Teeara

Humidity wasn’t too bad considering it was 90 today. We had a few drops, but no downpour. Best weather was going under the Pan American bridge at 8 pm. It was gorgeous outside.

I’ll try to get that for you.

Actually we only had one dead fish. 😉😁😂

To continue… I forgot to give you today’s maps in the first set, so here they are: So after lunch in the Windjammer with Linus and Louise, I went back to the cabin for a nap! After an hour it was 3:15 (our supposed time to hit the 2nd locks, but we were still in the canal making our way there). I went out onto our balcony to shoot some video and caught a train passing by us on its way to Panama City. We passed a big dredger (I think that’s what they said on the speakers - there’s a lot of echo when you’re out on your balcony). Then we passed the Chagras River where it feeds into the canal. Then we were in the Culebra Cut. So many men gave their lives trying to dig this section of the canal. The Centennial Bridge is in the distance. Before we went under the Centennial Bridge we passed Gold Hill. No gold was ever here and a lot of French folks lost a lot of money in the late 1800s buying shares in the canal venture because they were told the hills were full of gold. And here’s below the Centennial Bridge. It was at this point I realized that we had dinner reservations at Chops tonight. Grrr! It would’ve been fine if we had been on time with our original 8:00 a.m. time. So note for you future cruisers - do NOT schedule specialty dining on canal day. You’re going to be hot, sweaty and tired by the time the transit end and the last thing you’ll want to do is get all dressed up for dinner. Just stick with the Windjammer. Having said that, dinner was yummy. Here’s some food porn for you! My apologies but I kept forgetting to take the photos before I started to dig in. First up, Colossal Shrimp Cocktail. Alien baby or an onion roll. Your pick! Wedge Salad Petite Filet with a wine sauce and Gruyère Tater Tots. Then on to dessert. We both had coffee in these cute triangle cups. I had ice cream. Pam had the chocolate cake with berry compote and lemon sorbet. Here’s the MDR menu for tonight: After dinner we went to the Centrum to listen to the house band. Pam’s on the top on deck 7. This is our favorite place to sit since it’s next to our cabin. But again, when we’re in our cabin we can hear everything going on in the Centrum. You can see the casino on deck 6. So we get the smell of smoke in our cabin, too. We had gone through the Pedro Miguel locks during dinner so I was curious where we were at. Here is where we were at 8:38 p.m.: When I saw we were heading for the bridge I went up to Deck 12 to see what there was to see. We saw this cute older couple teaching the young lady on the bottom right some steps on the dance floor. It’s stuff like this that makes me love cruising. Here is today’s Cruise Compass: That about wraps it up for today. Tomorrow is a sea day, so I will be resting. See you then.

Here’s mine after we went under. I’m currently on Deck 7 overlooking the Centrum listening to the band with Pam.

I was up at 5:00 this morning and at the front of the ship around 5:45. We were originally supposed to hit the locks at 8:00, but got bumped to 9:45. We finally started moving towards the canal at 8:55. We were approaching the bridge by 9:10. We started approaching the locks at 10:10. It was slow going this morning. People were 8 deep by now and tempers were running a bit high at this point. And yet as you guys have been posting, we weren’t moving. Since I had a front row seat I can show you exactly what the hold up was. The left side locks were working fine. We had two ships go through the locks before we were even in our first lock. As they were waiting for the water to drain this is what it looked like. Notice the massive amount of water being released on the left side. Now, here’s how our lock looked like as it was draining. Note the small amount of water coming from the gates and that no water was being released on our side the way the left side was. As a matter of fact, there was a group of workers under the right arch. So obviously they were having issues with the pumps to get the water out of the lock in order for us to enter. The lock finally opened at 11:00, a full 3 hours after our original time slot or 1.25 hours after our second time slot. It was now 11:30 and I had been standing at the front for 6 hours. I was hot, tired and hungry so I left. But here’s me just before I left to give you an idea where I was, front and center. Here’s how the people looked during my walk back to the cabin. More to come.

6:27 a.m. crowd. We don’t enter the locks for another 3.25 hours.

Please feel free to add!!!

We were supposed to go through at 8:00. Our entrance has been pushed back to 9:45.

Reprosa also had the beautiful Molas that I wanted to get. Pam got one of the fish. We next stopped at a big shopping mall for lunch and then went to the old town area to learn a bit more about the history of Panama. We boarded a tram that took us to the museum. Inside there were several dioramas and maps to explain the time frame and what had happened in the time before the Spanish came and the effect on the native people. Then it was time to head back to the ship. All aboard was 5:30. We got there at 5:34, but because we were on a ship sponsored tour, we didn’t have to panic since we knew they wouldn’t leave without us. Sailaway was at 6:30, so only 30 minutes late. The dark building on the right is the cruise terminal. We exited through this terminal when we arrived. But when you return from a shore excursion, you have to go through the duty free shops in the bright building on the left then enter the terminal. We wish we had more time. The duty free building looked good and the duty free in the terminal looked good too. We had dinner in the Windjammer tonight so no food porn. Here’s some menu porn instead 😉😁 Lastly, here’s today’s Cruise Compass: Tomorrow we do the full Panama Canal transit. Originally we were scheduled for 8:00 a.m., but now they are saying 9:45 a.m. So a little more sleep tonight.

Today was a long day. We did the Panama Treasures Just For You. It was a 7 hour tour and it was jam packed. But first, the ship maps: When we disembarked the ship there were some dancers inside the terminal and these young indigenous people outside by the buses. We has a 90 minute drive from Colon on the Atlantic side of Panama to Panama City on the Pacific side. Our first stop was the Reprosa Factory where they take wax molds to make silver and gold jewelry. We had a demonstration where they filled the mold with silver and I got to help in the process. I was given a flawed silver piece that they were going to melt down and use in a new piece. Here, I’m putting it in the kiln. Then I was given a soda can filled with tiny balls of silver to fill up the holder they use to melt the silver. Here’s the finished product right out of the kiln. Here’s the same design. The right one still needs work. The one on the left has been polished. And here’s the top piece in gold for sale. They had so many beautiful things for sale and the prices were extremely reasonable, a lot of these pieces were under $100.

And here we thought we would be last. We got in at 5:35, so you won the tardy boarders award today. At least you weren’t a pier runner!

When do you leave to rejoin the world cruise, Pat?

Wait until the video series I’m working on for my YouTube channel. Should be similar to what I did with Wonder, but more videos and less photos.

From your mouth to God’s ears!

She was talking to me. We were on the Wonder WB TA in 2022. I earned my first crystal block on that sailing.

So we finally made it to Cartagena! The captain had the pedal to the metal all night long trying to get us here on time. But we did with no problems. For an older ship, Radiance runs smoothly and fast! Here I am in Cartagena! It was very hot (91 degrees) and humid. Today we have the Amazing Cartagena Bay and Walled City tour. We did the walking tour first and saw several churches and beautiful balconies. There were several metal sculptures like this around the old town. We stopped at an emerald jewelry store to use the bathrooms and buy jewelry (we did not buy any). They also had these cool displays in the back of the store. We then had 25 minutes of shopping before heading to the boat tour. We almost got boarded by a bunch of pirates! Our boat had two levels. We sat on the bottom since most people were heading for the 2nd deck. We were given either a rum & Coke, a regular Coke (no Diet Coke) or water. Then the had a local dance display. The tour was a bit disappointing. I thought they were going to show us the massive stone walls from the water. But all they did was take us to the port area to see the cruise ships. Then we boarded our bus to go back to the ship. In order to get to the ship you need to go through Port Oasis. I’ll let the photos tell the story. We boarded the shuttle bus to take us to the ship. This is where you catch it outside of the store. Back onboard we grabbed a quick snack at Park Cafe. Here’s your food porn for today! 😉😁 I also bought some orange wafer cookies at the Port Oasis store and they were delicious. We had dinner at the Windjammer tonight, but here’s the MDR menu. We were an hour late leaving tonight, but it was worth the wait. Had some incredible views while waiting for sailaway. Adios Cartagena! Lastly, today’s Cruise Compass. That’s it for today. Tomorrow is Colon, Panama and we have a 7 hour shopping tour in Panama City. See you then!

I think because I earned it on our last night on Wonder.

No cheese since Pam is currently dairy free under doctor’s orders.

We stopped the bread last night. Thanks!

I really wanted it on Wonder.

It looks like something from a 60s drug trip 😉😁😂

We were left 2 plates of fruit the last few days so we had that.

Everything seems smaller. I’m actually starting to feel hungry again.