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Coral Princess Panama Canal Review with Photos

h20skibum

By h20skibum,
in Princess Cruises

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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A couple of questions.

 

Was the Galley Tour free?

What type of camera did you use to get those amazing pictures?

 

I'm looking forward to the next part of your review.

 

Yes, the galley tour was free. They took you there right after the culinary demonstration.

 

I have a Nikon P100 with a 26 zoom lens that I used for most. Some were taken with my iPad. Did some straightening and levels adjustment with photoshop.

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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You found what floating out there?

 

It is our last sea day as we head back from Grand Cayman. Between Cuba and The Bahamas, the Captain spots a yacht that appears adrift off the port side. He makes an announcement that they were going to check to see if anyone needed assistance. After a few blasts on the horn, no one came out on deck of the yacht. The captain must have notified the Coast Guard, since later a plane flew low over the area. The boat was a SeaRay Sundancer 370 with the name "Bullet Proof".

 

We later found out the boat had been stolen from Key West almost a month prior to us spotting it. The boat has now been recovered. Do you think the Captain gets the reward?

 

The Boat adrift

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The stolen report

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Next - Ft. Lauderdale Disembarkation

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Fuzzyape

Fuzzyape

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Thanks for sharing! We really enjoyed our cruise aboard the Island, as a matter of fact your Cruise Director looked like our Assistant Cruise Director, who got promoted after our cruise that ended early March.

 

Great shots, and it was neat to hear about your Grand Cayman trip, as our itinerary did not stop there (LA to Fort Lauderdale).

 

Your pictures and stories reminded me of our trip (I agreed with your assessment of the snorkeling excursion in Aruba. The shipwreck was not a good place for snorkelers. Way to choppy, about 100 people looking in the water trying to see anything, then giving up and heading to the stairs at the front of the boat and waiting as more people were trying to get in the water.

 

I was also impressed that almost all of your shots of the ship had no pictures with people passing through. I never felt crowded, but I don't think I would have had the patience to wait for a clear shot.

 

Thanks again for sharing!

 

Counting down the days.

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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I was also impressed that almost all of your shots of the ship had no pictures with people passing through. I never felt crowded, but I don't think I would have had the patience to wait for a clear shot.

 

Thanks again for sharing!

 

Counting down the days.

 

I am usually up around 5:00, so some of the ship pictures were taken very early. Not many others up then.

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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Ft. Lauderdale Disembarkation

 

The ship arrives in port, and we hate to think of getting off and ending our vacation. Now the next group of lucky passengers get to come aboard for the repositioning to the West Coast for the Alaska tour season. We had signed up for the Princess EZCheck program. As long as your flight is late enough in the day, and it is one of the participating airlines, for $20 they take your bags from your cabin, transfer them to the airport and check them in, and you do not see them again until you get to your final destination. They also print and deliver your boarding passes to you, plus you don't have to drag your bags through customs. It is well worth the price, and we do this whenever we can. It doesn't matter if you booked air with Princess or not. We flew Southwest, and this was one of the participating airlines.

 

Disembarkation was a breeze. We were to report to the Universe Lounge to wait for departure, and they got us off about 15 minutes earlier since they were moving quickly. Cab fare to the airport is a little less than $20. TSA did open one of my bags and left a card inside. It was probably due to the 30 pounds of rum gift packs I had in the suitcase. They had all been wrapped together by the store, and TSA had cut open the packaging to examine each pack. And yes, they all made it back unbroken.

 

Ft. Lauderdale

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Next - Final Thoughts

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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Have loved your review. Questions about Cayman beach trip. Was this a Princess excursion or private? How far was Margaritaville from your beach and how did you get to Margaritaville? Thanks

 

It was a Princess excursion. I think we paid $45 for it which included the transportation, rum punch and lounge chairs. We were on the morning excursion so we would be back in town around lunch time.

 

Margarittaville is about a block from the tender pier.

 

I have not had time to finish my final thoughts portion. Waiting for the cell phone bill so I can comment on it. We did a lot of texts and calls from the ship.

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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Thanks for your review and photos. We are on this trip in the fall and I am starting to pick out excursions. In Aruba, do you recall if it was easy/safe/fast to walk into Oranjestad on your own?

 

Yes, it was all of the above.

 

You will come off Ruizstaat at the pier and walk a block to the Main Street named L. G. Smith Blvd. Across the street from here is an Open Air Market and Bus Terminal. If you turn right, the Royal Plaza Mall is 1/10 mile southeast from the intersection. Another 1/10 mile beyond it is the Renaissance Mall. If you continue another 1/4 mile, you will find Seaport Village Mall & Seaport Marketplace (Starbucks is there if looking for free wifi, but only works inside the store). There is also a casino here.

 

We were there on Easter Sunday, so there was not a lot open and we did not venture much further in the area, but we had no concerns walking around here. Hope you enjoy your trip.

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h20skibum "Live from...." Rare

h20skibum

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Final Thoughts

 

Most of these final thoughts will be random, but some would say that most of my thoughts are random.

 

After coming of the Allure the last cruise, it would be tough to top the entertainment and activities on that ship, but that is not why we are here. We are here for the Panama Canal and one of the largest ships that it can accommodate.

 

Princess has some very talented people onboard. We thoroughly enjoyed the Motor City production with the old Mowtown sounds. The comedian, Scott Wyler was excellent, and we went to see all the shows he did. Alexander Great put on a good illusionist show, and the Beatles tribute singer was entertaining.

 

Activities like 50's and 60's trivia were enjoyable, but maybe we need to add more to our group who know more trivia to score higher.

 

We didn't do any of the port talks or lectures, but spent much of the free time on the ship relaxing by the pool. I had read "The Path Between the Seas" last year, so I probably got more from that book than what you would get from one of the lectures on Panama.

 

Laundry facilities - The laundry facilities were very clean. There were six washers and six dryers on each deck. It cost $2.00 to wash and $2.00 to dry, all in quarters. We brought all the quarters we would need, plus detergent pods and dryer sheets. The coin changer on our deck was broken, so you would have had to go to another deck for change. It takes about 40 minutes to wash and 40 to dry. We used the laundry room a couple times on the cruise, and didn't find it busy when we went.

 

We purchased an internet package with 200 minutes plus the first day bonus of 20 additional minutes. We also had another bonus 15 minutes giving us 235 to work with for the trip. I think we had 4 minutes left when we left the ship. It was, at times, painfully slow. We did the majority of our access through either an iPad or iPhone, and only once went to the Internet Cafe to use the computer there. This was essentially for email, and it is where all of our data usage was. We had used about 600 Mb by the time the trip was over, and didn't send or upload any photos.

 

We also used our cell phone on board this cruise. I know, some people say turn the phone off, you are on vacation, but that was not an option this cruise due to some health issues going on back home. Cell service was okay, but had a little lag. As you got to each port, the ship cell service would be shut off and the local cell service would take over. In some ports, there would be no service for our old iPhone 4. Bottom line, the bill was not as bad as we thought it could have been. For our extra $128 added to our cell bill, we had 21 minutes of calls from the ship, and 106 outgoing texts and 158 incoming texts and no data usage. We had turned off cellular data, notifications, and set email to manual fetch. With those settings, texting and calls worked and we didn't use data which would have really bumped up the bill since we did not have global data.

 

Well, those are the last of my random thoughts. If you have been to the Panama Canal, I hope this brought back good memories. If you are planning on going, I hope it gives you some idea of what it is like and answers questions you may have. The coral is a nice ship for this trip.

 

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With apologies to Dr. Seuss

 

So...

be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,

you're off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your ship is waiting.

So...get on your way!

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Unca Pete

Unca Pete

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Thank you for such a detailed and thoughtful review. We did a ten day partial Panama Canal cruise on the Coral Princess in 2005. It was our first cruise since our honeymoon in 1978! I can't imagine where the time has gone since then, as it seems like it was yesterday. I loved the Coral, and we are anxious to sail on her again this August, when we will be doing a 15 day land and sea Princess vacation... we'll finally be back on the Coral for the final leg of that journey!

 

We did a full Panama Canal 18-day cruise on Holland America--from Ft. Lauderdale to San Diego a few years back. Reading your review brought back a lot of memories! Our cruise stopped at Belize, which is one of the ports that Princess no longer stops at?

 

Thank you again!! BTW, that sloth didn't look too happy in the photo, LOL!

Edited by Unca Pete
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april118

april118

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Thank you for the review. We enjoyed the trip thoroughly as well. Cruise Critic group was fun. I believe we made some life long friends/cruise friends on this trip as well.

 

I'm really glad I read your review as we were on the same excursion as you but didn't know why or how the guy in the dump truck ended up dead, our driver only pointed out he was dead. LOL.

 

Hope to sail with you again someday and thanks for the memories!

 

April & Paul

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