Port stop, Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

[TamaLee]

azippy - What did you end up doing?

[ibfern]

I'll be re-visiting this port in a few weeks, I'll post here and on the Princess boards too--I'll be live on the Star. We were lucky enough to have them cancel Acapulco and replace it with Guatemala, its a great place to visit. Even the port is nice with a lovely visitor center and a crafts market behind it.

[ladyslippertraveller]

I just read your report on Guatamala but I am not sure how long ago you visited the area. If you could let me know I would appreciate it. We will be there in April of this year (2013) and I wondered what the situation is now regarding security.

[ibfern]

I just got back from a cruise through central and south america, here is my journal on this port:

 

12/11/12 Guatemala

 

We visited Guatemala as our second port stop, it was hot and sticky at the port but having chosen to go to Antigua was an excellent choice because it is above 550 thousand feet and was perfect weather, cool without the sticky air.

 

We made a mistake and took a Princess tour to the Filadelfia Coffee Plantation and hotel, mostly hotel! We also visited Antigua to learn of its history, and do a little shopping. This cost $99 each and included a basic lunch of baked potato, a quarter of a piece of corn on the Cobb, beans, guacamole and chips, and a iffy piece of meat which was too underdone for lots of people.

 

The plantation was nice but seemed fictional, more of a mock up to demo the process they use making their coffee rather then a real processing plant. It was interesting to learn how they grow, pick, husk the seed, dry and ferment them, and finally roast and package them for consumption. They make three grades of coffee there, and we did get to taste the coffee at lunch. Unfortunately they did not give us enough warning and time to go buy any. We were told that the coffee could be bought cheaper in Antigua, but in fact it was 25% more expensive. I did not get any!

 

Although there was no indication that we would be taken to any factories--we took this tour to avoid the ones we were taken to on our last visit here several years ago-- we were immediately taken to the "jade" museum which we had visited before. Museum is code for huge boring store where the guide gets a commission if you buy stuff! They even put a string necklace on each of us to identify which guide was due the commission! Our guide was going to make us stay there a half hour but I incited a mutiny when I told him I told him I did not want to stay since I had been there before! Many of the people on out tour agreed and he left the few people at the store and walked us around the corner to a crafts market where we were at least able to walk around and look, and of course buy stuff too.

 

We should have either gone on our own or taken the Princess "on your own" tour instead. We should have known when the day started off with the chaos of humanity all trying to get off the ship at the same time. We had a tough time finding our tour, even our husbands who are gentlemen and let others go ahead making it easier for them to get lost. It did not seem organized at all.

 

Guatemala is a nice place, we love the colorful fabrics and people too. Beware of the children who hound you to shine their shoes, they should be in school but instead are pounding people for anything they an get! I made the mistake of giving one child a few bucks and before I knew it many kids were asking me for the same. The most disturbing thing was that the original kid I gave money to came back to me many times asking me if he could shine my shoes. I told him if he went to school he would remember that he had already asked me!

 

Several days before on the ship I met a teacher who was trying to gather stuff to bring to a school near the port, she needed pens for all of the students and I managed to secure her pens, water bottles, and a few other trivia gifts to bring them. Last night I she found me at trivia and told me the school was not open. She said Captain Ed Perrin offered to take her to an orphanage where she was able distribute the pens and other goodies to some needy children. What a nice guy!

12/12/12 San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

 

We had a problem today, some passengers saw a small boat of fisherman and called the Captain to tell him that they were in trouble. So we had to go back and find them to make sure they were okay, it took an hour to double back and when we found them, they were waving fish at us because nothing was wrong. Unfortunately this caused a tremendous delay and we did not arrive until an hour later.

 

This port only allows one tender at a time, it takes a long time to disembark passengers under the best of circumstances and we have a full ship! So we were all called to report to the Princess Theater 45 minutes later than our tour tickets indicated, and the theater was full, jammed with people. We waited, as they announced that we would still get our full tour, but I was beginning to doubt this as it approached 2:30! It is an hour and a half each way to Granada, and we were also visiting the Tobacco plantation and Park central. Anyway, Gloria and Lew were on a different excursion, which included lunch, but as it approached 3pm it seemed unlikely that they would be eating lunch and swimming in lake Nicaragua in the dark is not fun! I see my friend marching to the excursion people and I know she is speaking for us all; we want our money back! She announced to me and I announced to my side of the theater that if you turn your tickets in you will get a full refund. Thank you Princess.

 

It's 3:30 now and the last tender will be by 6:30, but they just announced that no more tender tickets are required, so that means most people are off and it took hours to get them off. By my reckoning, people will need to stars coming back now if they expect to get everybody by 6:30's all aboard. We decided to stay on the ship since it is so hot and muggy and standing in a tender line on shore for hours didn't sound like fun.

 

Please be aware of the tender limitations of this port when you are planning your excursions. In fact, this was not even the worst news of the day. We all got notices that we may not be allowed to get into any Argentinean ports, including Buenos Aires, if we go to the Falklands. So far they are just warning us of this potential problem and obviously we would rather miss one port than many in Argentina.

 

Today's problems could clearly delay us in a domino effect on all the upcoming ports, and we prepaid for a gourmet tour to Lima, if we arrive late we might lose our money. C'est la vie!

 

In retrospect the whole experience in SJDS was very interesting, I had never experienced a day like that on a ship. We arrived late to Nicaragua (SJDS), a tender port that allows only one tender to dock at a time. The captain announced that we should add 45 min. To our tours so we went to the Princess Theater at 12:15 rather than 11.30. We sat and waited and watched the theater become more and more packed. By 1:30 we knew something was up but when I asked about how we could do the full tour at that point, the staff told us not to be concerned.

 

One tour at a time was called to the tenders, they each took so long that by 3 pm we knew it was going to be a strange day. Gloria asked about her lunch tour and was finally told that if she wanted to cancel and turn in her tickets, she could do that. That info quickly spread through the entire theater and once again we encountered a mass of people flooding out to turn in their tickets! We did just that.

 

Ken figured that they were running about 6 drop offs per hour, with 5 tenders in the bay making the run, one at a time to the dock! We had all been to SJDS several times before and decided to stay on the ship. We had Wine time with Gloria and Lew on their huge forward balcony and enjoyed ourselves despite missing our tours.

 

We were supposed to leave by 6, then 6:30, and the tenders kept coming back to the ship. We watched the sunset then went to eat; the dining room was almost completely empty. At 7:30 we ran to "name that tune trivia" and the room was empty. Easy win for us!

 

Long story short, by 8 pm there were still 700 people waiting to tender back to the ship in the dark. We were all glad we didn't go ashore, and many said that tendering in the dark was not so fun! This day was quite memorable, and I think even if we were not late, we would have had problems tendering all the people in a timely manner. Moral of this story is when you come to SJDS get off the ship as quick as you can and come back early, unless you like chaos.

 

All night the ship jammed to Puntarenas, Costa Rica much faster than normal, but still it was steady and the seas were smooth. By 5 in the morning it was already getting light and I could see we were approaching our destination.

[azippy]

we did this while on Vision of the Seas canal passage in October. We took the bus they offerred up to Antigua -- prices were higher closer to the spot where the bus dropped you off and the later in the day - the bargaining got better. Lovely little town - we attended a wedding at the church - ate lunch - browsed thru the open market - used the internet at the prettiest McD's ever .. in general just moseyed around. The bus ride was about an hour and the 'guide' gave a running comentary. We choose this because I had tracked down some info regarding taxis running out of gas - or worse not getting one back -- we went the safe route. The port is a port - not a town or village - they have moderized it with stalls where you can bargain and a bar with internet. After we had been there - there was an earthquake - so you still need some updated info on that -- I neither saw nor heard anythng about security or problems at the time we were there..

 

have a good time :)