LIVE from the Coral Princess, RT Panama, Nov 19-Dec 1, 2014

[PotatoBug]

Looking forward to meeting you on Friday, Rick! My wife and I are SO excited!

 

If you're still reading onboard, we missed you at the M&G today. Our cabin is listed just above so feel free to give us a call if you'd like.

[chamima]

As I posted above, the first sea day is a formal night. We do not have anything planned in Cartagena. In the Canal we're doing the full transit by smaller boat, and in Costa Rica we're doing private excursions (canal cruise and zipline in Costa Rica with Your Lucky Tour, SNUBA in Grand Cayman).

 

What sort of daily activities are you interested in? I plan to scan and post the Patters when I get home.

 

Rick

In Cartegna there's a good Hop On Hop Off bus you can take to see most of the sites.

There's a cool fort and a beautiful old city.

Wait - I just realized that I think that's where we met you originally, isn't it?

Have fun!

[PotatoBug]

Day 1 cont.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that Princess@Sea is active on this cruise. All you have to do is attach to the ship's wifi; the first time you create a new account (which is separate from your Internet account), after that you login with the the account you created the first time. You can see the daily activities, dining choices, your account, the itinerary, send an e-card, etc. by connecting a browser to coral.princess.com. As far as I know the mobile app is not available yet.

 

We lost track of time and barely made it to Afternoon Tea in time, and we were the last people to finish and leave. We love Afternoon Tea – particularly the scones and clotted cream. It is being offered every day of this cruise; I thought it was only held on sea days.

 

On our way back to the cabin we noticed that there was another cruise ship off the aft port side. We got out the binoculars and it was the Norwegian Pearl. Between 5 and 6 they caught up to and passed us. I'm not sure where they're off to in such a hurry, but at the time we were still off the north coast of Cuba still heading mostly eastward.

 

Since we didn't bring formal clothes we had dinner in the buffet right around the same time as the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party and Champagne Waterfall. The buffet was practically empty so we were able to easily snag a window seat, although it was dark so there really was nothing to see. While looking over the dessert options I noticed that there was a capaccino machine on the starboard side of the dessert area. My wife happily got a latte with from there without waiting in any kind of line.

 

We planned to attend the show “Dance” in the Princess Theatre and arrived at the theatre about 20 minutes early only to find it was already packed. We gave up on that and returned to our cabin for a short rest and then back out to Explorers Lounge for the Majority Rules game show. The game was fun, taking over an hour but, as usual, we were close but not quite good enough to win.

 

We had planned to just return to our room after the game but it was close to the time for Zach Winningham's show in the Universe Lounge so we thought we'd see how full it was. To our surprise the place was practically empty so we grabbed some front row seats. Zach does a a show composed of covers of songs from the 60s and 70s, even though he's only in his early 30s. We enjoyed his short show; he'll be doing a bigger show in the Princess Theatre on Monday night.

 

By the time Zach's show was over it was after 11 and we were beat so it was bedtime.

[PotatoBug]

Rick

In Cartegna there's a good Hop On Hop Off bus you can take to see most of the sites.

There's a cool fort and a beautiful old city.

Wait - I just realized that I think that's where we met you originally, isn't it?

Have fun!

 

Thanks yet again Karen! We'll look into that bus.

 

No, we met on the Southern Caribbean on the Ruby. We did an excursion with you and ... I forget the names ... on Dominica. Remember how we got back to town just in time for their Carnvale parade? This is our first time in Cartagena - a new continent for me. :)

[PotatoBug]

Sorry about the lack of an update yesterday. By the time we returned to our cabin is was just too late.

 

Day 2 – At Sea

The say started much better than the previous, if only because I got a full night's sleep. We woke too late to have breakfast in the dining room, and decided to just grab a bite in the International Cafe before going to the port lecture about the Panama Canal. We came across the CD getting a coffee at the IC so I was able to pump him for some answers to the Scavenger Hunt questions. Then time slipped away from us somehow and before we knew it we were late for the lecture in the Princess Theatre. We got there and there were no obvious, or easy to get to anyway, seats so we stood at the back of the theatre with several other late-arrivers.

 

After the lecture we checked out the Holiday Sale in Bordeaux and my wife picked up a couple of things. After dropping off the purchases in our cabin we met a couple from our roll call, Ellen and Ken, to eat at the Crab Shack. The meal started with an appetizer of hush puppies and “popcorn shrimp”; I'm not a big fan of hush puppies but these were fine. But I would never call what they served popcorn shrimp; they were larger than I would expect, and not very breaded. They were tasty all the same :)

 

Three of the four of us (I was the oddball) had the mixed combo-thingee (shrimp, king crab, snow crab, mussels, clams; it usually comes with kielbasa sausage but they all requested to not get that). I got the king crab and peel-and-eat shrimp. The king crab legs were cut in two so they were easy-peasy to eat. The snow crab required the use of “crackers”.

 

For dessert there was a choice of chocolate cake or blueberry roulade (I think). My wife and I got one of each and shared.

 

I liked the Crab Shack (cover charge of $20) but I'd prefer it for dinner rather than lunch; it's a lot more food to eat than I'm used to for my midday meal. We took a walk around the Promenade deck, and there was a lot of splash from the sea and my glasses ended up pretty coated with salt water (which evaporated and just left salt); later in the day I wondered why I couldn't see very well :)

 

The afternoon was pretty relaxed. Trivia, which seemed extra hard to me, but one team scored 15 out of 20 so …

 

We spent time in our cabin on the balcony, and on the aft viewing deck. I was reading on the balcony and my eyes wouldn't stay open so I thought I'd just lay on the bed for a minute or two. Half an hour later my wife was waking me up because we were meeting a couple from our roll call to go to the early show of “On The Bayou”. We got there early enough to get seats in the second row from the stage and we absolutely loved the show! Highly recommended, and I hope they show it again this cruise.

 

After the show we went straight to the Bordeaux dining room for dinner. Again we were seated at a table for 10. I decided to get a little adventurous and got the lamb, which I never have at home.

 

We excused ourselves from the table a little early in order to get up to MUTS for “The Edge of Tomorrow”, a movie I had seen in the theatre but my wife had not. The MUTS screen is badly in need of maintenance; there are dozens (maybe hundreds) of bad pixels on it. That's the only complaint I have about the ship; otherwise she's in excellent shape. They are constantly maintaining it; our balcony rail could use a little TLC but I noticed signs on the balconies of the deck below us that they had just been varnished so I'm sure our turn is coming up soon.

[PotatoBug]

Day 3 – Aruba

Finally, our first port. Since we were in Aruba on a Sunday things were a little different. The downtown shops opened later and closed earlier, and many excursion operators were not running at all. I had done prior research online and booked a 3 hour catamaran sail-and-snorkel with Delphi Water Sports for the afternoon.

 

But first we had some business to attend to: one of our suitcases was old and creaky, and pretty much fell apart by the time it was delivered to our room on embarkation day. So our morning was devoted to shopping, and buying a new suitcase.

 

After a quick breakfast in the buffet we disembarked and took the shuttle from our ship to the main port area. There were two other ships in port, the Norwegian Pearl (the ship that had passed us a couple of evenings prior) and the Island Princess; I wonder just how often the Island and Coral are in the same port at the same time. I wouldn't expect it to happen more than once or twice a year. Because the other two ships were at the main port we were further away and you had the choice of walking 10 to 15 minutes or taking a free shuttle.

 

The Shopping Host gave us advice on a couple of shops to look in for luggage and we found a replacement piece. My wife also bought a ring and a pair of earrings, and I got a couple of shirts. She kept shopping while I took everything back to our cabin.

 

I met her at the bus terminal and we attempted to board the L10 to take us to Palm Beach for our excursion … except the bus filled up and we were third and fourth in line to get one when the driver closed the doors and drove off. Since it was Sunday the bus schedule was severely reduced. Reduced, in fact, far more than listed on their website. The L10A and L10B were only running once an hour each, so we gave up and grabbed a taxi to the beach.

 

We got to the Hyatt Regency, where Delphi Water Sports has their base of operations, an hour before our excursion so we took the extra time to take pictures and refresh our sunscreen. They used a dingy-type boat to shuttle us to the catamaran. There were about 40 of us on board but it never felt crowded. We did find a group of Canadians on the boat with us and had fun chatting with them. The boat had an open bar and people were taking advantage of it ;)

 

Our first snorkel destination was the Antilles ship wreck, which is much further from shore than we had snorkeled the last time we were in Aruba. We had left our own snorkel gear at home in an effort to save space in our luggage and I regretted that. There were waves over a foot high that far out from shore, and the snorkels they gave us to use didn't have splash guards. I headed out but didn't get far because I kept getting water in the snorkel and wasn't able to effectively clear it, which made me anxious. I got back on the boat until my nerves settled and ventured back in the water. I did much better the second time, but after a while started to tire (I still was having trouble with water in the snorkel and treading water while clearing it was exhausting). So I returned to the ship again to rest, and get a drink of juice to get rid of the taste of salt water. By the time I was ready to get back in the water it was time to move on.

 

As we sailed to the next snorkel spot, Boca Catalina, we were given fresh fruit to eat (watermelon, grapes, and honeydew). Boca Catalina is where we had gone the first time we were in Aruba so I felt more at home because I knew what to expect, plus he water was much calmer close to shore. Even though I still occasionally got water in the snorkel (particularly from diving underwater to look more closely at things) I was easily able to clear it. We saw LOTS of fish there.

 

When we were called back to the boat they gave us sandwiches: tuna or chicken. After the sandwiches they opened the rope swing and I took 3 tries at it. My wife teased me that I entered the water exactly the same each time. Some of the crew showed us how to do a front, or back, flip off the rope but I wasn't brave enough to try. Others were, though, but they mostly ended up doing painful looking belly or back flops. When we were done with the rope swing they opened the slide at the back of the boat. We were running out of time so we each only got one shot at it; it was a little kids slide so the adults were getting stuck. I thought going head-first was a brilliant idea … it wasn't … I ended up doing a barrel roll and landed on my back.

 

They took us back to Palm Beach, then, and we got our “Aruba” t-shirts that were included in the price. I definitely recommend Delphi Water Sports.

 

Rather than try to figure out the bus schedule we just took a taxi back to the ship. After much needed showers we went to the Platinum/Elite lounge to get a snack to tide us over until dinner, then back to our cabin for sail-away. We started with the aft viewing deck, though, before returning to our own balcony. It was getting pretty dark by the time we pulled away at about 7. We watched the lights of Aruba disappear into the distance and then went to dinner in Bordeaux, again, where we were seated at a table for 10, again. I think there has been at least one other couple from Canada every time we've eaten in the dining room.

 

Feeling completely worn out we skipped the “Wild Island Party” on Lido and headed towards our room … but as we passed the Explorers Lounge they were playing a Paul McCartney concert movie so we stopped to watch a song or two. That “one or two” turned out to be the rest of the movie :-)

 

Finally we dragged our butts to bed. We set our clocks back an hour tonight.

[Grammyluvs]

Thanks so much for the updates. Very interesting about Aruba on Sundays. We dock on a Sunday and there is suppose to be some kind of festival going on.

[chamima]

Thanks so much for the updates. Very interesting about Aruba on Sundays. We dock on a Sunday and there is suppose to be some kind of festival going on.

 

If it's the Mardi Gras parade you're in for a real treat!!!!

[Seafoam Green]

Thanks so much for the updates. Very interesting about Aruba on Sundays. We dock on a Sunday and there is suppose to be some kind of festival going on.

 

I didn't know this. Do you know what time yet?

[geoburm]

We are in C722, the 3rd to last cabin on the port side. The balcony is very similar to the Caribe balconies on Grand-class ships, in size and covering. Does that help? I will post pictures when we get home to real a real wifi connection. We have 3 chairs (non-reclining), one foot stool, and one table.

 

Thanks, ended up booking D708, port side Dolphin. Wanted to play it safe with fully covered balcony.

[Pythian]

Thanks for all your commentary so far! It's great! I'm looking forward to each day. Sorry to hear about the pixels on MUTS as I’m hoping to see a couple movies there – but, I’ll just sit back further and pretend it’s just my eyes. How’s the water temp and weather down south?

 

Dan

[Northender]

Thanks for this review. Very enjoyable.:)

 

Perhaps you can find out why Princess is changing the length of these 11 day cruises to 10 next year.

Thanks

Edited November 24, 2014 by Northender

[PotatoBug]

Day 4 – At Sea

You know how I closed the last report by saying “we set our clocks back tonight”? It turned out we read the patter wrong, and we woke in the morning thinking it was the wrong time compared to the rest of the ship. We slept the extra hour … but no one else did. I did realize it until I went to the Universe Lounge to get the Zumba instructor's signature for the scavenger hunt and they told me that Zumba was an hour ago. That's when I finally figured it out.

 

When I got up I immediately took a couple of loads of clothes to the laundry, and then went to the IC for our latte, tea, and cronuts. When the wash cycle was done I stuck our clothes in the dryer and we went to the HC for breakfast … now that we knew the right time we knew we had missed breakfast in the dining room.

 

Our laundry was done when we got back to our room so we put it away and then went to the Cartagena Highlight Show (mostly about shopping but with some advice on how to do Cartagena on your own: hire a taxi for the day for $50). After that there was the Port Talk on Costa Rica. At both I asked about the hop-on-hop-off bus in the city: the Shopping Host had no idea, but the Port Lecturer suggested that since you have to take a taxi just to get to the HOHO bus it wasn't worth it. At this point we still don't know what we're doing in Cartagena.

 

There was a short break before the next thing I wanted to attend, the Advanced Digital Photography class. I got there 10-15 minutes early and the place was already packed, and most of the people didn't even have a camera with them. I stayed for about 10 minutes before I gave up and left; between the instructor's eastern European accent, the simplistic material, and the misinformation being presented it was a waste of time. That gave me an extra half hour before the next thing I wanted to do, which was a paper airplane contest. On the Sapphire earlier this year the contest was to fly your plane through a hoop suspended in the atrium. This time it was to land as close to the center of the atrium as you could (there's a sort of target pattern in the tile work). I didn't even come close.

 

My wife had planned to go to the Art Auction but instead decided to work on our poster for the Panama Canal. She had it laid out, and the letters stenciled on the poster board so now it's “just” a matter of colouring it in ;)

 

One of the scavenger hunt items is something made at a Creativity@Sea session so we went and learned to make an origami frog, and flower. I've known how to make a couple of origami animals for decades so I made something for the instructor, and she asked to me stay after to teach her how to make it herself.

 

We had nothing else planned for the afternoon so we retired to our room to do some colouring and relaxing. The ballroom instructor, whose signature I needed for the scavenger hunt, was teaching swing as we were going to our cabin so I hung out waiting for the class to end and got her to sign. We have almost everything we need for the contest … except there's no way I'm singing karaoke. We can get a few of the remaining things at the 50s Night tonight.

[PotatoBug]

If it's the Mardi Gras parade you're in for a real treat!!!!

 

Karen, are you thinking of when we were in Dominica, or does Aruba do something similar?

[PotatoBug]

Thanks for all your commentary so far! It's great! I'm looking forward to each day. Sorry to hear about the pixels on MUTS as I’m hoping to see a couple movies there – but, I’ll just sit back further and pretend it’s just my eyes. How’s the water temp and weather down south?

 

It is slightly distracting but still I was watching a movie on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. I got over it :D

[PotatoBug]

Thanks for this review. Very enjoyable.:)

 

Perhaps you can find out why Princess is changing the length of these 11 day cruises to 10 next year.

Thanks

 

I'll see if the Future Cruise Consultant can shed any light.

[chamima]

Karen, are you thinking of when we were in Dominica, or does Aruba do something similar?

 

The one in Aruba made the Dominica one look like amateurs.

The costumes were lavish and Hollywood quality.

I LOVE these parades!

[Kerry&LuAnn]

Day 4 – At Sea

You know how I closed the last report by saying “we set our clocks back tonight”? It turned out we read the patter wrong, and we woke in the morning thinking it was the wrong time compared to the rest of the ship. We slept the extra hour … but no one else did.

 

On our recent cruise we heard a woman say she and her husband had looked at two different issues of the daily Patter. She turned her clock back one hour, and then he set the clock ahead one hour, thus negating the change altogether!

[Kerry&LuAnn]

Day 4 – At Sea I asked about the hop-on-hop-off bus in the city: the Shopping Host had no idea, but the Port Lecturer suggested that since you have to take a taxi just to get to the HOHO bus it wasn't worth it. At this point we still don't know what we're doing in Cartagena.

 

When we were in Cartagena on our recent cruise, we saw the hop-on-hop-off bus. Although it was morning, it was already extremely hot and humid. The double-decker HOHO bus was not air-conditioned, so the passengers in the lower level were hanging out the windows, and those sitting exposed in the upper level were baking in the sun. I was so relieved that our excursion was in a comfortable air-conditioned coach bus.

[Kerry&LuAnn]

Bring a wrap - dinning room is cool.

 

The Princess Theater can feel a bit cool sometimes, too.

[Kerry&LuAnn]

I've been on the Coral 2 other times and really loved her - so, I'm really looking forward to hearing how she looks and anything about the crew/staff.

 

On our recent cruise on the Coral Princess, we thought the ship was in excellent condition. And, as stated earlier, the crew and staff were outstanding - everyone we encountered were very friendly and approachable.

[Kerry&LuAnn]

Before I went back to the cabin I got a latte and croissant-donut for my wife and delivered her a pre-breakfast-in-bed.

 

We enjoyed those croissant-donuts (or "cronuts" as another passenger referred to them), but discovered that they are only available until about 10 a.m. So don't miss them!

Edited November 25, 2014 by Kerry&LuAnn

[Grammyluvs]

I didn't know this. Do you know what time yet?

 

No, not sure of the time. The reason I know is we have reservations that AM with Trikes of Aruba and they said because of the parade our route would be revised.

[Northender]

I'll see if the Future Cruise Consultant can shed any light.

 

Thanks, Rick.:)

[PotatoBug]

Day 4 cont.

On our cabin tv, we watched the end of the 3,813th showing of “Romancing the Stone” ;) , and then a show about the Panama Canal before going to dinner. On Aruba night I never really noticed a line for the Bordeaux dining room whenever we walked by that area so we thought we might get lucky going a little earlier than we had been going. No such luck, though, as we were handed a pager and a “it'll be about half an hour”. Fortunately we ran into our roll call friends Ellen & Ken who also had a pager so we chatted until our pager went off and then we all asked if we could be seated together. We were shown to a table for 6, and eventually a couple from Germany was seated with us. I learned that they have menus in other languages as the German couple requested a German menu. Service was a little on the slow side but no one had particular plans so we didn't much mind. It was surf-and-turf night, but the turf was shrimp not lobster so I requested two filet mignons ;) We were seated not far from the Chef's Table, and when they were done we noticed a couple from our roll call had done it.

 

It was nearly 10 when dinner was over so we decided to call it a night. But first I had to check out the 50's Night Party to get a couple of things for the scavenger hunt, and ended up also getting a couple of tough-to-get signatures (the Zumba instructor, and a musician), and advice on how to get a signature from a dancer. I ended up chatting with Lexi the Deputy Cruise Director (also the Zumba instructor) for about half an hour; I kept expecting her to excuse herself to deal with some duty but she just talking and talking. Finally, I excused myself because I needed to get to sleep :-)

 

Tomorrow is Cartagena … and we STILL have no plan. :eek: