Thoughts, impressions, and observations for the World Cruise.

[njkruzer]

8 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:

Yup, that was us getting rescued. Had to ride in back or Police Pickup and walk through water covering the Bridge on main road. This after our Van was hit by one of those landslides.We were supposed be back by 330, 1020 we made it, Soaked, mud in our shoes

Sorry!  We watched you arriving.  Our bus was only a half nour late.  Tree down so driver backed up in the opposite lane until he could find a place to turn around. Guess we had it easy.

[orville99]

20 hours ago, island lady said:

Arrived early to Puntarenas...supposed to be by 10 am, but we got here just after 8 am.  Our tour does not meet until noon, which will give us plenty of Jungle heat this afternoon visiting the kitties and birdies.  😉 🦜🐈

How was your tour? Hopefully the bus had AC.

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, orville99 said:

How was your tour? Hopefully the bus had AC.

To exhausted to report back since midday yesterday. Humidity zapped everyone onboard.

[island lady]

Yes!!!  Bus had A/C!!  😁  So that was the good part, and half of the one hour ride to the sanctuary had decent roads....then went downhill from there. 

 

Last half was bouncy back roads...ouch my kidneys!  But not a real goat path...just basically one lane  torn up road. Driving through Puntarenas was the usual razor wire and extreme poverty.  But the rough roads later on had some nice greenery.  

 

And enjoyed some jungle plants in the sanctuary...though I would have thought more flowers.  Bucky loves "Gigantis Bamboo".  He saw a lot of that in Vietnam...as Dave can attest to.  😉 

 

 

[island lady]

Was advertised as free flying (not caged) Macaws....and of course...they were all in a very large Aviary cage that we could not enter...only view from the outside along the "forced march".   Took many pictures of the ones in the cage, and there were many Macaws for sure...but did not like the look of the cage in the picture between myself and the birds.  So I deleted them. 

 

Then at the end of the tour, which we had lagged back and pretty much wandered on our own by then, I found another path that had several of them allowed to fly free (basically by the feeding station).  They kept ignoring me when I wanted a face on picture...until I realized "Hey!  They speak Spanish!"  Hola!!  That got their attention!  😄  

 

 

 

 

[island lady]

Did see one Sloth in a tree...but not a very good picture.  Of course doing what Sloths do best...sleep.  😉 

 

 

[island lady]

It indeed was miserably hot and humid.  97 degrees in the shade with no breeze.  Tour really took too long.  Everyone was tired, hot, and ready to leave....but they kept delaying it.  Not sure why.  One man was furious who stormed into the small gift shop to tell them that the bathroom had run out of water. 

 

I was able to find the small cooler in the back of the gift shop that had small Red Bull size cans of Sol beer for sale at 3 bucks a can....ahhh..heaven in a can.  Bucky was thrilled when I walked up to him at a picnic table with one for each of us. Then we just sat for half an hour sipping our beer and wondering where our tour guide was. The rest of our tour was just milling around wondering when we were leaving.  

[island lady]

The bouncy ride back included (for some reason) an extension of going past the ship to the end of the island to tour the rest of town by bus.  Lovely 😑  We were already getting back much later than we wanted to.  And believe me, the town is not much to look at...as are the dirty beaches.  IMHO...Not a place we plan to come back to visit.  No, it did not rain...but would have welcomed the wash off.  😊

 

Finally back to the ship and much needed showers.  Up to the Concierge Lounge for my highly  anticipated Pisco Sour. 😋 The whole lounge was empty during the half hour we were in there at after 5:15, but had great conversations with bartender, concierge "Ti" and her boss.  Finally down to dinner late, but our wait team was happy to see us.  

 

Went to the 6:30 show and sat in the back as it had already started.  One of the Royal singers did the Elton John tribute and really got into character for it.  He was great!!  Back to the cabin to read, falling asleep with my book on my chest.  😉 

[island lady]

You can tell the weather has become much warmer...frequency of "boil and fry" laundry bags increased.  😉 

 

Current position on our way to Guatemala.  

 

 

[NancyIL]

18 hours ago, sgmn said:

As far as I know Silverseas from West to east cancelled the cruise from dubai (and obviously through the Suez Canal) and picked it up in Mumbai when they went round Africa last month . Pax were disembarked in Athens. So I would want to know if its going to Dubai before changing course .

 

 

The Silver Moon is currently on its journey around Africa, and is scheduled to arrive in Mumbai on Feb. 11. There's a very interesting thread on the Silverseas board that was started by TLCOhio in October - shortly after the war began in Israel. This could be a preview of how RCI might deal with Serenade's April 24 and May 9 & 27 itineraries, as both cruise lines are under the same parent company.

 

[island lady]

Day at sea today, seas are a light chop...blue skies, deep blue water.  Was once again treated to a show at breakfast with large pods of Pacific Common Dolphin jumping our short wake right next to the ship.  Plenty of Booby birds searching for breakfast as well.  

 

"Cheers with an officer" Pinnie lunch today at 12:15.  I will skip the steak this time (not looking for a repeat of the bad ones from the last two mini legs)...Bucky going to try it again.  I will save my carnivorous taste for lunch at Giovanni's later on Friday.  Way better steak.  😉 

[pstone1]

We loved our “breakfast and a show” this morning!  It’s beautiful sitting on the balcony this morning watching all the birds diving for fish!

[island lady]

2 minutes ago, pstone1 said:

We loved our “breakfast and a show” this morning!  It’s beautiful sitting on the balcony this morning watching all the birds diving for fish!

 

Indeed it is....beautiful!!  🥰

[pstone1]

We share your opinion of Puntarenas!  So much trash everywhere and mostly unappealing scenery.
 

We took the Panoramic Tour, and after a loong bus ride, we arrived at a small park.  There was a small craft market set up (real local crafts) and a group of young children ready to perform a folkloric dance show.  They were adorable, the youngest little boy was 3, and it was his first time performing.  After a couple of songs, they brought several women and a man from the audience to join them, which was fun to watch!  The cruise guests were good!

 

After this stop, we were taken to a large, commercial gift shop with most products likely made in China. We were stuck here for 45 minutes, then driven almost another hour back to the ship.  Couldn’t wait to get back onboard!

 

Some pictures of the Park and children dancing!  Didn’t bother taking any other photos!

 

 

[island lady]

12 minutes ago, pstone1 said:

We share your opinion of Puntarenas!  So much trash everywhere and mostly unappealing scenery.
 

We took the Panoramic Tour, and after a loong bus ride, we arrived at a small park.  There was a small craft market set up (real local crafts) and a group of young children ready to perform a folkloric dance show.  They were adorable, the youngest little boy was 3, and it was his first time performing.  After a couple of songs, they brought several women and a man from the audience to join them, which was fun to watch!  The cruise guests were good!

 

After this stop, we were taken to a large, commercial gift shop with most products likely made in China. We were stuck here for 45 minutes, then driven almost another hour back to the ship.  Couldn’t wait to get back onboard!

 

Some pictures of the Park and children dancing!  Didn’t bother taking any other photos!

 

 

 

LOL...agree.  Sounds like we had the same tour set up...in different places.  Ughhh...

 

Oh well, win some lose some.  Puntarenas won't be a place we are itching to revisit.  😉 

[njkruzer]

17 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

LOL...agree.  Sounds like we had the same tour set up...in different places.  Ughhh...

 

Oh well, win some lose some.  Puntarenas won't be a place we are itching to revisit.  😉 

So none of you went to the Oxcart factory with the coffee plantation?  Good tour.  Included nice lunch.  

[island lady]

4 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

So none of you went to the Oxcart factory with the coffee plantation?  Good tour.  Included nice lunch.  

 

Happy someone scored a nice tour.  

[pstone1]

14 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

So none of you went to the Oxcart factory with the coffee plantation?  Good tour.  Included nice lunch.  

This was our first time visiting the west side of Costa Rica, so we decided to get an overview.  We’re coming back in October, and have booked the tour “A Walk in the Clouds” which they didn’t offer on this cruise.  It sounds great, so I really hope it is!

[orville99]

55 minutes ago, pstone1 said:

We share your opinion of Puntarenas!  So much trash everywhere and mostly unappealing scenery.
 

We took the Panoramic Tour, and after a loong bus ride, we arrived at a small park.  There was a small craft market set up (real local crafts) and a group of young children ready to perform a folkloric dance show.  They were adorable, the youngest little boy was 3, and it was his first time performing.  After a couple of songs, they brought several women and a man from the audience to join them, which was fun to watch!  The cruise guests were good!

 

After this stop, we were taken to a large, commercial gift shop with most products likely made in China. We were stuck here for 45 minutes, then driven almost another hour back to the ship.  Couldn’t wait to get back onboard!

 

Some pictures of the Park and children dancing!  Didn’t bother taking any other photos!

 

 

We took this tour when we were in Puntarenas in November. Started an hour late, the only restrooms at the town square where the children danced for donations was behind the church (where a homeless man was selling TP because there wasn’t any in the stalls). Then an aimless drive through the hills to the gift shop where the only thing of value we bought was bag of Lay’s potato chips before our mad dash back to the ship. Apparently our long knee-to-knee conversation with the shore excursions manager had no impact if they were still running that tour.

Edited February 4 by orville99

[njkruzer]

18 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

Happy someone scored a nice tour.  

It was good. Took it in October on the Canal transit cruise.  Find that most of the countries in tge areas, whether on Pacific side or Caribbean side show great poverty.  Pretty depressing. 

[pstone1]

5 minutes ago, orville99 said:

We took this tour when we were in Puntarenas in November. Started an hour late, the only restrooms at the town square where the children danced for donations was behind the church (where a homeless man was selling TP because there wasn’t any in the stalls). Then an aimless drive through the hills to the gift shop where the only thing of value we bought was bag of Lay’s potato chips before our mad dash back to the ship. Apparently our long knee-to-knee conversation with the shore excursions manager had no impact if they were still running that tour.

Wish I talked to you before we went!  LOL!  We enjoyed the folkloric show - that 3 yr old was adorable - but the drive and gift shop were a joke.  We’ve taken some surprisingly good Royal tours over the years, but this was not one of them!

[CSHS1979]

1 hour ago, pstone1 said:

We loved our “breakfast and a show” this morning!  It’s beautiful sitting on the balcony this morning watching all the birds diving for fish!

 

 

[crzndeb]

1 hour ago, island lady said:

Cheers with an officer" Pinnie lunch today at 12:15.  I will skip the steak this time (not looking for a repeat of the bad ones from the last two mini legs)..

Is there a separate “Cheers” lunch for the 340+ days cruisers, or do they combine? Or does it just depend on the numbers? Thanks Patricia.

[CSHS1979]

Had a great time in Puntarenas

 

 

Captain Hook

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty day, very breezy on river

 

Wild McCaw

 

 

 

Pink Pelican?

Adrian was a great guide

 

2 year old crocodile

 

Mangrove roots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My hat blew into river, but they fished it put and it was dry by the time we got back

 

Crocodile Bridge

 

El Capitan

 

Almost home

 

Missed some murals

 

 

Home Sweet Home

 

 

Edited February 4 by CSHS1979

[CruiszBug]

Fantastic pictures of your tour!