Monday March 13, 2023 Fly to FFL

This trip has been on  my bucket list for a long time - to visit the Panama Canal. So we're off on an 11 day Holland America cruise which will take us to several ports of call and entry into the Canal. We are really looking forward to some warm weather! It hasn't snowed much on Boise this winter, but its been cold and windy. Spring seems so far away.

We left Boise at about 6:45 AM on United, flying through Denver and arriving in FFL mid afternoon. We find sunny and high 80's!! We were met at baggage claim by a Holland Rep who directed us to the shuttle bus to the hotel. We're at a Renaissance. Much further from the pier than I expected, about a half hour, and nowhere near the beach.

Excellent bacon cheeseburger in the hotel restaurant.

You can see a cruise ship at the dock

Tuesday - We Board the Boat

There were about 50 of us Eurodam cruisers at the hotel. After a nice buffet breakfast, the Holland Rep corralled us all onto the motor coach for the half hour ride to the terminal. We went through all the normal security checkpoints and boarded the ship with no issues. It was actually quite painless! We were in our room by noon.

The afternoon was spent exploring the ship, having lunch in the Lido Cafe, unpacking our stuff. We left Ft Lauderdale behind right on schedule, about 4:00 PM. The weather is great!

Dinner tonight was a “welcome” steak dinner. Very good. Our evening ended with a very informative program in the Main Theater about the 150 year history of Holland America Lines.

Our room has a nice balcony

Leaving Fort Lauderdale

Wednesday - Day at Sea

After a so-so breakfast at the Lido buffet, we went to a presentation in the main theater about the variety of shore excursions that would be available this week. (We've already signed up for some). Following was a fascinating presentation called "Islands of the Mind", which profiled Jimmy Buffet, Earnest Hemingway and Ian Fleming and their attachments to Key West and Jamaica.

We enjoyed a light lunch at the The Dive In - a Nathan's Hot Dog and cheezy fries. Our afternoon program was a talk about The Deep Blue Sea and treasure hunting in the Caribbean.

We are on the MS Eurodam. She's 936 feet long and has about 2100 passengers, 800 crew.  The "Promenade Deck" is on level 3. That's where you can do laps - 3 to a mile! She was launched in 2008, which make her an "old lady". She's beginning to show her age, but she's fine!! Holland is a subsidiary of Carnival - who knew? We did a Mexican Riviera cruise in 2017 on the Westerdam. It must be Eurodam's sister ship, they're the same, I recall.

Promenade on Deck 3 goes all the way around.

One of two pools

Thursday - Day at Sea #2

Spectacular weather all day! Bright, strong sun and very warm (and humid) but it felt awesome! The ship is cruising right along; we hardly feel a thing!

Two programs today. First, this morning our cruise director did a very interesting program "Caribbean Spirit" which was about the Rum industry, Bacardi in particular.

Lunch in the Dining Room today. Sam was able to achieve her desire for a lobster roll.

Our afternoon program was about the Panama Canal, which we will visit in a few days. I finally got a chance to start reading David McCullough's book, "The Path Between the Seas".

Simple dinner of Spaghetti and meat balls in the Lido buffet, then a musical program in the main theater called The Island Magic Steel Band. So much noise, but fun!

Tomorrow is our first shore excursion. We will spend the whole day in Orangestad on Aruba.

The Lido deck

Lots of power!

Oranjestad on Aruba

 Today is our first port day – Oranjestad on the Island of Aruba. (The correct pronunciation is Oranj – a – stad). After a brief stop at a butterfly farm, we started our day with a 3+ hour bus ride around the island. Our driver and guide, Melvin, was great. He named his son Xander (only certain people will appreciate that). We drove on to a place called Ayo with its unusual rock outcroppings and petroglyphs, then on to Natural Bridge on the coast. An interesting feature there: the Natural Bridge actually collapsed in 2005. It happened in the middle of the night; otherwise many people may have been injured. A popular thing to do here is ATV riding. There's hundreds of them! There was some great wave crashing here, too!

We learned some interesting things about Aruba:

• The island is basically a desert. Once you get away from the hotels and beaches, you'll find scrub cactus everywhere.

• There is no source of water! Back in the 50's, the government built a huge desalinization plant which now provides all the potable water for the island.

• The only thing that Aruba exports is Aloe products

• Most businesses are owned by Chinese; “all” the jewelry stores are Indian. (So we were told)

• The weather is the same all year. The only season is “spring break”!

We returned to the ship about 1:00. After lunch, we headed back out to explore the town. Its a long, hot walk! The main streets are all souvenir shops and vendors. We did find our magnet! We stopped for a cold drink at Iguana Joe's.

There are four cruise ships here today. (Holland, Norwegian, Celebrity. The “Freewinds” is owned by the Church of Scientology). That's over 10,000 tourists in town! As I write this at 10PM, we can see two more cruise ships at anchor waiting for us to leave.

Back to the ship time for dinner. We had a nice meal in the Dining Room with a couple of snowbirds from Boston and Florida. They had cruised everywhere, literally. Like so many people we encounter, they loved “cruising”.

We'll be shoving off about midnight and by morning we'll be in Willemstad, Curacao, for another day of island exploring.

Natural Bridge collapsed

Willemstad on Curacao

Our bus tour this morning stopped first at a sort-of museum called “Kas DiPali Maishi” depicting the life of slaves just after they achieved their independence in 1863 when slavery was outlawed by the Dutch. These Caribbean islands had been important stopping -off places as slaves were moved from Africa to the U.S. A major slave revolt had taken place in 1795, under a famous leader named Tula Rigaud.

Curacao is one of the “ABC Islands”; Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. They were part of the Netherlands Antilles until that was dissolved in 2010. The Islands are what is known as a “Constituent Country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands”. Now mostly autonomous, the King or Queen still has the final say!

The main languages are Dutch, English, and Papiamentu. The major industry is tourism, no surprise. There is a large oil refinery here but it been out of service for several years after an unresolved dispute with Venezuela.

Our bus trip continued to the north end of the island for a stop at Shete Boka National Park. A gravel walkway led us across lava fields to the coast and great views of incredible smashing waves! It was very powerful to watch. That's all there is here!

We continued around the north end of the island with a stop at a spectacular beach called Playa Kenepa Grandi. It was too much to have climbed down to the white sand beach, but we had a great view.

We returned to the ship a bit after noon, enjoyed a light lunch in the Lido Buffet and put our feet up.

Our afternoon “hike” was along the terminal and shoreline to the historic city centre with the Handelskade on St. Anna Bay, Fort Amsterdam and the famous “Pontoon Bridge”, also known as the Queen Emma Bridge. This area features the brightly colored buildings that you see on the postcards. Interestingly, some clever developers built a really nice mall right inside the fort!

The hike back to the ship was long and hot! But we made it by about 5:00. Dinner in the Dining Room with couples from Louisiana and Maryland. Again, travel adventures to share from all over the world.

Tomorrow is a welcome sea day as we head toward Cartegena. Weather continues to be wonderful!

Our Eurodam

Love Locks!

Playa Kenepa Grandi

A Mall inside the old fort

The famous Pontoon Bridge

Sunday March 19 Sea Day

You don't realize how big the ocean is! It takes about 30 hours get from Curacao to Cartegena, clipping along at 17 knots! Sure doesn't look that far on a map!

Another glorious weather day at sea. The sun is really strong! Its amazing to see all the sun worshippers around the pools getting roasted - can't be healthy. We've always been averse to the hot sun! The veranda at our room is a great place to hang out in the shade.

We attended a non-denominational church service this morning. Led by a retired priest from Prince Edward Island and a couple of impromptu sermons by some bible enthusiasts. Our program this morning, presented by Stephanie, our favorite cruise Director, was about Cartegena and the various activities we can look forward to tomorrow.

This afternoon we just hung around and read our books. I'm reading David McCullogh's "The Path  Between the Seas", Sam is immersed in "The Lost Apothecary", by Sarah Penner, which she found in the ship's library. She's reading fast to make sure she finishes it in time!

Special dinner tonight was a Seafood Boil! We enjoyed clams, muscles, crab legs, salmon, chowder, etc. It was excellent - and very messy!

Tonight's program was a comedian - Marc Yaffee - he was hysterical! His jokes we directed at his senior audience!

Cartegena tomorrow.

Monday - Cartegena, Colombia

We're being towed by a tug into the dock at about dawn. Right off one side of our boat is a very busy container yard. Fascinating to watch how quickly they load those things!  Off the other side of our ship is the Emerald Princess. Two more "small ships" would arrive during the day.

Our tour this morning was a three hour bus ride around the city of Cartegena. A major feature of this part of the old city is a huge fortress called Castle of San Felipe de Barajas. And, the entire city is surrounded by a protective rock wall, to protect against pirates, making visibility from the bus a challenge. There's a modern skyline across the bay.

After a five minute stop at the bottom of the fort, besieged by hawkers, we went on to, of course, shopping! This place is called The Dungeons. Very interesting idea where each of the cells had been converted to a shop selling all kinds of stuff. And, aggressive street vendors everywhere (I did buy a leather belt from one!) We also stopped at the Navy Museum, which wasn't very interesting.

We returned to the ship at the terminal, which had been developed into the "Port Oasis", a rather interesting mini-zoo with lots of parrots, pink flamingos, monkeys and peacocks. We spent a few minutes enjoying a cold drink at the snack bar before taking the shuttle bus back to the ship.

Dinner tonight was one of the "specialty dinners" our package includes. This was at the Italian Canaletto. We enjoyed excellent veal dishes and fun conversations with our waiters. Most of the crew are Philippino or Indonesian. They seem to sign on for 4-6 months. This crew is looking forward to repositioning to Alaska later this month.

Sounds like tomorrow will be a very busy day We enter the locks of the Panama Canal around 6:00AM and we should reach Gatun Lake by about 11:00, where we will head off into the jungle on our excursion.