Ship Time

This was a long cruise! We were on the ship for 15 days, six of those days were spent at sea. We did manage to find a way to pass all that time.

I spent a lot of time in the movie theater, Rob only spent a little time there...he preferred napping or the gym over movie watching. Crazy guy. We also logged a lot of domino playing hours. In the library, by the pool, in our room, everywhere we went, we had our trusty dominoes.

The nightly shows were just so-so. We went to a handful of them, but more often than not skipped them. We went to a few of the day shows, The Newlywed game being one of them. We were selected to come on stage and participate as one of three couples. It was half fun, half embarrassing. The mortifying part is that it was taped and they played the embarrassing portion on a loop on every single television throughout the boat for the rest of the cruise. Thank you, Holland America.



The actual pools on this ship were a tad lame, swimming-wise, but they were prime people watching spots...and also the scene of our epic giant size chess and table tennis games.




I let Rob suck me in to spending too many hundreds of dollars playing BINGO the last week...we never won. Not even once. I was SO close one day, but someone else shouted BINGO! when I had just one spot left to get. It was sad.



Each night we'd come back to our room to find a towel creation on our bed. These guys were my favorite two. I think he's supposed to be a ninja. Or a monkey. I dunno.

We docked in Florida and stuck around there for a couple days, but I failed to take a single picture. Really, all I did was watch hours upon hours of Royal Wedding footage while Rob caught up on his sleep. We are super exciting people.

Overall, it was a fabulous trip, glad we went, made lotsa memories. Good times.

Okay, now I'm done. Promise not to bore you with anymore vacation photos. ☺

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena was probably our favorite stop. We've actually talked about going back here...one day just wasn't enough!

The first place we visited was the amazing Castillo San Felipe de Barajas fortress, which is right on a hill, right in the city. It was massive!

We had some time restrictions that didn't allow us to go through the entire fortress, which was a big ol' bummer...it really would have been awesome!




We made our way to the walled off colonial part of town and took a horse carriage ride though the streets.




It was definitely the old part of the city, but they did have a Hard Rock Cafe and a Benetton, naturally. ☺



All the colors and the architecture was stunning. We were instantly drawn in the second we arrived.



We did a little shopping, picked up some good ol' Colombian coffee for the people back home and headed back to the ship for a few days of sailing before we reached Florida.

The Panama Canal Crossing

Going through the Panama Canal is an all day process. There are three locks to go through, and a big lake.

We started through the first part of the canal at around 6:00AM. Keep in mind, we'd gotten back on the boat from our Panama excursion at about 1:00 the night before. I think you can tell by my face that it was too early to be up and so excited about anything.

But, it is the Panama Canal, so of course we got up and joined the rest of the ship out on the decks to watching the passing.

We have locks at home, so we weren't as in awe of the process as everyone else, but it really is amazing to watch.





They are adding another set of locks...here's a glance at the construction of it.



We retired back to our room for a little power nap and wardrobe change {it got way hot way fast!} before we came back out and found some lounge chairs to camp out on for the rest of the voyage. Our ship was so wide, there were only a few feet of clearance on each side as we went through. And here is where we get our first view of Rob's favorite purchase, his hat. ☺



The passing was really pretty. There were a ton of this little islands scattered all over throughout the lake.



We just sat out on the covered deck all day and watched the scenery float by...and played endless games of dominoes, our favorite pastime.

And that was the crossing of the Panama Canal. We have now officially crossed that off our list of things to do before we die.

Fuerte Amador, Panama

Arriving in Panama was one of the prettiest sites of the trip! There were tons of big boats dotting the water waiting for all their paperwork to be approved by the canal so they can pass through. We were pulling in at around in the late afternoon, so the sun was pretty low and made for some great views, depending on which side of the ship we were looking off of.

We were surprised to see this skyline! We had no idea that there was such a metropolitan area so near the port.



The ship didn't pull right up to land, we had to tender in on the lifeboats, which didn't have any lights inside, so the ride back at night was pitch black and a little unsettling.



Once we made our way on land it was a little after 6:00 and the sun had already gone down, but it was SO hot still!

We took lots of pictures, but not many came out as anything but blobs since I didn't really know how to use the night setting on the camera. I've been using this excuse for too long...I really ought to learn how the thing works!



The first stop of our tour was Goethals Memorial, which is in front of the Panama Canal Administration building. It was built to honor the man who supervised the construction & opening of the canal.

Each of the 'shelves' have the name of one of the locks on it (Gatun, Miraflores and Pedro Miguel), but it's hard to see in the picture.

We then went inside the walled part of the city called Casco Antiguo. The architecture here was amazing, but we have little photographic evidence to prove it. Here are a few 'blob' shots...just for fun.





This was a monument dedicated to some Frenchmen who had influence on the canal...it was just really neat looking.



This is the Institute of National Culture which is the scene of a great chase in the latest James Bond movie, apparently...I don't remember, but I took the guides word for it.



We really wished that we could have spend the day in this port rather than the night since there were so many great things there. It was SO hot at night, so I could only imagine how hot it would have been during the day though...maybe we were better off!

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

In Guatemala we decided to go to Antigua, a city that was a 90 minute bus ride inland.

We totally lucked out on this stop! Our one day stop here happened to fall on the biggest celebrated day of the year in Antigua. There is a huge Holy Week celebration called Semana Santa held in Antigua and on this day, Good Friday, there is a grand procession. People travel from all around for days and days to attend this celebratory week.



We got there before the procession started and saw a few of the floats lined up at the beginning of the procession route and snapped a few shots.



People make these elaborate sawdust rugs in the street for the procession to walk through. These take hours to create and are is so many different shapes and patterns.




There is a large jade mine in Guatemala and we spent a lot of time in the shop/factory/museum, Jades S.A, of the woman who discovered the mine years ago. She is very passionate about the entire process and oversees everything. This big 'rock' Rob is touching is pure jade and is her 'retirement rock', worth quite a chunk of change. This was a really interesting shop...our bags were much heavier and our pockets were quite a bit lighter after we left!



I loved all the architecture...especially all of the old churches. This is the Church of San Francisco.



Iglesia de las Capuchinas. Even though it's a crumbling mess, I think it was my favorite.

The Cathedral de Santiago



Sure, the place was old...but naturally, they have a Dominos! They deliver too...on bicycles



Now isn't this the cutest little taxi you've ever seen!?! They aren't very fast though...you'd get around quicker by walking.



This little city is surrounded by huge volcanoes (which we had to drive over to get there), but somehow I managed not to get a picture of a single one! You can see the base of a couple of them in a few of these pictures though. Go here to view a couple online shots, they are definitely worth glancing at.

I didn't get any procession pictures either, but Rob says that is just a reason to go back...I don't disagree! This would have been an amazing visit any day, but it was extra-super-incredibly amazing that our visit happened to fall in the middle of such a special celebration.