richwmn

My experience, although it has been a while, is that if you walk to another elevator bank the service is a lot quicker. Most people congregate at the elevators right where they board the ship.

April 18th, 2024 – Cartagena, Columbia Today we are still a couple of hours away from our stop at Cartagena. I was here once before and it is another container port with a shuttle provided. It is currently 86°F / 30°C under scattered clouds with the humidity at 74% and 9 mph winds. The ship is moving North at 3 knots. Yesterday was a busy day going thru the Panama Canal. I posted the Canal images yesterday, so scroll up to view them. I would always like for a Canal transit to include a port day in Panama, but it generally does not happen. I have been fortunate to have Fuerte Amador as a stop twice and would enjoy another stop. Because of the Canal transit, the early trivia was not scheduled. The 4 pm session was themed ‘Panama Canal’ and my team did well without me. I was by the Sea View Bar taking a few pictures, and reliving memories. I passed on the late trivia again because I didn’t want to miss the first few minutes of the first show. Speaking of the show, the ‘Grand Voyage Repertory Company’ (AKA Volendam Singers and Dancers) for a reprise of their show ‘Boogie Wonderland’. The group has been a very welcome addition to the past few months and have always put on a good, energetic show. They are all good dancers, and the singers have good voices. The entire troupe puts a lot into their performance and also seems to enjoy themselves. This morning we are proceeding to Cartagena, and a late afternoon / evening stop before Half Moon Cay and our turnaround day in Fort Lauderdale. Here are today’s activities and menus –

Leaving Panama and the Canal, the Atlantic (Caribbean) side bridge. This is the newest bridge over the Canal, having been finished in 2019.

April 16th, 2024 – Panama Canal Day It is very late in the day, as there is something going on starting very early. We started our approach to the first lock at 6:30 this morning, and quite a bit has been happening all day. I don’t have the temperatures for this morning, but it has been hot and humid. At 2:30 in the afternoon it is 84°F / 28°C, a bit cooler than I thought. The screen says light rain, but I haven’t seen it. Humidity is 68% and 10mph winds. We are currently not moving, waiting for the lock to clear with a slightly North heading. Typical trivias yesterday. We did well on the earlier session and better on the late session with a theme of “Food” and a good selection of questions for each. Last night I finally ate in the Main Dining Room, sorry no pictures. I had a nice salad, salmon, and a dessert. The food was good and the company was nice. The meal took about an hour, so not too bad. After dinner I went to the show in the World Stage. This was a show I was looking forward to. The performer was Elliot Finkel, a piano player / humorist that I have seen several times in the past on other ships. His brother, Ian, who passed away a few years ago was also a staple on HAL ships and was very good. His father, Fyvush Finkel, was an accomplished actor most known for the show “Picket Fences”. True to form, Elliot put on a very good show last night, and I enjoyed it tremendously. As I said, this morning started at 6:30. The bow of the ship was opened and plenty of people were out there taking pictures of the approach to Miraflores Locks and the Bridge of the Americas. We entered the locks around 7:30 and it was again a very good experience. Shortly after leaving Miraflores, we went thru the Pedro Miguel Locks. During this time we also went under the Centennial Bridge. For the next few hours we passed thru the actual canal portion of the trip. It is very scenic and is a good place to sit and watch the world go by. We are currently in the Gatun Locks, ready to make our way into the Caribbean Sea. Well, it is late in the evening and I’m finally getting this posted. It has been a long, but mostly good day. Activities and menus are here –

Leaving Centennial Bridge Going forward toward Culebra Cut Change in schedule, Gatun Locks at 1:30pm, about 20 minutes later than previously stated

Centennial Bridge from Miraflores Pedro Miguel Locks

From the standpoint of the PVSA there are "near" and "distant" foreign ports. In order for a ship to do a round trip (Seattle to Seattle) it needs to do a "near" foreign port. In order for a passenger to go from one US port to another US port, they need to do a "distant" foreign port. In order for a port to be a "distant" foreign port it has to be outside North and Central America. The ABC islands are considered part of South America thereby being considered "distant".

Bridge of the Americas, I first drove across this bridge in July of 1976

For those who are interested, Volendam's Panama Schedule today - Estimated times: Miraflores -- 7:30am Gatun -- 1:10pm Panama Time is 1 hour earlier than eastern https://multimedia.panama-canal.com/Webcams/miraflores.html

Estimated times: Miraflores -- 7:30am Gatun -- 1:10pm Panama Time is 1 hour earlier than eastern https://multimedia.panama-canal.com/Webcams/miraflores.html

I believe the email was automatically sent to anyone booking the FLL=>Montreal Cruise. In my case, the PVSA was blown totally out of the water due to visiting the South Pacific and I could book on to Boston, but that would take a manager's review, particularly since my FLL=>Montreal was not initially linked to the previous cruises.

HAL is doing a better job of letting people know about this now. When I booked FLL=>Montreal in October(ish) I immediately received an email that booking the following cruise to Boston was not allowed due to PVSA.

April 15th, 2024 – at sea, destination Panama Canaletto This morning we are off the coast of Panama and it is a beautiful day. Tomorrow morning we will enter the Panama Canal for the transit to the Caribbean Sea and Fort Lauderdale. The transit and the canal is always a wonderful sight. We are currently headed Southeast at 14 knots. The temperature is 82°F / 28°C under scattered clouds. The humidity is 69% and the winds are a little over 10mph. Yesterday was a nice, but hot day in Costa Rica. Puntarenus is a nice port town. While the walk from the ship is rather long, it is not really too bad. Once we got into town there was a rather large market set up, with vendors selling cigars, jewelry, and clothing. Everything appeared to be well made. I didn’t inquire about prices but of course was told ‘best prices anywhere’. Back on the ship, we had our normal trivia sessions at 1pm and 4pm. I didn’t attend the 7pm ‘Music’ session because I didn’t want to miss any of the stage show. While we didn’t win the trivia sessions, we did well. The 4pm session had a theme of ‘Beverages’, and we talked before about how broad a topic that is. The questions were moderately hard and no one got a perfect score. We changed our clocks again last night so we are in sync with Panama. We are still one hour off Fort Lauderdale and the east coast. Only six more days until the end of this segment. Here are today’s activities and menus --

Sorry we didn't talk more, hope to run into you again before Fort Lauderdale. If you want to call, I'm in 3300.

April 14th, 2024 – Puntarenus, Porta Caldera, Costa Rica Good morning from our last port on the west coast of North & Central America. We are sharing the port today with the Carnival Spirit, and the pier is so narrow that our gangplank almost touches the other side and so does Spirit’s. From the ship to the shore is about a 500 meter walk. Yesterday was a very good sea day. I only attended two of the three trivia sessions. The afternoon session was themed ‘Travel’ and the questions were pretty hard. We did well with both. I didn’t attend the ‘Music’ session at 7pm because I wanted to see the entire show in the World Stage. The show was a singer/guitar player named Mario D’Andrea. As with a lot of the musical acts, he used a recorded background, but he played several songs without it. The show was very good and it seemed that everyone in the packed audience enjoyed it. He has a very good voice and is a very accomplished guitar player. Today in Costa Rica will be very hot and humid. We have to be back on board at 5:30pm so we have one of our longer days in port. Here are today’s activities and menus.