Teeara

Good evening folks. It was a pretty busy day for me today. I was awake at 4:57 this morning so thought I would go shoot some Deck 5 video. But first, here’s our location today: Cafe Latte-Tudes is on Deck 5 and here are the current prices: I also noticed that the conference center was open. Here’s a view inside. I went for a stroll outside the ship as the sun was rising. The temps were great. Not too hot or muggy. I also hadn’t been to the back of the ship on deck 5. This would’ve made a good place to be for the Panama Canal. Today was the FB cabin crawl. We had 2 junior suites, several balconies, an interior and a porthole ocean view. One of the balconies was dubbed “quirky” (7652): They also had a dinosaur! 🦕 Dinner in the MDR was Asian night: But we had Samba Grill tonight. There was a salad/appetizer bar to choose from first. The cup on the left had prosciutto and cantaloupe; the center bowl was a slaw with a light vinaigrette; and the cup on the right was shrimp cocktail. Then they start bringing loads of food out. Here’s my plate. 1:00 - Yucca fry 3:00 - Plain rice 5:00 - Filet Mignon 6:00 - Picanha (prime cut of top sirloin) 7:00 - Parmesan crusted pork loin 8:00 - Strip loin 9:00 - Linguica 10:00 - Chicken breast wrapped in bacon 11:00 - Polenta 12:00 - Deep fried Plaintain Everything was very delicious, but my favorites were the strip loin, Picanha and the polenta. We did have the cinnamon pineapple, but I forgot to take a picture of it. We waddled out. 😉😁😂 Tonight is the 70 s night. Not sure if I’ll make it. I feel like I’m coming down a cold. Ugh. Anyway, here is today’s Cruise Compass: Tomorrow we’re in Puerto Quetzal and I start my day with a hot stone massage. See you then.

Thanks so much!

BTW, loved your video! Watched the entire thing whilst waiting for my Starbucks this morning 😉😁☕️

Lucky you!

Yay!!!! I’m so proud of you! Welcome to YouTube!

Just an FYI that we heard NO commentary on the Helipad. It was also garbled and echoey on our balcony. The only place that it came through loud and clear was inside the ship.

No, I don’t think the chicken was cooked. Not sure if they offer beef at other times. This was at lunch today. I think they prefer to control the portion sizes with the chef handling the food. I will say it was very salty. Probably due to the soy sauce.

IMG_5006.mov Here’s the full experience for you. Let me know if it posts okay. Otherwise, to answer your questions, there was only chicken. You point at what you want - carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms and garlic. He puts it in his pan. You don’t touch the food. You can choose between thick and thin noodles. He puts soy sauce and another sauce in the pan and then he asks if you want it in a bowl or on a plate.

Today is our 3rd sea day. Here are the maps. Looks like we’ve spent most of the day off the coast of Panama. We slept in this morning until 8:00. Had breakfast in the WJ then went to the top tier event in the Aurora Theater. We gained 2 new Pinnacles on our sailing. Then they had the top 3 Pinnies: Afterwards we went to the Colony Club for some quiet time. Then back to the WJ for a light lunch before Pam went to the movie theater and I went back to the cabin to do a cabin tour video. Pam came back right after I started saying the movie theater was already packed and no seat were available. There’s only 30 seats in there so not surprising. It was for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”. I finished my video then did some reading on our balcony before taking a nap outside. Tonight was formal night. We each started with the Scallop Gratin and I then had the Mediterranean Spinach Pie. Pam had an alien baby bread tonight. I had the Vegetable Fried Rice for dinner and it was incredibly filling (I didn’t finish it). We both had the Pecan Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert. We returned to the cabin in time for the sunset. We’re back to the Centrum for the rest of the evening. We might take a walk later. Nothing is really tripping our trigger tonight. Here is today’s Cruise Compass: That’s it for today. We gain an hour tonight. Another sea day tomorrow. We’re supposed to have our FB cabin crawl tomorrow.

Did they roll you onto the ship? 😉😁 If that had been me, I’d just be waking up now. 😉😁

Thanks!!! That’s very interesting. I like that kind of information.

We had one guy who kept saying “The Windjammer is now open for breakfast!” trying to get those of us in the front to leave. When we saw the fish we told him if he’s so hungry there’s his fish breakfast. 😉😁😂🐟

I did, but wish we hadn’t been so delayed. All that standing is bad for my back. I’ve already had 4 leg cramps due to it.

Same here. It was an exhausting day and I got less than 3,000 steps!

Thank you! Can I share that information when I get around to doing my Panamá Canal video for my YouTube channel?

Missed it due to dessert in Chops. 😉😁😢

Humidity wasn’t too bad considering it was 90 today. We had a few drops, but no downpour. Best weather was going under the Pan American bridge at 8 pm. It was gorgeous outside.

I’ll try to get that for you.

Actually we only had one dead fish. 😉😁😂

To continue… I forgot to give you today’s maps in the first set, so here they are: So after lunch in the Windjammer with Linus and Louise, I went back to the cabin for a nap! After an hour it was 3:15 (our supposed time to hit the 2nd locks, but we were still in the canal making our way there). I went out onto our balcony to shoot some video and caught a train passing by us on its way to Panama City. We passed a big dredger (I think that’s what they said on the speakers - there’s a lot of echo when you’re out on your balcony). Then we passed the Chagras River where it feeds into the canal. Then we were in the Culebra Cut. So many men gave their lives trying to dig this section of the canal. The Centennial Bridge is in the distance. Before we went under the Centennial Bridge we passed Gold Hill. No gold was ever here and a lot of French folks lost a lot of money in the late 1800s buying shares in the canal venture because they were told the hills were full of gold. And here’s below the Centennial Bridge. It was at this point I realized that we had dinner reservations at Chops tonight. Grrr! It would’ve been fine if we had been on time with our original 8:00 a.m. time. So note for you future cruisers - do NOT schedule specialty dining on canal day. You’re going to be hot, sweaty and tired by the time the transit end and the last thing you’ll want to do is get all dressed up for dinner. Just stick with the Windjammer. Having said that, dinner was yummy. Here’s some food porn for you! My apologies but I kept forgetting to take the photos before I started to dig in. First up, Colossal Shrimp Cocktail. Alien baby or an onion roll. Your pick! Wedge Salad Petite Filet with a wine sauce and Gruyère Tater Tots. Then on to dessert. We both had coffee in these cute triangle cups. I had ice cream. Pam had the chocolate cake with berry compote and lemon sorbet. Here’s the MDR menu for tonight: After dinner we went to the Centrum to listen to the house band. Pam’s on the top on deck 7. This is our favorite place to sit since it’s next to our cabin. But again, when we’re in our cabin we can hear everything going on in the Centrum. You can see the casino on deck 6. So we get the smell of smoke in our cabin, too. We had gone through the Pedro Miguel locks during dinner so I was curious where we were at. Here is where we were at 8:38 p.m.: When I saw we were heading for the bridge I went up to Deck 12 to see what there was to see. We saw this cute older couple teaching the young lady on the bottom right some steps on the dance floor. It’s stuff like this that makes me love cruising. Here is today’s Cruise Compass: That about wraps it up for today. Tomorrow is a sea day, so I will be resting. See you then.

Here’s mine after we went under. I’m currently on Deck 7 overlooking the Centrum listening to the band with Pam.

I was up at 5:00 this morning and at the front of the ship around 5:45. We were originally supposed to hit the locks at 8:00, but got bumped to 9:45. We finally started moving towards the canal at 8:55. We were approaching the bridge by 9:10. We started approaching the locks at 10:10. It was slow going this morning. People were 8 deep by now and tempers were running a bit high at this point. And yet as you guys have been posting, we weren’t moving. Since I had a front row seat I can show you exactly what the hold up was. The left side locks were working fine. We had two ships go through the locks before we were even in our first lock. As they were waiting for the water to drain this is what it looked like. Notice the massive amount of water being released on the left side. Now, here’s how our lock looked like as it was draining. Note the small amount of water coming from the gates and that no water was being released on our side the way the left side was. As a matter of fact, there was a group of workers under the right arch. So obviously they were having issues with the pumps to get the water out of the lock in order for us to enter. The lock finally opened at 11:00, a full 3 hours after our original time slot or 1.25 hours after our second time slot. It was now 11:30 and I had been standing at the front for 6 hours. I was hot, tired and hungry so I left. But here’s me just before I left to give you an idea where I was, front and center. Here’s how the people looked during my walk back to the cabin. More to come.

6:27 a.m. crowd. We don’t enter the locks for another 3.25 hours.

Please feel free to add!!!