AryMay Posted June 30, 2018 #1 Share Posted June 30, 2018 In the past, I have put together long, photo reviews of our cruises to post on Cruise Critic. I have gained so much from using these boards and felt like it was my way of paying back. But...for all of the work it took to do those reviews, they were not a good way to preserve the memories. After a short while, the reviews drift to the back pages of the forums, rarely to be seen again. So...a few years ago I decided to start doing a blog instead. My main goal was to keep a journal of our travels, but also have a way of sharing what we have done with others. This spring we did a full transit of the Panama Canal on the Holland America Zaandam. This was a 23-day cruise that started in Ft. Lauderdale and ended in Seattle. My blog posts cover every day, but primarily what we did on port days. This is the link to the first post and then you can use the archive list on the right hand side of the page (on the full web version) to navigate to other posts that you might be interested in. Click Here: Photo Review of Zaandam Panama Canal Cruise Here is a list of the ports we visited and what we did. Hopefully this might be of some help for those of you researching future cruises! Normally it is rare for us to book ship tours, but we had an abundance of OBC for this cruise and used it to purchase excursions. In some cases the tours were great and others...not so much. I have done YouTube videos for most of our port days and the links will be at the top of each specific post. Curacao - Irie Tours West Side Beach Hopping Tour Puerto Caldera (Puntarenas) - Gio 8 in 1 Tour Puerto Quetzal - Antigua on Your Own (one of my favorite port days!!) Puerto Chiapas - Banana Plantation & Rural Communities (HAL tour) Hualtulco - Rural Communities & Traditions (HAL tour) Manzanillo - Magical Pueblos (HAL tour) Puerto Vallarta - Vallarta Food Tour Cabo San Lucas - Coastal Highlights (HAL tour) San Diego - USS Midway Museum San Francisco - Self guided walking tour via MUNI transportation Vancouver - Hop-on-Hop-Off Bus Please let me know if you have any questions...I would be happy to try and answer if I can. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillB48 Posted July 1, 2018 #2 Share Posted July 1, 2018 Very well done... it is always fun to see places you know well through someone else's lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare ski ww Posted July 1, 2018 #3 Share Posted July 1, 2018 Loved reading your blog. Brings back memories, we would love to do another Panama cruise. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
portofrome Posted July 1, 2018 #4 Share Posted July 1, 2018 Thanks so much for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare lazydayz Posted August 11, 2018 #5 Share Posted August 11, 2018 OP, thanks for posting. Enjoyed your blog. We have a few of the same ports. Did you enjoy being on that long of a cruise? We are booked for 15 nights from LA to Tampa. We have done 10 nights and loved it so I think we will be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AryMay Posted August 12, 2018 Author #6 Share Posted August 12, 2018 OP, thanks for posting. Enjoyed your blog. We have a few of the same ports. Did you enjoy being on that long of a cruise? We are booked for 15 nights from LA to Tampa. We have done 10 nights and loved it so I think we will be fine. I very much enjoyed the 23-day cruise!! I remember getting this wonderful feeling at the end of the first week thinking...we still have over 2 more weeks left! Having a nice balance between the sea days and port days also helped. I loved our experiences in each port, but after 2 or 3 ports in a row I was ready for some quieter days at sea. I'm pretty sure I would enjoy an even longer cruise and hopefully I will get that chance some day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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