was not correct (which I didn’t realize). It went off at 4:50 instead. Ugh.

At that point we were both totally awake so we just got up and got dressed. We knew the bow of the ship was going to be open during the transit (which it normally isn’t) but we didn’t quite know how to get out there. It didn’t take long to figure this out. We saw a couple of crew members wheeling a cart with a coffee urn and lots of Panama Rolls…so we followed them! They set up a little tent where they served the coffee and rolls…a popular place first thing in the morning.

Instead of sticking with the gathering crowd at the very front of the ship, we climbed a flight of stairs to get one deck higher…right under the bridge. This was a great spot with a great view.

It was just barely getting light as the ship sailed under the not-yet-finished Atlantic Bridge.  

The Zaandam entered the right hand lane and about the same time a large ship transporting yachts entered the left lane. 

There were three sailboats who shared the locks with the other ship. To transit the canal, these three were lashed together as they went through. This was exciting for us to see because we have been avidly following two different couples who post sailing vlogs on YouTube. Each of them had recently gone through the canal in the same matter.  RAN Sailing and Gone with the Wynns are the vlogs if you are interested in checking them out. Seeing their videos prior to our cruise gave us a greater appreciation for how the process works!

I set up my flexible tripod and attached it to the railing of the deck where we were standing and started recording a time-lapse video on my phone. I kept it running as the ship entered the lock and was raised to the level of the next lock. A brief rain shower came through at one point, but Bob just held his hat over my cell phone to protect it. I repeated the process from the back of the promenade deck as we went out of the third and final lock and into Gatun Lake.

Here is the one-minute version of our trip through the Gatun Locks!

Bob showing off his Panama Roll. You can see the tripod with my iPhone attached to the railing. 

I checked my watch and it was right at 7 am when we entered the first of the three Gatun Locks. Just prior to entering the first chamber of each lock there were men in a boat rowing out to the cruise ship. These men took the heaving lines from the bow ashore. This allowed the wire ropes from the mules  to be pulled over onto the ship. At one point in history, the rowboats had outboard motors attached, but the ropes got tangled in the propellers. Many other methods have been tried including shooting the lines, but it was decided to revert to the old method that had been used from the beginning.

The photo in the upper right is a practice target for the linehandlers. A heaving line is a lightweight line with a weight at the end, usually a piece of lead wrapped in a knot called a monkey’s fist. The line is tied to a heavier mooring rope or wire, and then the weighted end is thrown between a ship and the shore, or from one ship to another, and used to pull the heavier rope across.

The ship was raised a total of 85 feet by the time we exited the third chamber and sailed out into Gatun Lake. Gatun Lake was formed by damming the Chagres River and at the time it was built, was the largest manmade lake in the world.

Once in Gatun Lake, we took a break and went back to our cabin to rest. After about a half hour of “trying” to nap, I peeked out the window and could tell we were much closer to land. We watched from the shade of the promenade deck as we sailed close to the shoreline. When we started seeing the narrower terraced walls of the Culebra Cut, we went out on the bow but the heat forced us back inside fairly quickly.

The Island Princess went through the canal after the Zaandam and followed us through Gatun Lake.

The three sailboats were untied and sailed individually through the lake.

At 11:45 we met Danny and Stan at the buffet for lunch and watched through the windows as we started through the Culebra Cut…the portion of the canal that crosses the continental divide. This section of the canal was what proved to be such a huge challenge. As soon as we finished eating, we were back outside...anxious to see what was yet to come.

Towards the end of the Culebra Cut and shortly before the Pedro Miguel locks, we sailed under the Centennial Bridge. This bridge was opened in 2004 and was built to ease the traffic from the Pan American Highway.

Looking back after sailing under the bridge. The Island Princess is barely visible as she comes around the bend of the river.

Gold Hill

It wasn't far from the bridge to the Pedro Miguel locks…the middle set. There was just one lock chamber and then we sailed on to the last two sets of locks, the Miraflores Locks. We were amazed at how much there was to see all day long and we were afraid we would miss something if we went inside!

A tight squeeze!

I totally forgot about checking the view from inside the cool Crow’s Nest and instead we spent all day outside wandering from the bow, to the aft pool, to the promenade deck where we could cut across the atrium to go from one side of the ship to the other.

At 2:00, Bob left to attend the Pickleball session listed on the daily schedule. The activity was put in there at his request, but during the heat of the day when we were sailing through the Panama Canal certainly wasn’t an ideal time. A few did show up. No staff, but some of the passengers he had talked to at the Cruise Critic meeting did attend. They just talked about the game and made plans to play at 7 am the next morning.

By the end of the day, the combination of heat, humidity and our early wake up call had wiped me out. I struggled to keep watching until we exited the Miraflores Locks and sailed out into the Pacific and may or may not have dozed off sitting in one of the lounge chairs on the Promenade Deck!

By 4 pm we sailed past the impressive skyline of Panama City and under the Bridge of the Americas. It was all I could do to muster up enough energy to shower and dress for dinner. Bob, Danny and I all ordered the tuna steak without even thinking it would be served rare…VERY RARE. Bob managed to finish his, but Danny and I ate the more well-done edges and left the raw inside. Lesson learned.

APPETIZERS, SOUP, SALAD

MAIN

Dessert for me was the almond cake that had been served in the buffet the day before. I had heard someone mention that the desserts served in the buffet are often on the menu in the main dining room the next night. Not sure if that is true…I will have to start watching.

Bob and Danny both love the crisps which are on the dessert menu every night. So far, each night has been a different fruit…apple, peach, blueberry, rhubarb, etc. I am curious to see how long they can go on a 23-day cruise before repeating a flavor.

The evening entertainment was a “variety show” with the magician and harmonicist sharing the stage. In other words…rerun entertainment. 😉 The movie, “A Man, a Plan a Canal” had been shown multiple times during the day and I intended to go to one of the showings after dinner in place of the main stage, but I knew it would be hopeless. I would be asleep within 5 minutes of the movie starting.

Instead, Bob and I went back to the cabin. He pick up watching where he had left off on the latest DVD he had checked out. I looked at some of the photos I had taken during the day and tried to work on my blog, but just couldn’t stay awake. With Bob still watching the movie, I crawled into bed and was asleep within 60 seconds! And to top it off, we were to set our clocks back an hour before going to bed so I was actually sleeping by around 8 pm!

Sea Day #3

Wednesday, April 18 – Sea Day

Bob was up and out the door to go walking before I even woke up. I took my time getting ready and then went to the buffet alone around 7:30. Our clocks had been moved back an hour the night before so we had a nice long sleep.

I visited with a couple sitting at the table next to me who mentioned that their toilet wasn’t working. Turns out they were our next door neighbors! Bob showed up a few minutes after I sat down and enjoyed visiting with the couple as well. The guy was a biker (which was a common interest for Bob) and had biked across Canada and the U.S. (The pedal kind, not motorcycles!)

From breakfast, Bob and I went to the theater for Tim Calvert’s lecture on the history of the Panama Canal at 9:00. We got there quite early and saved seats for Danny and Stan thinking they were coming right away, but when they didn’t show up by 8:50 we quit trying and they were quickly snatched up. Of course they showed up about 3 minutes later.

Following the presentation, Bob and I wandered around the ship so I could take some photos and video. The weather was very humid and warm so most of what we did was indoors.

No activities were of interest to me for the rest of the morning so I went back to the cabin to try and backup all of the photos I had taken in the last few days. I had been researching ways to do this without lugging a laptop computer on the ship and discovered a gadget called the RAVPower Filehub Plus . This thing is a wireless router that lets you transfer photos from either an SD card or an iPhone to an external hard drive without having an internet connection. The process is not intuitive but eventually I got it figured out. Having the photos backed up to the hard drive will give me a little piece of mind. The photos are important to me...my way of preserving the memories that I would soon lose without the pictures. And as the title of my blog...the memories ARE my souvenirs!

Danny and Stan stopped by our cabin around 11:45 to go to lunch. Getting there a few minutes before noon meant the lines were much shorter. After hearing Bob rave about the Asian food, I decided to try it…but only a small amount. Mmmm…quite good. I went back to get some more, but by then the line was pretty long so I opted for some food from the main buffet…the oxtails were outstanding!

For dessert I took a piece of almond cake but I couldn’t pass up the bread pudding…so I took some of it too. I have had some every day so far and as much as I love it, I need to resist.

Danny, Bob and I went to team trivia in the Crow’s Nest at 1:00 and played with the Aussie crew. One of the questions was “which of your senses is usually affected when when you get hit by lightning?” Others were debating what the answer should be when Bob spoke up and said…”Well…when I got hit by lightning I lost my hearing.” This took everyone by surprise and provoked a lot of questions, but the answer was correct!

(Bob actually did get hit by lightning a couple of times during a freak storm while mountain climbing in the Tetons. One friend died in the storm and Bob and the others he was climbing with had to be airlifted by helicopter. The incident sparked the largest rescue mission in history for the Teton's and was covered in length by Sports Illustrated.)

My only contribution was to answer “how many equal angles does a scalene triangle have?” The correct answer? Zero. Our group tied for 1^st place and unfortunately I really failed the group when it came to the tie-breaker question. “How many yards are in a mile?” We had 30 seconds to answer and Danny was in the process of doing long division when I quickly wrote down 1740…the answer that I “thought” I remembered from my teaching days. But...I remembered wrong. The answer was 1760 and I felt so stupid. The prizes were Panama Canal pins which the other team had already won multiple times so they let our team have them. Sort of pity prizes I guess.

At 3:30 we had to choose between a “virtual tour through the Panama Canal” with the EXC host or a PBS movie on the building of the canal. We had seen the latter, but I knew it was good and had a lot of interesting information.  We chose the virtual cruise which turned out to be a slideshow and lecture that was very, very similar to the lecture we had just attended that morning. Should have gone to the movie.

Afterwards, Bob went up to the buffet to get some ice tea and I popped outdoors on the promenade deck. Having a cabin on this deck means people are always walking by the window, but also means it is quite easy to get outside quickly…sort of an un-private balcony. The weather was feeling less humid so I just sat on the padded teak lounger enjoying the waves. I visited with another couple that I met at the Cruise Critic meet & greet until it was time to get showered and dressed for dinner.

Stan had requested that we try and get to dinner a little early. Even though our scheduled time was 5:45 pm, the dining room was usually open and people were being seated around 5:30. He was hoping we could get done early enough to get to the Panama Canal movie that we had missed in the afternoon. It was being shown again at 6:30 but it was well after 7:00 before we finished. Danny loves his desserts and wouldn’t think of skipping! 😉

Andhika Putra...or as we called him...."The Ginger Man"! Each night he would be outside the entrance to the dining room offering after-dinner treats...candied ginger, figs, dates and mints. 

We did have plenty of time to get good seats in the theater for the first production show of the cruise…”Road House”…a country themed show which we enjoyed.  All of the singers and dancers had boarded the ship at the beginning of the cruise so it was the first time they had performed together.

Tomorrow will be the big day…the crown jewel of this cruise. The Panama Canal. The captain announced that we “should” be starting through the first set of locks around 6:30 am so the alarm is set for 5:30 am!

Willemstad, Curacao

Click here for Curacao Video

Tuesday, April 17 – Curacao        

Our first port…the island of Curacao. A new port for us and our third and final island in the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire & Curacao). I grabbed my camera and went outside to get some photos, but instantly the lens fogged up and ended that endeavor. 😒

After breakfast I turned my phone on and crossed my fingers that T-Mobile was telling the truth when they said there is free texting and data in over 140 countries…including Curacao! I sat outside on the promenade deck and texted our kids and checked email.

When we saw Irie Tour buses loading near the ship I got worried that perhaps ship time was not the same as local time and we were going to be late for our tour. I double checked and the time was correct and our confirmation said we weren’t to meet until 9:30 am.

We had booked an independent tour called West Side Beach Hopping tour with Irie Tours. The directions indicated we were to meet at the white tent which turned out to be next to the other dock where the Navigator of the Seas had just pulled in. We hitched a ride on the shuttle (similar to a large golf cart) to get to the meeting spot.

For anyone planning a DIY day in Curacao, here are the taxi prices posted at the port.

Our tour guide was there checking off names as we arrived and seemed VERY surprised when we said we needed to be back on the ship no later than 3:30 pm. There was only one other couple from the Zaandam, the rest were passengers from the Navigator. This turned out to be a problem. The Navigator was to be in port much later than the Zaandam and the tour wasn’t due back until 4:00 or so. The guide assured us we would be back in time (which we were) but it meant cutting our tour short. More on this later…

No windows...and not the smoothest ride.

Our first stop was to see flamingos. We just stopped along the highway and the birds were quite some distance away. I had chose to not bring my “good” camera with the long zoom since I knew we would be spending time on a beach so the photos are not very impressive. With some cropping and editing, you can at least make out that they were birds. 😉  I would have much rather skipped this stop than to run out of time later in the day.

The second destination was Shete Boka National Park. Huge waves were crashing against the cliff and washing into an underground cavern. We both climbed down into the cave to see the waves (and wondering if that was really a good idea). Just as I climbed up the path to get out, a huge wave washed through the cavern soaking Bob and the others who were still there. He literally jumped straight up but there was no avoiding it!

Adding to the cairns along the path.

Inside the cavern. Although this photo doesn't show it well, the water was an incredible color of blue.

Some interesting trees at the little cafe in Shete Boka. 

 Moving on, the bus stopped at Playa Piskado…a marina that is popular with sea turtles who come to feast on the fish guts that get thrown into the water (yuck.) Several from our group snorkeled here, but we chose to stay dry since the stop was going to be short. It was interesting to watch a guy cleaning giant tuna and then using a ball bat and machete to cut them up into steaks.

Sushi anyone?

Just a short distance away was Playa Forti. A few people took the opportunity to jump from the high cliff into the water below…scary! Others wanted to jump, but fear took over when they got to the edge and saw how far down it was to the water!

Bob with our bus driver.

Finally we made it to the first beach on the tour…Playa Knip where we had an hour to swim. It was heavenly! The beach was surrounded by cliffs covered with cactus!

We passed by the oldest Catholic Church and cemetery on our way to the last beach, Porto Marie.

Passengers from the Navigator of the Seas were given two hours to spend at the beach where they could swim and get some lunch. Our unfortunate bunch of four from the Zaandam were told to be ready to leave in 25 minutes…only enough time to walk down the beach and back.

No...that is not a dog in this photo...

It is a PIG!

I questioned the guide as to why they weren’t aware that the Zaandam had shorter port times and he insinuated that the schedule had been changed (which it hadn’t.) I was expecting an apology for cutting our tour short or an offer to adjust the price, but instead he complained that we were an inconvenience since they were going to have to make a separate trip to return us to the ship.

If I had known we would spend so little time at the beach, I probably would not have booked the tour. I am sorry that we did not get to see any of the city of Willenstad…especially the colorful buildings that I have seen in so many photos. I did get some photos of the high Queen Juliana bridge and a little of the city from the promenade deck but the Navigator of the Seas was blocking much of our view. Drat.

Queen Juliana Bridge

I used the last few minutes to text home and check Facebook until the ship pulled away from the dock and headed out to sea. Time to put the phone back in airplane mode. (Or I guess in our case it was “ship mode”!)

It was Danny’s birthday so the waiters all sang to him…but it wasn’t the traditional birthday song. The Indonesian waiters sang a song in their own language while accompanying the singing with a drum, tambourines, and even tapping a silver vase with a spoon to serve as chime. Throughout the cruise we would enjoy the tune often as they serenaded others who were celebrating a birthday or anniversary.

Happy Birthday, Danny!

STARTERS

The 8 pm show in the theater was Bernie Fields…a harmonica virtuoso. Very interesting and very talented.

Before going to bed the clocks got turned back one hour...extra sleep for us!

Sea Day #2

Monday, April 16

Bob got up and went to walk outside right away while I took my time getting dressed. The two of us met up with Dan and Stan at breakfast. After only a couple of days we have begun to sit on the starboard side of the ship at the buffet. The restaurant isn’t very large and it makes it easy to find each other when we sit in about the same place each time.

Tim Calvert was the guest lecturer onboard. Having skipped the lecture yesterday on “Great Cruise Liners” the four of us decided to attend the 9 am talk on “Lighthouses”. The guys went on ahead to get seats while I made a side trip to the Explorations Café to pick up a latte. Bob and I both had a $25 beverage card we had received when we called to get the promotions being offered for Black Friday back in November. The card had to be activated first, but then all it took was a quick swipe and I had my latte!

After the talk, we stayed in the theater to hear the EXC Host do a slide presentation on things to see and do in Puerto Caldera and Corinto. We had independent tours scheduled for both ports but just wanted to see what she suggested doing.

As soon as the talk was finished, Bob, Danny and I went to the Crow’s Nest for BBC Earth Trivia. Bob and I had sat in on one of the BBC Earth trivia contests on our last cruise and were surprised that we knew the answers to almost every question so we went into the game confident that we would shine. Well according to Taylor, the cruise director, there are several different sets of trivia questions and he used one of the most difficult. Needless to say, we had a lousy score. We joined up with the Aussies that we had met the day before and at least they knew a couple of answers dealing with Australian animals.

For lunch, I had some pizza. I know I keep comparing everything to our cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam (NA) back in October, but this pizza just wasn’t very good. The NA would make the pizza fresh for you and give you a beeper to alert you when it was done. They also had this available in the evening…something the Zaandam could learn from. (Other than room service, there are no options to get food between 8 pm and 10:30 pm.) Bob grabbed some things from the Asian station. He thinks he has died and gone to heaven because he can get Asian food every single day.

I attended the America Test Kitchen presentation of “New Italian Favorites” while the guys went to the team trivia. I had to sit towards the back and the set up of the Wajang Theater makes it a little hard to see what was happening. Neither of the TV monitors that should have been showing a closeup of the cooking were turned on. Turns out the recipes that were prepared were some I had seen on the NA.

When I got back to the cabin around 2 pm the room steward was just then cleaning the room. I left to let him work and walked a lap around the ship. It was very windy outside and the starboard side was getting some spray off the waves.

There was a black poodle onboard as a service dog and the ship had provided a "potty station" for him at the front of the promenade deck. They even had spare sod!

I couldn’t resist a quick nap and then I changed and went up to the aft pool. With the wind and ship movement it was like being in a wave pool…in fact water was spraying out of the pool!

A couple of weeks before the cruise we found another couple through TripAdvisor who wanted to share a private tour in Corinto, Nicaragua. We exchanged emails and photos and planned to do the tour together. While I was in the pool I recognized Dick and we spent some time chatting.

During the time I was at the pool, Bob went to the BBC movie “Inside Earth: Extreme Worlds” with Stan and Danny. Having just left wintry Minnesota, I was much more excited about being outdoors in the sun!

STARTERS

At dinner I chose the French onion soup from the HAL favorites that are available each night along with shrimp jambalaya, and Caribbean rum cake with coconut ice cream. Danny went all out and had 5 desserts…and the photo promptly got posted to Facebook!

Who wouldn't be happy with all of the desserts sitting in front of them!?

I will mention that Danny chose to purchase one of the internet packages for the length of the cruise. I believe he paid $189.99 for the “Surf Plan”…the middle of the three packages. He was pleased with the speed of the service.  I checked ever now and then and as the cruise progressed, the prices dropped accordingly. Here is a screen shot from the Navigator App later in the cruise:

 

Internet packages available (taken later in the cruise.) Prices dropped as the cruise progressed.

By the time Danny had finished his five desserts <yikes!> we didn’t get to the theater until 7:45. By then all of the seats on the upper level were filled. We were able to find seats on the main level at the far side, but almost all of the seats were filled there too. Most people just got into the habit of showing up 30 to 45 minutes early and bringing a book or something to occupy the time. The evening entertainment was Matt Disero who was billed as a comedy magician. After watching I will comment that the show was more comedy than it was magic.

A full house.

Same routine after the show…back to the cabin after the show. Bob continued to watch the movie Hidden Figures while I gathered up stuff for our tour in Curacao the next day.