Panama Canal On the Legend April 14th-29th 2015 PHOTO REPORT

Hi everyone!

Sorry about the delay, home from work now.

Let's continue, shall we? Yes? No?

Antigua is not very big but if you like walking around small streets in sweltering heat, you'll be satisfied.

Our last stop was a view point which was great.

We also bought some souvenirs here.

Guatemala was quite refreshing. None of us feel the need to go back but as it was the first visit to Central America for all of us, it was eye-opening.

Our next day was a day at sea and the only day we had planned weeks in advance.

It was Anouk's birthday and we had a whole day full of surprises for her.

We brought her champagne and breakfast to bed.

We sent her to a massage at the spa.

Then we had some champagne.

We had asked friends and family to sent a short video message to Anouk. Many did and they prompted various reactions in the birthday girl.

We asked the bartender to make us a blind test of wines.

Anouk had one white wine, one sparkling wine and one champagne and she had to figure out which one was which.

We might have also had some champagne.

Next up was the progressive trivia. We always discussed the answer but let Anouk decide the final answer today. She was very impressed by our generosity.

After lunch we sat out on the deck and played both Uno and Yatzy. We play these two games a lot and they always attract a lot of attention from other people. Most seem very delighted that we still play games that they used to in their youth.

Also some champagne was had.

Today was more than conveniently second formal night.

Anouk travels extensively for business purposes and we had two trivias for her on our tablet. 10 capital cities she has visited for work and 10 airports as well.

She did really well, scored 10/10 airports and 8/10 capitals.

Today I even remembered to take photos of the show.

Anouk loves sushi but the rest of us reeeaaalllly don't.

She wanted to try Izumi already on our Alaskan cruise but didn't want to go alone.

So for today's dinner we had booked Izumi as a surprise.

She was pretty ok with that.

We also had a card (well a poster really...)for Anouk and almost 50 people had signed it.

And the last champagne for today was Dom Perignon for the lady.

It was the first any of us had eaten in Izumi and we were all very impressed. Anouk had sushi and Lowry tried it for the first time in his life.

He wasn't converted though.

Thommo and Ann had the meat hot rock...

...and I had the seafood hot rock.

The food was amazing.

We'd agreed with the maitre'd and our head waiter the night before that they'd fix Anouk a gluten-free cake and they delivered.

We were all really happy with everything and Anouk had a great day. Mission accomplished.

 

I hope you have great weather in Finland. Summer starts next week in Stockholm... Not much of a heat here so far!

 

Our summer arrived a week later than yours. Getting there!!

Hope you have a wonderful honeymoon cruise.

We should meet up someday in Stockholm and compare Royal and X!

What a great review...looking forward to the next instalment!

Here I am. Late, but here. ;)

Hi, thanks for posting your report. Love your fun personality. Have always wanted to do the Panama Canal, hopefully one day. :)

Panal was GREAT. The ports are very interesting and the Canal itself is a wonder.

Sinppu

 

Thank you for another great review. I was actually looking on the ha board for your Hawaii cruise review.

Sorry it wasn't there! Would've stood out like a sore thumb :o

What an great birthday. You did a lot before noon, let alone by the end of the day. Sinppu, you and your friends gave Anouk the best birthday. Way to go!! :)

Hi everyone!

Sorry about the delay, home from work now.

 

Let's continue, shall we? Yes? No?...

Yes, please continue.:)

We didn't stay out too late celebrating since we wanted to go white-water rafting in Costa Rica.

Anouk has tried it once before but the rest of us were newbies.

We sent Lowry to negotiate.

The rafting was level 1-2, so we dared to take it on.

It took us about an hour to drive to the Corobici river.

Both our boat and our guide looked very experienced.

Our driver would pick us up after the trip was over and we were promised about 2 hours of rafting.

Level 1-2 is really easy, we didn't even have to do anything ourselves. It was very relaxing.

Water was wonderfully warm and we saw quite a few animals along the way.

(This one is quite a rare breed. Scandinavian stump-tailed cruiser.)

We stopped to have lunch in shade. The fresh pineapple was fantastic.

We definitely recommend this. If you are more adventurous, level 3-4 might be good choice. We thought later on that we might have preferred some action and exercice ourselves but were anyway happy about the rafting.

It was the first any of us had eaten in Izumi and we were all very impressed. Anouk had sushi and Lowry tried it for the first time in his life.

 

 

 

He wasn't converted though.

 

Thommo and Ann had the meat hot rock...

 

 

 

...and I had the seafood hot rock.

 

 

The food was amazing.

We'd agreed with the maitre'd and our head waiter the night before that they'd fix Anouk a gluten-free cake and they delivered.

 

 

We were all really happy with everything and Anouk had a great day. Mission accomplished.

Sinppu.....you guys are GREAT friends to have done all that celebration!! Wish our group would have hooked up with your group on the ship. We would have either had MORE FUN than we did or we would have been kicked off the ship....lol.

Jackie

It's easy to take a dip at the beach where to ships are parked.

Souvenirs can also be bought by the beach.

This evening we all went out on deck to see a documentary about the Panama Canal. Go early, since the seats fill up very quickly.

None of us watched the whole documentary. Might be a culture difference, but we found it to be quite comical as it was more of a action/thriller/suspense film where disasters are only seconds away at any given time.

Made us wonder how does anyone even dare to go into the canal...:rolleyes:

Sinppu.....you guys are GREAT friends to have done all that celebration!! Wish our group would have hooked up with your group on the ship. We would have either had MORE FUN than we did or we would have been kicked off the ship....lol.

 

Jackie

Ha ha!! Who knows, maybe a kick in the cruiserbutt might be fun too ;):p:D

The best part was that we managed to keep the party as a secret.

Going through the Panama Canal takes a whole day.

But it is a very whileworthy day. They have a panamanian officer onboard who gives you history, facts, interesting stories almost the whole time so being on deck is recommended.

And have your camera with you. I guarantee you'll have a lot of photos you yourself and other people will want to see.

See? Told you so.

One of the best moments was passing by other cruise ships.

They sound their horns when they meet and that is a very majestic sound.

You've been thus warned; it also might give you a heart attack ;)

It is strange to be so close to land while on a ship.

(Yes yes I know they told us NOT to do this. But I didn't do it. It's just for the photo opportunity. I swear.)

And not only horizontally, but vertically close.

All ships have to pay for going through the canal and if I remember correctly, Legend paid about $300 000 for this.

These guys are called mules. They help the ships through the canals' tight spots.

I wasn't referring to the people, by the way. The machines. But you all got that, right?

These people are on an excursion.

The canal is fantastic.

I had no expectations but this day proved to be one of the best days we've ever had cruising.

If you ever have the chance, you should go through the Panama Canal.

It's amazing.

We knew nothing about Colón when we arrived there.

We left knowing one thing: The town is named after Christopher Columbus.

Plus there are a few casinos and souvenir shops nearby.

So ATLAS officially recommends that you either take a tour or stay on ship.

DIY here was quite frankly non-existent.

Plus my flip-flops didn't survive this disappointment. :(

At least one of these posts was very short and sweet ;):p

 

At least one of these posts was very short and sweet ;):p

Oh no, please come back and continue. I do love your long and spicy posts!

We had quite high expectations of cartagena as we'd heard so much about it.

You walk through a garden and a souvenir shop when entering Cartagena and they were both very nice.

Cartagena knows how to give a good first impression.

After the garden there were again plenty of drivers and guides offering their services so we had no problem letting Lowry haggle us a deal.

And haggle he did. 'Til the bitter end.

We teamed up with another Jorge and he promised us a 3-hour sightseeing tour around new and old Cartagena. The tour was $25 pp.

Jorge offered to take us to the fortress. We didn't want to go in but decided to stay down for a few photos. Souvenir touts are all over the place here, so be warned.

Jorge then took us to the old town and asked how long did we want to look around. We said 90 minutes and he readily agreed. He showed us the spot where he would wait for us and Anouk had a brainwave here:

She took a photo of the license plate so we could tell Jorge's van apart from all the other exactly similar vans and drivers.

The old town is beautiful. It was no effort whatsoever to look around us for the next 90 minutes and we could have done it even longer.

See for yourselves.

We walked around the Old Town without any hurry or a care in the world.

Isn't that the best part when on a vacation?

Fresh fruit. I mean, really. Just look at those. Just by existing they make you happy.

And if I haven't convinced you yet of how much we loved Cartagena:

Have I succeeded now?