Hall's 2019 Tour of the Panama Canal

Grand Cayman is a great finish...to a great cruise.  The island is small but so beautiful, clean, neat and seemingly well run.  One of the first things you see in town is this well uniformed policeman directing traffic using some very effective ballet moves.  Standing on the corner watching his antics, a local turned to me and said, "he does this all day". Our travel group split up and went on different tours.  One group headed for a rum distillery tour.  They learned about the distillery process and progressed to the tasting.  When the calypso music and dancing were added, the intensity level went up.  In the end, they went to "Hell" (see below). Ann wanted to take it easy today so I went on a guided bike ride throughout a lot of the island.  The three hour tour hit some of the highlights of Grand Cayman and its beautiful scenery.  We started by riding along quaint country lanes and roads.  We stopped to visit a turtle center.  We next visited "Hell&q

Today we are making our way toward our last vacation stop at Grand Cayman Island.  We are at sea all day. We have 8 people in our travel group and everyone scattered to take advantage of ship activities that they were most interested in. 1.  One event was called the "Egg Drop Challenge".  It amounted to a packaging contest because you       had to drop the egg in the Atrium, 5 floors up, without breaking the egg.  Lots of great packaging       ideas emerged.  3 people did not break their egg. 2.  Another event was the water bottle flip.  One guy successfully stood the bottle on its cap. 3.  Some watched a concert on the big screen, "Movies under the Stars". 4.  Others: went to the exercise room, shopped on board or watched numerous movies on the ship's         cable TV. 5.  Bob Wirtz won $95 playing blackjack slots. There is a young girl who is a greeter at the door to the ship's cafeteria.  She is there when you go for lunch.  She has a great spi

Limon, Costa Rica is located south of Nicaragua and north of Panama.  It is a nice little town on the Atlantic coast in the middle of a rainforest.  We wanted to see it all so we took a bus tour which led to a train ride and we finished with a boat ride. We started with a tour of the town by bus.  Our guide was a retired Biology teacher.  He told us that Costa Rica has no army, no navy and no air force.  Their energy is 98% clean with mostly hydroelectric power.  He explained about Costa Rica's graveyard system:      a.  Everyone is buried above ground because the soil is so saturated with water.      b.  The rich can buy, from the government, a burial plot for up to 99 years.  After that, everyone is            cremated.      c.  The poor are given a plot by the government but 20 years later they are cremated. The train ride took us through the rainforest and on to a banana plantation.  Costa Rica ships bananas all over the world and our Biology teacher (guide) explained

We stayed with the canal all day, toured the facilities and studied all we could about this engineering marvel.  It is truly a fascinating engineering feat. It saves ships an 8000 mile trip so they do not have to go around the bottom of South America in order to get to the other coast.  They just finished construction of a 2nd companion canal that opened in 2014.  Both canals are pretty much side by side.  This afternoon on the Atlantic Ocean side we saw roughly 30 big ships in a conga line ready to go East to West through the canal. The Panama Canal is 250 miles long.  China is the biggest user.  They charged our ship $400,000.00 to use the canal.  The cost to the Island Princess was based on the number of people on board.  They told us that for every ship it is an all cash deal...do and payable within 48 hours. Tomorrow we will be in Costa Rica...stay tuned. Going up 85' to Gatun Lake using the old docks. Iron Mules pull the ships.  Ships clear sides by 9&quo

We had the "best" time in Cartagena...I'll get to it in a minute. Cartagena is a really interesting town.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It has almost one million population.  There is a huge contrast between the old and new parts of town.  30 years ago the new part of town did not exist.  The government wanted to develop the new so they gave everyone who moved into a new condo, 20 years of no taxes. The new part sprung up almost overnight. The old part is famous for its cobbled streets, plazas, very old buildings and tons of street salespeople hawking lots of trinkets.  200 years ago they build 7 miles of stone walls around the city for protection.  The country is named for Christopher Columbus (and he has a huge statue) but he never made it to Columbia.  Simon Bolivar was the hero of the country as he freed them from the Spanish.  There is a big statue and a park honoring him.  Juan Valdez is also a local hero.  You can find him on TV hawking coffee. Th

We had plenty of activities to choose from as we spent the day on board. We are on our way to Cartagena, Columbia and we will arrive at 7:00AM tomorrow.  We will be about 700 miles from the equator in Columbia.  It sounds like a lot of miles but being that close to the equator you have to expect heat and lots of humidity.  On board they told us not to worry because the humidity was only going to be 94%. A picture form "Formal Night"...our 2nd night aboard ship.