Review of Panama Canal Cruise–14 Nights on NCL Sun October 14–28, 2016 (with photos)

[SeahawkSiren]

Saturday, October 22. Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. Another charming place to sail into. We loved Guatemala and it’s very warm and welcoming people.

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of stingrays welcoming us too!

 

[SeahawkSiren]

Our excursion was Antigua On Your Own. We prefer to go at our own pace so we enjoyed having this “on your own” option. We were provided with a map which highlights Antigua’s main attractions. This excursion is 7.5 hours so it does take up almost the entire time in port. It is nearly a 90 minute ride from Puerto Quetzal to Antigua. So 3 hours of this excursion is just getting to and from. But the travel time is so worth it and the drive is quite scenic with views of coffee fields and volcanoes! This was our favorite port stop and favorite excursion on this cruise! Antigua is a very charming, historical city with wonderful, welcoming people. It is very well preserved with ruins and colonial churches and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Wear good, comfortable shoes as the cobblestone streets here were sometimes challenging to walk on.

 

Our guide on the bus (Karla) gave us many helpful hints about Antigua, what to see, giving us a heads up on the vendors who would be approaching us as we walked around (although we thought the vendors here were just fine, much less aggressive than in Cartagena). She also gave us a lot of history about Antigua and Guatemala in general.

 

Central Park of Antigua

 

 

 

 

Cathedral

 

 

 

[SeahawkSiren]

 

Cute little tuk tuk!

 

 

 

 

Yes, American chain restaurants have even made it to Antigua

 

 

[SeahawkSiren]

Our favorite location in Antigua we visited was the San Francisco Church and Ruins. Karla had mentioned to us that the guided tours do not go to this particular church since it is a little ways out of the main central square area (and we did not find this out until after we were back on the bus heading back to the ship) so that explains why we had the place nearly all to ourselves. So peaceful and quiet and no crowds to contend with. It is free to enter the church and only costs $1.00 per person to enter the ruins.

 

San Francisco Church

 

 

 

 

Ruins

 

 

 

[SeahawkSiren]

 

 

 

 

 

[SeahawkSiren]

After walking around the city for a couple of hours and viewing many of the things on the map we were given, we headed for lunch. Karla gave us a helpful bit of information and told us that most of the guided tours eat lunch at a specific place so we decided to eat lunch elsewhere away from all those crowds. She recommended a place, El Arco, so we ate there and it did not disappoint. A lovely little place where we ate outside in a nice courtyard.

 

 

 

 

I had the most wonderful quesadillas here!

 

[SeahawkSiren]

After lunch we walked around the city a little bit longer making our way back to the bus

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SeahawkSiren]

It was hard to leave this charming little city. One of my favorite excursions of all my cruises.

 

 

 

We made it back to the ship in time for a huge downpour!

 

[SeahawkSiren]

Sunday, October 23. Another at sea day. This was a nice, relaxing day after a lot of walking and travelling with the Antigua excursion the day before.

 

Oh how I miss this aft balcony with lounger chairs. So relaxing just listening to the ocean, watching the waves and world go by

 

 

 

 

 

We need our football fix again! We really wanted to see the Seahawks game this week as it was the Sunday night nationally televised game on NBC against one of our division rivals, the Arizona Cardinals. So back up to Deck 11 to the Sports Bar we go sporting our Seahawks jerseys! Mission accomplished this week! Since that was the only game on in the evening we did get to see it in its entirety. There were a lot of people from the State of Washington on this cruise and a bunch of us (probably 20-25) took over a portion of the Sports Bar to watch the game, which ended up in a tie of all things! Ugh! But it was a lot of fun to watch the game at sea with our new friends. One of my favorite memories of this trip!

[SeahawkSiren]

Monday, October 24. Acapulco, Mexico. We arrived in Acapulco just as the sun was rising. Hello Acapulco!

 

 

 

 

[nw gardener]

Great review and pictures, following! I am another one with the full canal transit on my bucket wish list, but difficult to do with work schedules. I have one of the 2 aft balconies on deck 9 of the Sun booked for this coming summer and looking at your pics, glad I did [booked it 9 months ago and I feel like I've been waiting an eternity lol].

[SeahawkSiren]

Our excursion was Endangered Baby Sea Turtles and City Drive. This excursion is about 4.5 hours. The bus ride was about 20 miles south from the port. A scenic drive through downtown Acapulco and along the coast to the Sea Turtle Rescue Center. Very unique and informative learning about the Golfina sea turtles (also known as Olive Ridley sea turtles), an endangered species.

 

This is a one man show, a biologist, who has dedicated his life to help save this species. He lives on the property and spends many sleepless nights going out on the beach to collect the eggs after the mama turtles come ashore to lay them before they head back out to sea.

 

He has a fenced in area where the eggs are covered

 

 

And has tags which show the dates the eggs are expected to hatch

 

 

These turtles were apparently just born the morning we arrived and it is their instinct to want to get out into the ocean right away. It will take these turtles 5 days to reach a part of the ocean where they can start feeding on plankton. Between predators on the beach, in the air and in the ocean, injuries, illness, etc., it is amazing some of these little guys can survive as unfortunately many of them do perish.

 

 

 

After we learned about these turtles we got to walk down to the beach and release them into the ocean. We got to name our turtles. I named mine Timmy and DH’s was George.

 

Please meet Timmy the Turtle

 

 

Put me down lady! I've only been alive for a few hours and want to take on that big, bad Pacific Ocean!

 

[SeahawkSiren]

 

 

 

Timmy and George get ready to take on the World!

 

 

[kandj05]

Did the canal speaker address how it is decided which locks a ship will go through? Old or new?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

[SeahawkSiren]

OK Timmy, as much as I want to take you back to Seattle with me, it's time to say goodbye to you!

 

 

Annnddd, they're off!

 

 

Time to let Timmy go.

 

 

 

Timmy waves goodbye before he heads out into the ocean! Goodbye Timmy, have a nice life!

 

 

Timmy gets taken away by the ocean

 

[SeahawkSiren]

After we got back to the ship we went to lunch at Los Delfines Restaurant along the beach and found a great place along the water with a nice view of the ship

 

 

Life is good in Acapulco with margaritas on the beach!

 

 

 

After lunch walking back to the ship we talked with one of the passengers from the ship who had done a fishing excursion and caught this

 

[SeahawkSiren]

Time to say goodbye to Acapulco!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going to stop here for today!

 

Up next: Cabo San Lucas, our final port!

 

I will also have comments about the ship and the food and restaurants onboard (yes, we actually did eat on this cruise even though I have not written much about that yet)! Will also give my overall thoughts about this awesome cruise!

[SeahawkSiren]

Great review and pictures, following! I am another one with the full canal transit on my bucket wish list, but difficult to do with work schedules. I have one of the 2 aft balconies on deck 9 of the Sun booked for this coming summer and looking at your pics, glad I did [booked it 9 months ago and I feel like I've been waiting an eternity lol].

 

You won't regret the aft balcony! Absolutely amazing views! It's going to be very hard to go back to a side balcony for our Mediterranean cruise next year!

 

Did the canal speaker address how it is decided which locks a ship will go through? Old or new?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

 

Yes, and it sounds like most cruise ships will continue to use the old locks. We couldn't really get any good looks at the new locks since they were blocked by trees and vegetation. But it sounds like periodically cruise ships will use the new locks. But mostly the new locks will be for the post-panamax ships that cannot fit into the old locks and the new locks are really going to be used more for commercial/shipping vessels rather than recreational vessels.

 

I think Princess and Disney cruise lines have plans for cruises through the new locks next year.

[Turtles06]

Did the canal speaker address how it is decided which locks a ship will go through? Old or new?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

 

It's very expensive for a ship to transit the Canal, even more costly to go through the new locks. The ships using the new locks are the ones that are too big for the old locks.

[Turtles06]

It was hard to leave this charming little city. One of my favorite excursions of all my cruises.

 

 

OP: we have also booked the Antigua on Your Own excursion, as the city looked quite fascinating from my research, and I'm so glad to read that you enjoyed it.

 

Do you have any advice or tips for us? Clearly, the Cathedral is a must-see. Anything else? Anything we should be aware of? (Did you get to the arch?)

 

I know some folks are concerned about safety in Guatemala, but Antigua is supposed to be fine if you don't go off the beaten path; it sounds like you had no issues on that score.

[ShelleyQT]

What's in a Daydreamer's Daiquiri?

 

Oh, and GO HAWKS!

[Oakman58]

When we did our cruise, NCL gave us a certificate suitable for framing acknowledging that we crossed the Panama Canal. Is NCL still doing this?

 

Very cool picture of the Sting Rays. I love the photos you included of the sea turtles and the release of Timmy.

[Oakman58]

When we were on our Panama Canal cruise we were treated to the sight of a Frigate bird flying above the ship and then suddenly diving down to catch Flying Fish that would come out of the water when the bow of the ship passed near them. That bird stayed with us for a good half hour.

 

BTW, being from the St. Louis area, the NFL is dead to me. Two teams deserted us and a new one billion dollar stadium wasn’t good enough for the Rams to stay here.

[SeahawkSiren]

OP: we have also booked the Antigua on Your Own excursion, as the city looked quite fascinating from my research, and I'm so glad to read that you enjoyed it.

 

Do you have any advice or tips for us? Clearly, the Cathedral is a must-see. Anything else? Anything we should be aware of? (Did you get to the arch?)

 

I know some folks are concerned about safety in Guatemala, but Antigua is supposed to be fine if you don't go off the beaten path; it sounds like you had no issues on that score.

 

Yes, the Cathedral is a must-see. Also, IMO, the San Francisco Church and Ruins are a must-see. That was our favorite part of Antigua.

 

We did get to see the Arch

 

 

The restaurant we ate lunch at, El Arco, was right near the Arch.

 

We were not concerned in the slightest about our safety and felt very comfortable everywhere in Antigua and had no problems.

 

Enjoy your time in Antigua. It is a very special place.

[SeahawkSiren]

What's in a Daydreamer's Daiquiri?

 

Oh, and GO HAWKS!

 

Aaahhh, my favorite drink from the cruise. I believe it contained CRUSOE silver rum, fresh lime juice and agave nectar. I really enjoyed that drink as it was not overly sweet to me as many of the other drinks were. I'm going to have to drink more of those on next year's cruise!

 

Yes, GO HAWKS! Beat Buffalo tonight! :D