trippingpara

I don't think what you're seeing on Google Maps in BL, I think that is RL. If you notice the 4 life boats sitting on both sides aft overhang the sides. On BL, the lifeboats are tucked in to be flush so she can fit in the Panama Canal. If you zoom in on Google Earth, you can clearly see that it is RL as you can zoom in enough to see the name. Both Google Earth and Google Maps are not current satellite photos as they have to be processed and cleaned by Google before they can upload them.

I wonder if it's been chartered. I heard that several of Virgin's cruises over past year or two have been chartered suddenly after it was listed. I did a Google search trying to see if it was available anywhere and every cruise site either says to call them for info or lists it as sold out. Yet, there is a LGBT travel site that is listing the TA to Lisbon as their "Gay Group Cruise". That sounds chartered to me but I've never been on a ship that was chartered, so I'm just speculating. I'm wondering if they are holding it waiting to see how many cabins this group will take and then open it back up once they know.

Time Log: Tuesday, 07 March Willemstad, Curaçao (Cont...) Near the northern tip of the island was our next stop and personally our favorite one. Playa Piskadó, a very small fisherman’s beach and small pier in Sabana Westpunt. The beach and pier by itself are not overly exciting. Both are rather small although the view of the surrounding cliffs and ocean are quite jaw dropping. But it is the turtles that draw everyone here. For years, the local fishermen have used this beach and specifically this small pier to clean their catches dumping the gizzards and fish heads into the water. Over time, this has drawn turtles in and is now a regular place for them to come and hang out looking for scraps. While we were there, a local fisherman sat on the pier and would periodically slam his blunted machete onto the side of the pier. This hammering sound would keep the turtles interested in staying in that area. The water was amazing and there were turtles all over the place! It was not too uncommon to have to keep a watch out for pelicans floating in the water too. If you get too close to them you just might get a friendly little peck in the back of your head! The only downside I could see was the sheer volume of people there. It is a very small beach area and it was hard to swim without running into others (at least right by the pier where the turtles were). Once you got a few meters away from the pier, the crowd thinned out and you could snorkel freely without worrying about running into others. It is absolutely impossible to look cool wearing one of these things! But it works! We were given an hour here and Lady Trip and I maximized every bloody second of that time in the water. The turtles would be swimming all around you and you would often have to do a little dance in the water to avoid touching them (they have a slime coat on them that protects them and by “petting” them, you wipe that protective barrier off of them thereby potentially endangering them). When our hour was up, we reluctantly pulled ourselves out of the water and met back up with Joseph (Jessica, his wife was there too with her two guests). As we got back to the beach, there were several policemen (which are rare to see in Curaçao) and an ambulance on the beach. Although we didn’t actually see who they took away, the word on the beach was that it was an older gentleman from our cruise ship that suffered what appeared to be a heart attack. We never were able to verify if that was true or not, but I do hope that whoever they took away recovered from whatever ailed them. After drying ourselves off the best we could, we loaded back up and drove about 800 meters down the road to Restaurant Playa Forti for some lunch. This place was great. The view was stunning! It sat right on the very edge of a cliff overlooking the cove that we were just snorkeling in. There was even a ledge on the patio for cliff divers to jump into the water below. It looked inviting but the 80+ foot drop was a bit steep for me! The food was incredible. I ordered a Kabritu Stoba (goat stew) with a locally brewed Brasa beer and Lady Trip ordered the Keshi Yena. It was neat to the see the difference in the Keshi Yena that I had ordered in Aruba and what she got in Curaçao. According to Joseph, Aruba makes it wrong! Joseph enjoyed lunch with us and it was fun being able to sit down and relax and see the island through their eyes. Once we were all fat and happy, we climbed back in to the SUV and made our way back south to Willemstad. Throughout the day, Joseph told us a lot of history and interesting details about Curacao and he kept telling us that there would be a quiz before the day was over. He wasn't kidding. There was a test! The first question was: "Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, when did one of his captains, Alonso de Ojeda, discover Curacao?" My answer:..."after 1492." I thought he was going to wreck the car, he was laughing so hard. Needless to say, I got a point. Technically, I was correct! But the answer he was looking for was 1499. Since we did so well on his test, he made an extra stop for us at WilliWood! There's Hollywood, Dollywood and even Bollywood, but only Curacao has Williwood!! As we entered the outskirts of Willemstad, Joseph asked us if we wanted to be dropped off directly at the ship or at Rif Fort right by the famous Koningin Emmabrug (floating bridge) and Handelskade (the colorful waterfront shops). We opted to be dropped off by Rif Fort and explore the entrance to St. Anna Bay a bit before we headed back to the ship (we still had a couple hours before we had to be back). We strolled around the waterfront for a bit snapping pictures and peaking in and out of the local craft carts and shops. But before we knew it, it was time to start heading back to the ship. We were only a few blocks away and was super easy to get back. Once we were back on the ship, we relaxed for a bit, enjoyed the sunset Afterwards, we headed up to the Windjammers for dinner and we closed out the night with a nice evening stroll, some shuffleboard and finally a couple glasses of wine on the balcony watching the stars and moon light up the ocean waves. A pretty bloody nice way to end a wonderful day! Next up: Our final sea days and final thoughts...

Thank you so much for such kind words, I really appreciate it! And you're very welcome for the entertainment!

Time Log: Tuesday, 07 March Willemstad, Curaçao Today was another early day. The Evil Rooster from Hell started squawking around 6 am, joined the Carnies for breakfast at Windjammer at 7:00 and off the boat by 8:00 am. On the docket for today was a private excursion with Gone Caribe. I had heard a ton of great things about this husband/wife duo so I immediately reached out to them to see if they were available. Thankfully, they were (this was about a year in advance as they book up quickly since there are only 2 of them). I elected to do their “Gone Turtles Experience”. They had sent me an email well prior to our course telling us to meet them at the Starbucks in the Renaissance Hotel shopping complex about 2 blocks away from the cruise terminal. It was easy to find and was apparently where all the vendors meet up with their tours. We were the first to arrive but within minutes dozens of our passengers were hanging around waiting. Then it was the awkward, “are you so & so?” from all of the tour guides as they started showing up. Thankfully, I recognized Jessica from their website so a quick wave to her ended that little dance. She warmly greeted us and a couple minutes later, Joseph, her husband, arrived on scene and introduced himself. They were such a cute couple! Jessica was actually taking another group that was there too, so she handed us over to Joseph and off we went! The majority of the day was going to be spent up in the northern side of the island where it is a bit more rural, away from the big city feel of Willemstad. Our first stop was the lookout point overlooking Santa Martha Bay. It was beautiful with its view of Christoffel Mountain in the background. Joseph took his time explaining everything that we were looking at as well as the history of that area. And no, Christoffel Mountain is not a volcano. At certain vantage points, it does look very much like a perfectly formed volcano but as soon as you see it from its profile, you can see that it is a mountain with a thin, long ridgeline. Joseph griped about how many photos people post online of Christoffel Mountain calling it a volcano. So of course, we spent the rest of the day telling Joseph about the photos that we were uploading to Facebook of the amazing volcano that our amazing tour guide Joseph had pointed out to us on Curaçao! He was such a good sport! After taking a ton of photos, we piled back into Joseph’s SUV and headed further north to the Shete Boka National Park which means “Seven Inlets”. The park is named for a stunning series of picturesque coves carved out of the limestone on the northeastern coast. The views are incredible. The surrounding nature is a rather desolate desert like contrasted with the pounding rough surf of the limestone cliffs and coastline. Our first stop was to the Boka Tabla, where huge waves thunder into an underground cavern. You can go down into the cavern but unfortunately, there was a gate blocking the rock stairs down due to excessive algae growth on the rocks making it very dangerous to climb down into the cavern. However, you could still peak down into the cavern and see and hear the waves pounding into the cavern. Wish we could have gone down as that would have been impressive to see up close. Anyways, we then walked along the limestone bluffs above to see a spectacular view of the rugged north coast of Curaçao. At the entrance to this inlet from the parking lot, there is also a pretty cool lizard statue for the kids to take pictures with. Helloooo, you know bloody well that means we had to take some pictures with it too! Ain’t no way kids are gonna have all the fun!! Real lizards are very common around the area too. After a while, we hopped back into the SUV for a quick little jaunt across the park over to Boka Pistol which is rather aptly named. At one point in time, this was a small hole in the rocks above a small sea cave that would explode like a pistol shot whenever waves would pound into the cave below. Over time, the small blowhole has worn down and expanded into just a large curved rock that jutted out over the pounding surf below. As waves race it, they hit the cliff wall and bounce upward slamming into the curved rock, thus bursting outward like an explosion. Next up: Turtle Central!

Anybody know why the Apr 2024 TA from San Juan to Lisbon is not showing up anymore? It can't seriously be sold out this far out, can it?

That's what I hear. Just looks like we'll have to schedule another trip down to the ABC Islands again!!

For once I'm trying to be smart. It's a pretty rare act for me! I had a big scare several years ago diving so I take it very seriously now (not that I didn't before but I'm exceptionally cautious now). I've had to don and clear my mask a few times before under water so I'm well aware that these full face masks are quite a bit different. And not to mention the clearing your sinuses are done quite a bit differently and that's a fairly important thing to do. Not looking to rupture my sinuses! I figured it's best to let some experts teach me the proper way to do it instead of my traditional, "I'll figure it out" approach. I hope your DH's Longhaulers goes away soon. Some of my friends have had theirs slowly fade away over time. I've been praying mine will too but my doctors are telling me to not get too hopeful. I've just sorta accepted that this is my new normal.

I was definitely wishing that I had my diving booties with me. Man, that coral hurt to walk on!!

We were given a small boxed lunch to eat while we were driving around. It was given to us pretty early in the day. We were only given a couple free times on our own; once at a small shopping area (where I posted the photo of the Balboa beer as well as the photos of the skyline across the water) and then at the canal locks. We were given about 45 minutes at the shopping stop and about an hour at the canal locks. I do believe there was some food options at the first stop (where I got the beer) but we didn't grab anything as we weren't hungry at the time.

I definitely would have liked more time in the water too, but we were on a fairly tight schedule in order to be able to see the entire island. Diving in Bonaire is definitely high on my list but I needed to see if I could get back into the water with my Covid Longhaulers. Thankfully, the full masks allow me to breathe even when I involuntarily gasp for air, so I just got the OTS Guardian full face diving mask. Now, I need to go through a refresher course and a quick certification on the full face mask (how to done and clear it under water, how to equalize with it, etc.,) and then I can book my return trip to Bonaire! I did see several of those divers I photographed struggling to get up those rocks too. The ones that got up the easiest I noticed all had reef shoes on instead of the traditional wetsuit booties. I'll need to remember that.

Thank you so much, glad you like it! Please let me know if you have any questions about that excursion or anything else I can assist with. Cheers!

Time Log: Monday, 06 March Kralendijk, Bonaire (Cont...) After grabbing a few pics, we headed down the hillside back into Kralendijk. By this time, we were well off the beaten path and had given up on the written driving directions that Bonaire Cruisers had given us. I knew that the Cruiser’s home base was near the ship and right next to a large soccer stadium so it wasn’t too hard to find. Once we made it back to their main facility, we were able to pick the instructions back up. We now headed down Kaya International (the main street) towards the airport. Once we passed the airport, we were now officially on the south end of the island. This part was easy as you could just stay on this road and it looped you all the way around the southern end and right back into Kralendijk again. But this is us we’re talking about so of course, we had to turn off of the main strip a few blocks south of the airport to go see the famous Donkey Sanctuary. Donkeys roam wild in Bonaire but many of them get hurt by cars or become a serious nuisance to residents and they must be taken away. Thankfully, due to this sanctuary, those injured or nuisance donkeys have a place to go and have a healthy, donkey-like life. There are over 800 donkeys in this massive facility. You pull your vehicle in and purchase tickets at the visitor’s center. A staff member will then walk out with you and raise the gate for you to drive in. It’s a self-guided tour where you slowly (key word is slowly) drive through the park. Many donkeys will come up to you to be petted. Don’t put your hands near their mouth as they can bite and please do not feed them! They are well taken care of there. It was very interesting and we spent about 40 minutes driving through the park and stopping occasionally to pet and photograph the gentle creatures. (Look Ma, I'm King of the Mountain!) I found Eeyore!! Road block! Thankfully, having a golf cart made it a bit easier to maneuver around these occasional road blocks. You can visit the Donkey Sanctuary at either the beginning or end of the southern loop since it’s located on a road that cuts across connecting both ends of the loop. But it is better marked from the western end of the loop versus the eastern end. So, we did it at the beginning of the loop. As we pulled out, we doubled back to where we started just south of the airport and got back onto Kaya International. You had to drive through a good amount of urban buildup before you were outside of the town into beach and salt country. But soon enough, you had beautiful vistas of the ocean to your right and salt flats to your left. It was amazing to see the pink water where the pink salt was next to the blue water of the white salt. There was a ton of foam pulled up on the edges. At first we thought it was salt but then we noticed that it was moving. As the wind blows across the shallow water, it rubs on the salt at the bottom creating foam. As we passed the giant salt pier (where they dump the processed salt into the holds of cargo ships), we got lucky and were able to see them processing the salt from a drained pan. It was really neat to see it. They move it around just like one would process top soil. The salt flats take up almost the entire southern end of the island so it is a pretty constant view off to your left. Not too far past the salt pier, you will come across several very small bright white huts built right on the beach. Unfortunately, these were old slave huts for the Dutch to help process the salt in the 1800s. Its hard to believe that two men would sleep in those huts together and store their salt mining gear with them (pick axes, shovels, etc.). These huts were just for sleeping as the slaves would work throughout the day. (This gives you an idea of how small these huts are) A little further down the road after the kiteboarding beach, you will come across more identical huts but are yellow instead. There were also red and blue huts as well but only the white and yellow huts have been maintained for historical and educational purposes. The color of the huts designated which salt pan you were assigned to. (There was a lone flamingo hanging out in one of the last salt flats) You will also see a large obelisk next to the yellow huts. This tall monument served as a beacon for ships telling them where to anchor to filled up with the correct type of salt they had purchased. Salt was a highly sought after mineral in the early sailing years. As you rounded the southern tip of Bonaire, you come across the ruins of an old stone house and the tall Willemstoren lighthouse. Once you pass the lighthouse, you are now on the eastern side of the southern tip and are now heading north back towards Kralendijk. There is not as much to see on this part of the drive and you will notice that the seas are much rougher over here as this is the windward part of the island. As the southern loop ends you now have a choice, you can either head northwest to the Donkey Sanctuary and then back to the western start of the loop near the airport, or stay north through the mangroves and Sorobon Beach and Lac Cai Beach. We opted to continue north to see the mangroves. Unfortunately, the water levels were very low so not as many flamingos were out, but we did see some, just not the huge flocks we were hoping for. The drive from there back to the ship was pretty easy as the road takes you within a few blocks of the ship which dominates the skyline and before you know it, the stadium appears to your left. A couple turns and Bob’s your uncle as they say. Returning the golf cart was super easy. A member of their team will tell you where to park and then you go back to the counter to get your deposit back. Easy peasy. We walked back to the ship and I opted to do some quick shopping for our requisite shot glass and some Cubano cigars. We were pretty beat after this long day of touring, so we headed back to the ship, ate a quick dinner at the Windjammers and called it a night. Not exactly, the wild partiers of our earlier years! Next up: Curacao

Time Log: Monday, 06 March Kralendijk, Bonaire Ahhh, there we go. The soothing sounds of Mr. Evil Rooster from Hell cawing away waaaay too early in the morning! Lady Trip and I jumped out of bed, did our morning routine, ran down for some breakfast at the Windjammer and then met the Carnies to get off the boat. Today’s adventure: renting a golf cart and exploring the island on our own. It’s important to note here that the Carnies openly admit that they get lost in a wet paper bag so it was up to me to navigate everyone around the island. No worries! It’s an island for crying out loud. Just drive in a big circle and BAM!, you’ve made it back to your starting point! Okay, so it’s not that easy, but that’s what an adventure is for! The first test of one’s navigation skills was being able to find the golf carts! Bonaire Cruisers has a tent right at the end of the vendor tents that are lined up right as you get off the ship. But that is only to verify if you have a reservation or not and to provide some basic information for those that do not have one. The lady working the booth gave me some basic directions on how to walk over to where the carts are actually located. Turns out, they were about ¼ mile away which isn’t really far at all but it was much further than we expected with a few turns and several busy roads to cross. We did find their place pretty easily enough, and quickly checked in, signed the appropriate documents, gave our first born child and off we were! The golf carts were in really good shape and within a couple minutes, you had the controls and handling down. The only potential problem for some peeps is the fact that you are driving on the same roads that all of the cars, trucks, semi’s, etc., are driving on…in a golf cart! Needless to say, as long as you were courteous and pulled over to let traffic pass you, it was no problem at all. Some of the roads that we encountered were pretty narrow so pulling over involved pulling off the road entirely while some roads actually had pull-offs every mile or so. We pulled out of their garage and started to make our way north through the city. Eventually, we made our way out of Kralendijk and into the rural north end of the island. Lady Trip being...well, Lady Trip! After a couple quick minor stops for photos, our first real stop was at the famous 1,000 Steps for some snorkeling. Thankfully, there were not 1,000 steps down to the water, but there was a fairly large staircase down to the rocky beach and it was a bit janky since it was made out of natural stones so you had to be careful climbing up or down the stairs. Being a scuba diver and knowing how much all of that equipment weighs, I was pretty impressed watching several divers climb up those stairs carrying all of their gear. Speaking of diving, well, snorkeling actually, this was my first time in open water since I got Covid a couple years ago. Unfortunately, I have Longhaulers Covid which means I continue to experience a variety of issues and one of them is I can sometimes struggle to breath which causes me to essentially yawn forcing me to take in a large amount of air. An involuntary yawn is not very good for divers or snorkelers. You tend to want to keep a respirator in your mouth while your face is in the water! So I purchased one of those full face masks to see if that would help with my issues. Holy snickey, it worked!! Once I got the mask fitted properly, it worked like a charm. The only issue I ran into was when I would look down back towards my feet, the “chin” of my mask would hit my chest and would break the seal at the top of forehead letting some water in. When you’re wearing a standard dive mask, looking downward like that is not an issue but with a full-face mask it is. Okay, note to self, stop looking that far downward. There, issue fixed! The snorkeling there was pretty good, but Lady Carnie did run into some jellyfish and unfortunately got stung. Twice. She was in some pain for a bit but thankfully, the pain went away after about an hour. They weren’t very big so the sting was not too powerful, but please be careful if you plan on snorkeling in these waters. We spent about an hour here before we headed back on the road. A little bit further down the road, we came across an old abandoned aloe factory called Landuis Karpata. Lady Trip and I love to explore abandoned properties so I automatically pulled over into the small parking lot (everyone else in the parking lot were divers preparing their gear for a nearby dive spot) so we had the place to ourselves. We spent about 15 minutes exploring the area before heading back out on the road. Even their garbage cans are cute on Bonaire! Our next stop was Lake Goto or Goto Meer in Dutch. We pulled over into a lookout point overlooking Goto Zout-en Flamingomeer (nature preserve at Goto Lake). It was quite a beautiful area. We could see flamingos but they were quite a distance from us. Those pink dots out there are flamingos. Goofing around at the overlook site. From here we headed deeper into the nature preserve and was able to drive right along with water’s edge (please do NOT go into the water here!). We did eventually get to make our way closer to the flamingos. The road now started to turn east towards Rincón, the other town on Bonaire. As we entered the town, I caught sight of the sign “Cadushy Distillery.” You had me at ‘distillery’! I slammed on the brakes (as much as one can “slam” on a golf cart’s brakes) and pulled over to the side of the road. I don’t even think the golf cart had stopped moving before I was off and running! It was a really neat little place with free samples and some outstanding drinks! I ended up buying a bottle of their single barrel aged whiskey which was soooo smooth! We didn’t spend too much time here (a little over 30 minutes) as there was still a lot to see. I was so excited that I didn't even take a single photograph here! Thankfully, Lady Trip had my back and she took a couple. They made a wide range of spirits here ranging from rum, vodka and whiskey to an array of liqueurs for each island of the Dutch Caribbean islands and one for the Kingdom of The Netherlands. We jumped back into the golf carts and started to head south back towards Kralendijk to start the southern loop of the island. It was a pretty decent drive across the northeastern side of the island seeing plenty of wild donkeys and tons of little lizards. As we started to near the outskirts of Kralendijk, we turned off and started to climb into the hills surrounding the town. We were searching for Seru Largu (means “large hill”), a monument built by members of the Catholic Church to commemorate the turn of the century in 2000. We had a pretty impressive view of Bonaire from here and could even see the salt piles at the southern tip of the island. As you can see, we eventually found it! I think I'm going to break this port call up into two posts, so I will stop here. Next up the southern loop of Bonaire! A donkey sanctuary, former slave huts and more!

That looks right up our alley!!

Time Log: Sunday, 05 March Oranjestad, Aruba As I slowly opened my eyes, I glanced around the darkened room. I could see light creeping in around the blackout curtain on the balcony. That kooky thing called the Sun was clearly out and about strutting her stuff. I gently rolled over to see Lady Trip still sleeping next to me. She was starting to stir slightly but the grip of sleep still held her. I pressed the light button on my watch. 0900 (that’s 9:00 am for you civilians out there). Hmm…why didn’t the Evil Rooster from Hell start squawking at me yet? Did I accidentally murder the poor guy in my sleep? I know that I can sometimes be bad and smack the little guy around when he starts cawing in the morning. But I never meant to hurt him. Panic started to rise in my lone brain cell. Please God let him be okay… I rolled back over to face the little bedside table and gently lifted Mr. Rooster up and to my relief he brightly came to life. Whew! But why didn’t he wake me up? Is he mad at me? As I was trying to get my sleepy fingers to work my way to my alarm app, it slowly dawned on me that today was Aruba day. And a very late docking. There was no need for a rude alarm wake up. We were on vacation and entitled to a little extra sleep for once. Hmm…imagine that! This was something that both CarnieAddict and I missed when we booked this cruise. We would not arrive into Aruba until evening time. Okay, who does that?? Why tease us with the beauty of Aruba but only let us out to explore in the evening…on a Sunday! When most businesses were closed! That’s just rude!! CarnieAddict and I are the trip planners in our family. Our wives, God bless their souls, are the kind of travelers that just like to show up and be told where and when to do things. Mr. Carnie and I are the complete opposite. We’re pretty fanatical planners and researchers so we were pretty dumbfounded that we both missed this little fact about our itinerary. Well, there wasn’t much we could do about it now. As I now sat on the edge of the bed mindlessly caressing Mr. Evil Rooster and trying to contemplate the mystery of our late arrival and how we missed our late arrival time, Lady Trip stretched and declared that she too, was now awake. She is such a beautiful soul and doesn’t carry any of the complex baggage that goes around in my head. She gently rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, looked over at me and said, “what’s crack-a-lackin babycakes?” I ask myself daily how did I get so lucky?! I decided to give up on the mysteries that were plaquing me and opted to just live in the moment and forgo the nonsense rattling around my brain cell. We quickly did our morning routine and headed up to the Windjammer for breakfast. We definitely preferred the ease and quickness of the buffet for breakfast. We had seen quite a few reviews stating that the Windjammer was not set up well and often got crowded and difficult to get around. Yes, it could get crowded during the prime meal time but I never found it difficult to move around or to quickly get my choice of food. Finding a table during the main rush was sometimes tricky (we always found one, it just sometimes took some hunting around). But my only real compliant about the layout was those bloody plant stands and glass half wall that separated the buffet stations and a row of tables along both the port and starboard side. There were about 15 tables, mostly 2 person tables that were in this area and the plant stands and glass wall forced you to walk all the way past the buffet station and cut through some other tables to be able to enter this row. I wished that the glass half wall wasn’t there, just the plant stands that would enable you to just cut in-between them to get from the tables to the buffet and vice versa. At the end of the day, it was just an annoyance, not a real problem. After breakfast we went down to our room and changed into our bathing suits. It was time to hit the pool. One of the things that I really liked about the Vision was its large pool. It was one of the biggest that I have seen on our cruises. Of course, it is nowhere even remotely close to what will be on the Icon but it was very large for such a small ship. We played around for quite a while in the pool and enjoying watching the morning session of Zumba lead by Mey (“hey Mey!”), the cruise director. Once we became identical twins to prunes, we decided to climb out, head back to our cabin, clean up and meet the Carnies for lunch in the Windjammer. We spent the afternoon sitting in the Windjammer enjoying each other’s company and ended up closing the joint down. That’s a first for us! We then went back to our cabin to change into our evening clothes for our sunset cruise in Aruba. Once again we opted to take one of the ship’s excursion (there weren’t too many to pick from since it was an evening only port call. We had to meet again in the Masquerade Theater and were pretty quickly processed and let off the ship, to wait for our tour guide. And we waited…and waited…the crowd started to get pretty angry especially as other excursion groups left one by one, even those that left the ship after us. I have no idea what this excursion was, but it did look fun! Eventually our tour guide said “let’s go!” and we walked over to our boat that was docked about a block away. It very quickly became apparent that the boat tour was oversold. We stood in line waiting to board watching all of the seats be taken. We were able to find the last 4 seats together and were right under the captain’s helm station with obstructed views. Not the best place. But at least we had seats quite a few couples and groups did not have any seats. There was a lot of grumbling going on amongst the passengers as we felt like we were crammed onboard. However, once we pulled away from the dock and were able to raise the sails, they opened up the front of the catamaran which spread the crowd out a bit. It was still quite crowded but at least everyone had some elbow room to move around. As soon as the free bar opened, the grumbling completely ceased. Free booze does tend to do that to an angry mob! Yep, I had to take a Coast Guard photo! One of my favorite things, putting that throttle down! The boat did a couple lazy oval tracks just offshore as the sun set about an hour later. Once the sun had dropped below the horizon, we turned and made our way back to the dock. Overall, the excursion was about 2 hours long and everyone made the best of it. Some peeps just sat around and enjoyed the ride while others mixed and mingled and enjoyed the party atmosphere. I think next time, we’ll go on the ketch sailboat that was docked next to us, (Monforte) as it was bigger with less passengers onboard. When we made it back to the dock, Lady Trip and I headed into town to see if we could find a nice place to grab a late dinner and to try and find our requisite shot glass (we have one from every place we vacation). After a few blocks, we were able to find SharQy’s which looked to be a laid-back island beach style of bar/restaurant. In other words, just our kind of place! We both opted to try some local food (another thing we always try to do and really miss from Carnival – their MDR always has a couple local dishes on the menu from that day’s port). I had the Keshi Yena with a Balashi beer and Lady Trip had the Dushi dushi Pika quesadilla with a Balashi Mango beer. It was all quite delicious!! We then made our way to a couple shops, got our shot glass and headed back to the ship to call it a night. Please note all photos with the exception of the first 3 were taken with my phone so I do apologize for the graininess (noise) of the photos. Next up: Bonaire!!

Thank you very much, I appreciate it!

You are very welcome. Don't hesitate to ask any questions that you may have. This is a great itinerary, you'll love it!

Thank you so much! I'll have some more coming up soon.

Time Log: Saturday, 04 March Cartagena, Colombia (Cont)... Before we knew it, it was time to load back up into the SUV and head over to the walled city to walk around and explore. Although we were very close by, it still took us some time to make our way through the traffic. As we made our way into the old city center, we parked the SUV at Las Bóvedas, a former dungeon that now housed souvenir shops as well as the HQ for our tour company. The owner came out and introduced himself and then presented us with some small gifts as a token of their appreciation for using them. It was very touching and he was such a nice older man (in fact, everyone that we dealt with at this tour company (Sion Tours) was very nice and helpful. We spent a couple minutes in the stores there (our guide took us into one of the jewelry stores to show us raw emeralds (one of the natural resources of Colombia and one of the things they are famous for) and showed us how the store turns those raw emeralds into jewels. Of course, you could then buy jewels while we were there but we were never pressured to buy anything. From this point on, we were now on foot strolling through the narrow (and busy!) streets of the old city. We walked along the famous Hotel Santa Clara, past Plaza de San Diego and stopped in Plaza Fernández Madrid to show us some plants and birds that are only found in Cartagena. We then moved on again making our way through the crowded streets to famous Monumento Torre del Reloj in Plaza del Reloj. It is a 19th-century gate and clocktower where slaves used to be bought and sold and is the main city gate of the centro historico part of Cartagena. I had heard a ton of stories and warnings from people about being hassled and harassed by roadside vendors. I had a couple people walk up to me and a simple smile and shaking of my head sufficed. In fact the vast majority of the people that tried to sell us stuff was at the convent, not in the old walled city. There were a lot of vendors with their wares out on display but very few of them said anything to you other than a wave of their hand towards their products. After Plaza del Reloj, we headed west to Plaza de Bolivar. This was a wonderful little plaza surrounded by some beautiful buildings and it was filled with families and locals just enjoying the nice day. There were also several local artists sitting around painting and drawing. We then made our way south to the Plaza de la Aduana with a statue of Christopher Columbus stands. It was a beautiful large square but there are concrete vents over the sewage system and raw sewage could be smelled. It was only as you walked into the square but wow, it was an eye opener! Our final stop was the nearby Santuario de San Pedro Claver, a 1580s church and museum. Our SUV was parked near the Museo Naval del Caribe and we climbed in for some much-needed A/C! We came across a large group setting up for a wedding. This had to be one seriously expensive wedding! Complete with fully equipped stage, chandeliers, mobile dance lights and it was next to the premier church in Cartagena. They then drove us back to the entrance to Port Oasis Ecopark which was the gateway to the Puerto de Cartagena. We took our time to enjoy the park/zoo again before heading back to the ship and a nice cool shower. Man, it was a hot one today!!! After cleaning ourselves up, we headed off to meet the Carnies for dinner at Giovanni’s Table, the Italian specialty restaurant. For some reason, we all got a bit confused by the menu and ordering process, but the service and food was excellent. And our waiter was Mario from the Chef’s Table. Of course, he remembered us (we’re a bit hard to forget!) A good time was had by all, including Mario. When we finished our dinner, we headed over to the Masquerade Theater to see Gary Lovini, a violinist that plays some of the latest hits as well as some oldies on the violin. He played along with the house band. I’m not really into violins (my two sisters growing up sorta ruined that instrument for me!!), but he was very entertaining. We capped off the evening with a couple glasses of vino out on our balcony. A perfect way to end an evening! (Notice the giant table that took up our balcony...I've sat at restaurants with smaller tables before!) Next up: Aruba!

Time Log: Saturday, 04 March Cartagena, Colombia (Cont.) It was really cool being able to see “The Jewel of the Indies” from such a vantage point. But we had a lot more to see so it was time to head out. We made our way through the throng of knick-knack vendors trying to sell us everything from hats and sunglasses to mojitos (that was a first!) and jumped back into the SUV and headed down the hillside to Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, the old fort overlooking the walled city. It was starting to get pretty hot by now and we gawked at the steep climb up the ramp into the fort. Thankfully, our guide immediately threw open a cooler full of ice cold water and started handing them out to us. The climb up the impressively long ramp was really not that bad at all. You were really too busy looking at the fort itself or the view of the walled city as you climbed up to really notice it. Once you reached the top you were immediately rewarded with a strong (and thankfully, cool) breeze. Once you were at the top of the fort, you had a commanding view of the old walled city of Cartagena and the surrounding waterfront. The fortress was built in 1536 and was involved in several battles in 1697, 1741, 1763 and finally in 1815. Much of the fort is inaccessible due to poor preservation (which is slowly changing since it was first listed as a UNESCO site along with the historic walled city nearby. Only a couple tunnels are open but they are well worth the visit. It was neat to see how they built in hiding spots for sentries to stand and guard the tunnels and how the tunnels were all angled so invaders were exposed as they approached inside. Much of the fortress walls were made from coral pulled directly from the surrounding waters. You can see how the tunnel was sloped upwards so the defenders at the top of the stairs could see (and shoot) the invaders before they were spotted. Next up: A walking tour of the old walled city of Cartagena...

Thank you Nancy!

LOL, thank you. There were incredibly destructive little buggers. In the few minutes that we stood there watching them, they tore a good chunk away. Those beaks can do some damage!

Time Log: Saturday, 04 March Cartagena, Colombia “How ‘bout them Hogs….RIGHT! Ooh-wah ooh Ooh-wah ooh” Wow, okay, so changing my alarm clock from Rawhide to Jock-O-Rama by the Dead Kennedys may not have been the wisest move I made last night. It starts off so soft and melodic allowing you to blissfully and slowly wake up…and then WHAM! The song takes off and you find yourself thrashing around tangled up in all the bedsheets. Not an ideal way to wake up! Eventually I untangled myself, pleaded for forgiveness from a highly annoyed Lady Trip and proceeded to go through my normal morning routine. I was excited and apprehensive at the same time about this port. It was my first time in Colombia and I must admit I don’t really know much about the country aside from what I hear on the news (mostly about cocaine being produced there) and from the Netflix series, El Chapo and Narcos which were excellent series by the way. I never said I was the smartest bloke in the world, but I am well aware that there is a whole lot more to Colombia than cocaine. While driving around yesterday in Panama City, I had received an email from our tour guide for today telling us where and when to meet them. I had found this tour (“Private City Tour of Cartagena”) on TripAdvisor and booked it for the four of us. After grabbing breakfast, we headed down to Deck 1 to exit the ship. We pinged ourselves off and headed towards the cruise terminal. And right where they said they would be was a young gentleman holding up a sign with our names on it. He escorted us through the terminal and then through a wonderful little zoo-like area where we saw sloths, giant anteaters, warthogs, toucans, a ton of parrots and flamingos as well as peacocks strutting around. Right outside the little zoo/park, was our driver and guide. We hopped into their SUV and headed off. Our first stop was the hilltop site of La Popa Convent. It is a convent located in a very tall hill with a commanding view of the city. We spent some time wandering around the convent at both the beauty inside as well as outside. I'm going to break this port up into two posts due to the volume of photos. Next up: Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas

Time Log: Friday, 03 March Colon, Panama “Let’s move ‘em out! 1…2…3…4….! Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’” I slowly opened one eye and then the other. As I slowly came to my senses and realized that I was not in the wild west on a cattle ride but on a ship wallowing in the swells and that cowboy ride along song was coming from the Evil Rooster from Hell on the table next to me. So, I did what any red-blooded American would do and pounded it into submission. That solved that problem. Now, for the next problem…where the bloody hell am I? A quick peek out the balcony solved that problem for me…Colon, Panama! When researching this port, I found out two things: (1) there is not much to do in Colon and it appears to be fairly dangerous to go outside the cruise port and explore things on your own, and (2) there are a lot of let’s say, less than trustworthy vendors out there and it is recommended to stick with cruise excursions. Personally, I try very hard to avoid ship excursions. We have run into problems before with individuals who do not think that time limits at stops apply to them and have ended having to lose out on sites to see because they took too long at certain stops. And I don’t like being herded around like cattle. I think that has to do with my days in the Marine Corps where you are herded around in actual cattle cars. Granted, not all ship excursions are like this and there are many, many people out there that only do ship excursions and are very happy with them. If you are one of them, good for you. I’m glad that you enjoy them. But this was one of those situations where we thought it was best to go with the flow and take a ship excursion. We selected the Panama City Tour with Canal Locks. We had received our tour tickets on the first night of the cruise with instructions to meet in the Masquerade Theater about a half hour before we were expected to dock. The theater was packed!! And of course, our tour looked to be the largest of them all. I believed it ended up being 11 buses for our tour. Oh Lord help me!! We were released row by row and escorted off the ship to a huge row of buses. We were on bus #10 and were the first ones on so we grabbed the front row. The boarding process was actually fairly quick, so before not too long, we were pulling out and heading down the road. Our tour guide grabbed a microphone and started telling us all about Panama as we drove south towards the Pacific side of Panama (yes, Colon is on the Atlantic Ocean while Panama City is on the Pacific Ocean – so we got to see both the Atlantic and the Pacific in one day!). The scenery going down to Panama City was pretty standard highway views. Essentially not much of anything. It took us a little under an hour before we were driving into the metropolis of Panama City. After weaving our way through traffic for a bit, the bus pulled over and we got out. As a large group we started to explore the city. We stopped in churches, city parks and even a roadside crafts fair. All was fun and games until our guide disappeared on over half of the group while we were visiting a church. For over 20 minutes we stood around trying to figure out what to do when one of our group finally found him a couple blocks away. I have no bloody idea how he did not figure out that he was short 25 to 30 people!! The tour guide was not too pleased when he was asking for good reviews and a tip when a bunch of people asked “for losing half of your group?” I don't know about you, but having a bunch of vultures stare at you is just down right creepy! Any ways, after touring parts of Panama City, we loaded back up into the bus (which by the way, was the world’s most uncomfortable bus!! – the seats were soft with springs stabbing you in the behind and had next to no leg room at all. I’ve sat in discount airline seats that had more room), and headed out to the new Agua Clara locks. These are the newer (and larger) set of locks in the Panama Canal built to handle the newer line of mega container ships. There are still a group of container ships that still cannot fit through the canal and have to go the long way around South America adding weeks on to their trip and thousands of dollars in additional fuel and labor costs. It was neat to see the locks operate but there wasn’t much to do but watch the ships sit there while the locks exchanged water to move the ship up or down depending on which way it was going. Sorta like watching paint dry. Not too exciting, but it was interesting none the less to experience at least once. There was a brief movie you could watch about how the Panama Canal came to be. Again, interesting but nothing major. We then loaded back up and headed back to Colon and our ship. When we returned back to our ship, we changed and headed over to Windjammers for dinner. As I stated earlier, we were all done dealing with the MDR fiasco. The food at the Windjammer was pretty good. Some nights were better than others, but it is a buffet so one should not be expecting 5-star Michelin food. The staff working the buffet were always very nice and were more than happy to go and fetch food and drinks for you, which I was pleasantly surprised about. I thought they were only to clean up the tables, but they regularly came around asking if they could get you anything. We walked around the ship for a while to walk off our dinner. We started on Deck 10 on the track but it was really windy up there so we headed back down to Deck 5 where there was a nice promenade outside the ship (except for the bow, the walkway ended on both the port and starboard side at the bow so you had to cut through right outside the Masquerade Theater to get to the other side of the ship to continue walking. That was about it for the night. Next up: Cartagena, Colombia