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

[BillOh]

 

And as I am at work,

 

Grrrrrrrr.

 

 

The most dreaded thing about a cruise ending. At least your 100 days from the next one.

[Sinppu]

Firefox should work.

 

I know, but can't install a new browser on my work computer. Got it sorted now though!

[DonnaK]

hi Sinny!

 

Can't wait to read more!

[Sinppu]

After the Muster Drill and a few drinks we were really tired. We just wanted to have dinner and go to bed.

We had MTD and we usually booked a table earlier on the day and sometimes even on the night before and every time we got the time wanted, which was usually 8 or 8.30 pm.

We sat at 6 different tables and had 4 different teams serving us.

The first night wasn't very good but I suppose we were all very tired and a bit grumpy.

 

We asked to be seated somewhere else the next evening and everyone wanted to know what went wrong and made a big deal out of it.

 

No food porn in this report, sorry.

I made such a mess of it the last time I figured I'd stay away this time ;)

We have always been really satisfied with cruise ship food. Maybe we've been lucky or maybe we just don't know what we are talking about, but we've always had only decent meals.

That was the case here too.

 

I myself am a pescatarian, my husband is a real carnivore, Anouk needs her foods gluten-free, Thommo is a fussy eater and Ann is the easy one to please, so we have it all covered.

And still we were happy 95% of the time.

All of us always found something to eat from the menu and Anouk asked our waiter on the first evening if she could have her meals gluten-free and this was perfectly accommodated.

This photo is from later on the cruise and shows her going through the menu with one of our waiters, Hadi.

 

 

One evening all the starter soups were gluten-free, so they brought them all out.

 

 

We found it to be hilarious.

 

Anouk was brought gluten-free bread every evening (most waiters remembered this after the first time), Thommo was brought his Diet Coke every evening and we always had a good time with our teams.

They seem to like people who laugh a lot and don't complain about their food.

Go figure.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Sinppu

[Sinppu]

hi Sinny!

 

Can't wait to read more!

 

Oh my gosh, hi Donna!!

 

How is everything? Has your younger daughter also graduated already?

 

Have they both found jobs they like?

[Sinppu]

The first day was a sea day.

We all needed it.

Anouk slept probably 14 hours straight.

 

We usually had breakfast in the Windjammer. Sometimes in the MDR and maybe twice in Park Café.

 

We are quite an active bunch, we play a lot of games and take part in trivia.

 

 

We took part in the progressive trivia which actually proved to be quite stressful...because of Billie from Wales. She was a part of the Cruise Director's Staff and was absolutely awful. We all found her annoying and unprofessional. Her main purpose seemed to be to draw attention to herself and hope nobody noticed that she hadn't checked whether her Q&A were up to date.

Our "favourite" was "What is the currency of Austria?"

Her answer was the schilling (which was replaced by the Euro in 2002) and when we contradicted this, she said "Well all right, I'll accept the Euro then. But I did read this from my Great Book of Trivia so I'm not responsible if it's up to date or not." :rolleyes:

 

We also played bingo:

 

 

This was the first time we tried the shuffleboard. It was fun...but we decided not to partake in the Olympic Games as a team. Might be better that way.

 

[Sinppu]

We are all quite keen on dressing up so the formal nights are a blast.

 

As are the photo sessions that go along with them.

 

 

Especially when you've done something embarrassing and all your friends are there to take photos of it.

 

 

Poor Anouk. She's the only one in our group who drinks coffee and this evening she spilled it all over the table...and tried to hide it under the saucer. :D

 

You can see wine glasses in the photo. Thommo was the only one who had the Drink Package and we asked our Head Waiter Aysun if it was ok for him to buy a bottle of wine at dinner and for all of us to share it. This was fine.

It was also fine even when Thommo or Lowry didn't want the wine, so it was poured only for us ladies.

 

But tomorrow we will be in Cabo San Lucas and DOING something real for a change ;)

Edited June 23, 2015 by Sinppu

[DonnaK]

Oh my gosh, hi Donna!!

 

How is everything? Has your younger daughter also graduated already?

 

Have they both found jobs they like?

 

Yes, my younger daughter just graduated and got a job as a Math Teacher in a great high school here.

 

My older daughter just returned from Italy, where she lived for 2 years (attended graduate school and taught English), and now she is working here an Italian teacher in temporary positions while looking for a permanent position in a good high school.

 

Thank you for asking!

 

I see that you and Lowry are doing fine! I love your photos, and your writing!

[Sinppu]

None of us had ever been to Cabo San Lucas.

Our first glimpse of it was majestic.

 

 

Cabo is the only tender port on the Canal cruise and the wait was long.

 

Once we got into the port...

 

 

...the amount of people was astonishing. Lowry went off to find us a boat tour and he sorted it out in 12 minutes. The tour was 2 hours and cost us $20 pp.

 

 

 

[Sinppu]

We saw some wildlife while on the tour.

 

 

 

OK now this guy?

How??? Why?? What?

 

 

You can just hear him think..."Ay qué horror. Too many tequilas. Too many señoritas. No more spring break for me."

 

 

[Sinppu]

The views from the boat were nice and we enjoyed the tour. It was nice and cool.

 

 

Cabo people seem to be into strange-shaped rocks. Our captain pointed out an owl...

 

 

...an outstreched hand...

 

 

...and an upside down Baja California.

 

 

We had a lot of fun passing by this yacht. I mean... of course you'll need an helicopter. On a yacht. Maybe people wouldn't realize how much money you have otherwise.

 

 

We did ask the captain, but he didn't return us straight to our ship. Bummer.

 

[Sinppu]

Not quite sure if this bloke made us feel safe or unsafe.

 

 

It appears he was watching out for this guy:

 

 

Must be a VIP.

 

We were all hungry when we got back on land and we decided to have a drink and a bite to eat at the nearest restaurant.

Which was Señor Frogs.

As far as experiences go, that was a one-off.

 

 

But the hats were impressive.

[Sinppu]

As I have nothing interesting to report from dinner, we'll hop straight onto the next port which is of course Puerto Vallarta.

 

 

Here Lowry haggled us a short tour up to the viewpoint and then back to downtown where we could look around us for a little while.

 

 

Not a big fan of heights. Can you tell?

Oh my darling husband decided to show me first after I got off the balcony that it hangs in mid-air. Love him.

 

 

We spent maybe an hour walking along the beach and seeing the different statues.

 

 

 

Especially this one brought us a shameful amount of joy. Our driver Jorge told us that Puerto Vallarta has a symbol, a very important statue of horse shii. We stared at one another in the car and tried not to laugh. He kept repeating: "Important symbol, Puerto Vallarta, horseshii."

After a while we were really interested in seeing this...shii statue. Here it is.

Not quite what we expected, but very nice anyway. Ahem.

 

 

This tour cost us I think $18 pp.

These to ports didn't really impress us so none us will be returning very soon.

[Sinppu]

Up next was a sea day.

Since we (again) did nothing impressive/extraordinary/interesting/photoworthy/memorable, I'll just insert a few photos and answer any questions anyone might have.

 

 

The Atrium. Now that we've seen many different ships, we can say that the bigger the better for us.

We love the Promenade and the choice in restaurants and venues.

 

 

A towel animal. Just to prove they still exist. In the wild.

 

 

Some after dinner art. Courtesy by my (obviously bored) husband.

 

 

Now this made us laugh. Hard.

 

A few words (although I have no photos) about the Noro. The ship was cleaned thoroughly for the first 10 days of the cruise.

Thoroughly clean means in this case that all the cabin doors and their handles were constantly dripping wet (yuk par excellence) and there were crew everywhere chasing you down with hand sanitizers.

And you weren't allowed to touch anything in the WJ. Extra crew with gloves on was there to hand out evrything from napkins to plates to food and drinks.

 

Needless to say, this slowed everything down and apparently annoyed a lot of passengers. We didnät go to WJ as often as in the past since we found it troublesome and not worth waiting everywhere (although we of course understood the reasons).

 

But the worst part was naturally Billie from Wales. Every day she saw it necessary to complain how awful it was to be standing in the WJ and serve food to the passengers. Poor girl. How awful.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Sinppu

[Sinppu]

All the ports on this cruise were new to us.

I'd heard that Antigua was worth a visit here, so we set out to find a tour that would take us there.

 

In Puerto Quetzal there were buses which took us to the other side of the port where other cruise ships were docked.

There were plenty of people offering tours and everyone spoke good English, so again it is not a problem to go DIY -even on the day itself.

 

Lowry negociated us a tour with a driver and a guide and they negociated two more people right back. These ladies were from Argentina and they sat in the front with our driver Jorge and spoke Spanish and we sat in the back with our guide Edwin who spoke English to us. I think the price was around $30-35 pp.

 

We made a stop along the way since we wanted to buy local coffee and souvenirs. It was truly interesting and the residing family had a hand in many things.

 

The views were magnificent.

 

 

 

Coffee plants.

 

 

This is what a coffee bean looks like.

 

 

This señora is grounding the coffee. It takes her 30 minutes to gring one bag full coffee beans.

 

 

The family cat was quite displeased to find her gate closed.

 

 

"Excuse me! Servants!! The gate is closed.

[Sinppu]

There were many hugely colourful carpets, bags and clothes on sale too.

They were also made right there.

 

 

And yes, I'm not cynical. I do believe they are made there and these ladies do not just sit around for us tourists to see.

 

 

There were over 20 national dresses on display. The ladies were very accommodating and would have gladly worn the dresses had we wanted them to.

 

These little toys were so cute!

 

 

 

We also wrote our names in the guest book. Ann and Anouk parted easily with their money as the coffee and small purses they bought were not expensive.

 

[Sinppu]

It took about an hour to drive to Antigua.

We first visited the Antigua cathedral. Edwin told us some really interetsing stories about it.

 

 

 

 

 

The cathedral is on a small square with some small shops on the side.

 

 

I bet this lady's mama never had to tell her to "stand up straight!"

 

Next we visited an old monastery which has been converted (hahaha pun intended) to a luxury hotel.

Apparently all we found interesting here were animals.

Parrots...

 

 

...and a horse.

 

Edited June 25, 2015 by Sinppu

[Sinppu]

We were then dropped off at the Central Square which is beautiful and here you can find many restaurants and shops.

There are also many souvneir sellers and everything seemed to cost only one dollar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shoe shine guy was so persistent that Thommo finally gave up and paid him 2 dollars. But just look at difference between his shoes!

 

 

We wanted ice creams but this guy was nowhere to be seen. So we just bought some from a ice cream shop.

 

 

Here's a small mystery for everyone:

There is a plaque for a very special person in the square.

Anybody know for whom?

And it's not anyone from Guatemala.

[js4rq]

Beautiful photos..looking forward to more!

[travellerin1984]

So differences between HAL and Royal?

Numerous.

 

 

So I'd say HAL wins in two things: Lifts come faster and the choice of breakfast juices.

 

Hi Sinppu!

 

So nice to read your review! So interesting when you are comparing HAL and Royal. We have done many Celebrity cruises and need a change! Entertainment is not that exciting on Celebrity either but I consider it good quality but not really for us. We are too young and too nordic... ;) Food is great (it is important for us! Foodies..) and decor modern. We are trying Oceania in August (small ship experience in the Med). It is our honeymoon cruise so we made a splurge (hope the food really is magnificent, price was almost double comparing to Celebrity...) I think we should try Royal and have a fun cruise... Nice to have great entertainment. Our Oceania cruise will be more of a touring during a day, long dinner and back to bed. I think people is going to be at least 20 years older than us.

 

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

 

Eini from Stockholm

[js4rq]

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

[trogmd]

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

[maggieq]

Sinppu

 

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

Edited June 28, 2015 by maggieq

[cruisenfever]

A few words (although I have no photos) about the Noro. The ship was cleaned thoroughly for the first 10 days of the cruise.

Thoroughly clean means in this case that all the cabin doors and their handles were constantly dripping wet (yuk par excellence) and there were crew everywhere chasing you down with hand sanitizers.

And you weren't allowed to touch anything in the WJ. Extra crew with gloves on was there to hand out evrything from napkins to plates to food and drinks.

 

Needless to say, this slowed everything down and apparently annoyed a lot of passengers. We didnät go to WJ as often as in the past since we found it troublesome and not worth waiting everywhere (although we of course understood the reasons).

 

But the worst part was naturally Billie from Wales. Every day she saw it necessary to complain how awful it was to be standing in the WJ and serve food to the passengers. Poor girl. How awful.

Just an observation since we did a b2b that included this cruise and the cruise prior where Noro actually started.

 

Serving in the WJ started on the first cruise and continued on to this cruise. Staff and Crew were working double shifts. So, yes, in defense of Billie and all the others, they were completely burned out since they had very little down time. If passengers knew how to queue, that would have eliminated a lot of problems in the WJ.

 

We played Progressive Trivia on this cruise (which we won :D) that Billie hosted and listened to many of her complaints. This was her first ship and contract with RCI so she wasn't aware of the extra duties involved.

Edited June 28, 2015 by cruisenfever

[Sinppu]

So, yes, in defense of Billie and all the others, they were completely burned out.

 

We played Progressive Trivia on this cruise (which we won :D) that Billie hosted and listened to many of her complaints. This was her first ship and contract with RCI so she wasn't aware of the extra duties involved.

 

She was the only one who ever complained about it. Aloud. To the passengers. Everytime she got the opportunity.

 

I have a similar job to Billie's and from my point of view it is VERY unprofessional to be complaining about your job to the customers.

 

 

Well done in the trivia!! I salute you. We must have sat very close to one another a few times [emoji3]