would love input on these western Caribbean ports:

[poss]

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

Colon, Panama

Cartagena, Colombia

Santo Tomas, Guatemala

 

(I'll google, but would love to hear from past cruisers to these places.)

 

Thanks!

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Poss, I'll reiterate and expand on what I said about Santo Tomás in the other thread.

 

We loved this port, although did not get outside of the port area except by boat. There is a pavilion right by the port with merchants selling local wares, so there is much to please an old hippie in terms of items made from Guatemala fabrics, for example.

 

We took a ship's tour that is very similar to a private one frequently mentioned on the Guatemala board: look for references to "go with Gus".

 

We were boated off to the mouth of the Rio Dulce river, boated up the river thru the most fantastic Jurassic park-like landscape, with the local t(relocated) indigenous folk living on and by the river. This culminated in a visit to a school for the children of these folk. All very interesting. Then a return down to the town of Livingston, which is only accessible by boat, and is also fascinating. It's inhabited mainly by Garafuña, who are racial group unique to the Central American Caribbean coast, part former slave and part Indian. We then had lunch at a local hotel, and watched a culture performance. Then were boated back to the dock.

 

At the school there was a bit of fairly stiff walking up a rocky and muddy path, but that's the only strenuous part and you could skip that. Only pain was the fairly lengthy boat ride to the river's mouth and back--tie up your hair or wear a hat with a chin strap!

 

Not sure what O will offer, but there are usually opportunities for sharing private arrangements.

[poss]

Thanks for all the detail, Wendy. That excursion sounds great-- very much the kind of thing we'd enjoy.

But, wow, your mention of opportunities for sharing private arrangements reminds me of that aspect of O that I think we'd really really not like, viz. having to "arrange" tours. I know that O offers excursions, but it seems that many people go off on private ones instead. I just don't think we have the energy for all that arranging and joining up, etc.

I've always been pleased with Regent offerings. I will definitely be interested in seeing what R is doing for that time period, though I'm beginning to suspect that we may stay with our usual winter thing-- going off to one of islands and just snorkeling pretty much all day. I love reading on beaches too, though I can't imagine enjoying that as an "excursion."

I have no interest at all, btw, in places like Cozumel or Costa Maya (or Cayman or Key West). It's the Central America stops that seem most attractive.