April 14, 2019 - Los Angeles, California to Scottsdale, Arizona

Day 16 – Panama Canal Cruise Finale

We can’t really call this a cruise day since we were off the ship by 8:30 this morning, but we did get to have breakfast one more time onboard!

Tobey enjoyed his salmon and cream cheese bagel and Eggs Benedict. I told him to enjoy it today, because we are not going to be eating like this once we get home! We have certainly been spoiled.

Phil and Marcia caught an UBER to get a rental car and they are spending a couple more days in southern California. Tobey and I went the opposite direction in our UBER to Los Angeles airport for our flight to Phoenix. It has been a long time since we have flown in/out of LAX and it was jam-packed! And, our flight was delayed about an hour so we didn’t get back to Scottsdale until almost 4pm.

It was great to get back and see our moms and our sweet dog, Penny. We have some “unspoiling” to do since she has been treated royally while in Arizona!

We are spending a couple days with the Moms and heading back to Colorado on Wednesday. We have had quite the adventures since leaving home in December, but it will be good to be home.

April 13, 2019 - At Sea

Day 15 - Panama Canal Cruise

It is hard to believe this was our last day of the cruise! We have had such a good time.
The weather turned cold and windy (well, 61 for the high), but it wasn’t what we were expecting. Tobey planned to try the water tube and since he hadn’t done it yet, this was the last opportunity. We headed up to the pool deck after breakfast and he braved the wind and cool weather.

Once Tobey climbed to the top of the tower  and into the “chute” and in position, they closed him in. The attendant hit the lever and the floor dropped out underneath Tobey and he was zooming down. Unfortunately, like several other people we have seen doing the tube, he got stuck halfway!

They have emergency escape doors for just that reason, so they let Tobey out and he made a quick dash to the hot tub to warm up. Tobey thought maybe it was because his swimsuit wasn’t wet enough, so it created too much friction and slowed him down. After warming up he decided to give it another go. Up he went and the second time made it all the way through the slide.

More hot tub for him to warm up then back to the room to change into dry clothes!

This afternoon we went to the “crew talent show”. One of the “bakery girls”, Michelle, sang a duet with another staff member who played the guitar. It was fun.

A crew member from India did a traditional dance.

After dinner, Phil, Marcia, and I went to the Fab Fourever show in the theater. The group is a Beatles tribute band and they dress up and wear wigs to look like the Beatles. It was a good show.

Tobey and I watched Siglo’s last two shows in the Cavern Lounge. Their guitar player, Randy, does an amazing job and is quite the showman – really connecting with the audience.

When the show was over at 10pm we went back to our room to finish packing before our departure in the morning. This has been a memorable trip with good friends and we hate to see it end!

April 12, 2019 - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Day 14 Panama Canal Cruise

Our ship arrived in Cabo about 6 am today for our last port of call. We took a tender boat from the ship to the marina arriving about 8 am.

Phil and Marcia took a water taxi tour out to the Arch to see some of the sights before getting back to the beach. Tobey and I have done that a few times before, so we walked into the town and made arrangements to get a massage. The 90-minute massages were $35USD each. They were okay, but not as good as we had when we were here in October last year. Oh well, at least we were relaxed!

One thing Cabo has lots of is bars. I chuckle over all the signs they put up!

 

We stopped for fish tacos before walking back to get the tender back to the ship at 1pm. It was such a short time in port, we were a bit disappointed.

We did spot a couple seals, one at the marina and one hitching a ride, begging for fish on the back of a boat!

Back on the ship, we headed to the pool deck and sat in the hot tub then watched our sail away from Cabo. We had a good view of the marina and Medano Beach, as well as a boat that would be nice to have. 😃

After dinner we played cards for a while before calling it a night. Our towel art tonight looks like a bird wearing a robe!

Tomorrow we are at sea, so one more full day before the trip is over.

April 11, 2019 - Mazatlán, Mexico

Day 13 – Panama Canal Cruise

Our sunrise was beautiful in Mazatlán when we arrived this morning.

Mazatlán is known as the Pearl of the Pacific, not because of the gemstone, but because of the friendliness of its people and the beauty of its beaches. Mazatlán means place of the deer in Nahuatl, the language of indigenous people who pre-date the town's founding in 1531. The city itself was not actually incorporated until 1806 when German immigrants settled here. Today, Mazatlán has the largest shrimping fleet in Mexico.

We didn’t schedule any tours, but had decided to go to the historic center of town. We met one of the Mazatlán Tourist Aides, which was great!

The Mazatlán Tourist Aides are a group of American and Canadian volunteers who have organized themselves in Mazatlán, Mexico to provide a warm welcome for visitors. Armed with free information, maps and their own working knowledge of the port town, the blue-shirted Mazatlán Tourist Aide volunteers dispense smiles along with down-to-earth info about their adopted city. The group’s primary goal is to help cruise ship tourists with limited time experience the city and find the things they’re interested in.

Armed with one of their maps, we contracted with one of the “pulmonia” taxis to take us to the historic center of town. Unique to Mazatlán, pulmonias are gas-powered, open-air taxis that look like souped up golf carts! From the cruise port to the cathedral it was only $5.00 for the four of us.  Our driver was friendly and gave us a quick description of the area as we went along.

We saw them all over the city.

Construction of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception located on Republic Square began in 1875 and was completed in 1899. It was the port’s second Catholic church.

After checking out the church, we followed our tourist map to the market before heading to the Malecón. We checked out the Hotel Posada Freeman Zona Dorada. We took their elevator to the 9th floor and walked up a couple more flights of stairs to their rooftop pool and an amazing view over the city!

We enjoyed seeing the architecture in the old part of the city.

 

We then headed back to the market to catch the bus to the end of the beach – ten miles and about a 45 minute ride! It was 11 pesos per person (about 60cents). The beach was beautiful and we saw a couple surfers trying to catch some of the waves.

Our lunch stop overlooked the ocean and included ceviche and shrimp quesadillas . YUMMY!! The restaurant brought out three flavors of tequila for us to taste – almond, coffee, and regular. We tasted them, but ugh, didn’t care for them!

After lunch we took the bus back to the port and were back onboard by 4pm.

Tonight after dinner we had reservations for the “Uptown” show in the theater. The Motown singers had the moves and voices! It was a great show and a great end to a fun day.

April 10, 2019 - At Sea

Day 12 – Panama Canal Cruise

We are loving these days at sea. Leisurely breakfast, a spin around the pool, grabbing a drink, and relaxing in the hot tub make a full day! And of course, eating again!!
We did attend one of the hypnosis sessions in the theater this afternoon and spent time listening to music.

We have also seen dolphins a couple times and as we were sailing away, they were jumping out of the water. Tobey got a small video of them, but it’s hard to see them from the 12th deck! This is a link to his video.   https://youtu.be/5aZNyiP3wyc

This elephant was the towel art on our bed tonight.

Tomorrow we arrive in Mazatlán.

April 9, 2019 - Acapulco, Mexico

Now that I have good internet, I was able to upload a couple videos from our Panama Canal transit. If you want to check it out, here are the links.  https://youtu.be/rCMKjGy2cBk
and https://youtu.be/EtMXn4iH7WY

Day 11 – Panama Canal Cruise

We arrived in Acapulco this morning and were up in time to see the sunrise over the bay from our balcony. It made for a nice view!

We didn’t organize a tour here, but instead opted to walk into the city.

We watched a group of fishermen loading their nets into the boat. It looked like hard work!

This was a view out into the bay.

One of the things we also noted were the public service signs along the street. This sign translates “that a child drinks alcohol, it’s not cool.” There were others about not smoking and birth control.

After walking a couple miles and checking out some of the markets and shops, we turned around and headed back to the ship.

Just across the road from where our ship was docked, is the Fort of San Diego. We decided to check it out. It was only $4.00 per person to visit the museum.

Fort of San Diego was built by the Spanish to protect Acapulco from attacks by pirates, since the city was an important trading port. The original fort, completed in 1617, was extensively damaged in an earthquake in 1776. It was demolished and rebuilt and completed in 1783. The design reminded us of the fort in Saint Augustine, Florida! The fort now serves as a museum.

There were many displays depicting the history of the area and signage was in both Spanish and English which made it nice.

To be honest, I don’t remember who this was a portrait of, but it reminded me of Elvis!

From the top of the fort we had a great view over the city.

We were back on board waiting to depart when an announcement came over the intercom – even into the staterooms, which they usually don’t do. The captain was paging for a passenger who was missing, delaying the departure of the ship. We waited, and waited. Pretty soon, “John Doe", came jogging along. There were lots of passengers besides us watching his approach. He waved and continued to the gangway while people on board cheered him on. Once he was on, they closed the gangway and we were off! Lucky for him, we waited almost 45 minutes after the last call for “all aboard” or he might have been swimming to the next destination!

This was our last view of the city.

Sailing out of Acapulco Bay, we looked across and could see the bay to Puerto Marquez where we have stayed in the past. The two white towers are the Torre Blanca condominiums.

I tried the “Glacier Blue” cocktail today.It had vodka, blue curacao, lemon and orange. A bit tangy, but pretty refreshing.

Tomorrow we are at sea.

April 8, 2019 - At Sea

Day 10 – Panama Canal Cruise

We have discovered how much we are enjoying our leisurely days at sea. There are activities all day long in which we could participate – or not!

We have enjoyed going down the water slide in the tubes, then sitting in the hot tub and having a cold drink.

Today I attended the “Blissful Hair Show” put on by the onboard spa. They advertised that with the come-on of “Are you looking for a new look Looking what suits your face shape best? Then the hair show is for you.” WELL, like the Ladies Pamper Party we went to earlier in the cruise, this turned out to be more of a come-on to book hair appointments in the salon than any hair show. It was pretty much a waste of time, and my relaxing time was worth more than I got out of it! Oh well.
We spent time listening to music and just enjoying the ship. We still can’t believe that the lead guitar player in the band is 47 years old!

Tonight’s towel art was a bunny.

Tomorrow we arrive in Acapulco.

April 7, 2019 - Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

Day 9 Panama Canal Cruise

We arrived in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala’s largest Pacific Ocean port this morning and were met for our tour by our guide Juan Pablo (JP).

Our tour took us to Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage city, about 90 minutes from the port.

Guatemala has at least 37 volcanoes, of which three are still active. On our way to Antigua, we passed between two volcanos, the Fire Volcano (active) and Volcán de Agua (Water- not active).
Volcán de Agua has had no historical eruptions, but its name (the water volcano) originates from a devastating mudflow on September 11, 1541. The mudflow destroyed the first Guatemalan capital city established by the Spanish Conquistadors, which is now known as Ciudad Vieja. The catastrophe prompted the establishment of a new capital city at nearby Antigua.

Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego (Fire Volcano), however, had a catastrophic eruption in June 2018. It affected more than 1.7 million people in three central departments, or states. This was Guatemala’s most severe volcanic eruption in 45 years. About 1000 people were killed and thousands are still missing. They are still in the process of rebuilding the road on which we traveled, so traffic was backed up and quite slow in spots.

We also passed lots of bicyclers who were participating in some kind of race/ride. We learned that several years back, Guatemala was banned from FIFA, the international soccer organization, because of corruption so cycling became much more popular. Guatemala is now back in FIFA, but cycling has remained popular.

Guatemala has 22 states which they call departments. JP told us they have about 40,000 species of orchids in Guatemala. Their main industry is agriculture, followed by textiles and tourism.

Upon our arrival in Antigua, we were surprised to see THOUSANDS of people on the streets. Today they are celebrating San Bartolo Day with a huge parade that will last for many hours as it winds its way through the city. The Lenten procession marks the 117th anniversary of the procession that leaves San Bartolomé on the 5th Sunday of Lent, which is the largest procession leading up to Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Guatemala. Hundreds of volunteers dressed in vibrant purple robes carry huge wooden floats weighing up to 6,600 pounds on their shoulders as the procession winds its way through the streets of Antigua. The largest float requires 145 men to carry it! Try to imagine walking along these streets carrying those floats!

We, unfortunately, did not get to see any of the procession because it started in another part of the city and it would be hours before it got to the area where we were. We did see several of the men wearing the purple robes.

Exquisite “Alfombras” (carpets) made of flowers, pine needles, and intricately patterned colored sawdust line the streets along the processional route. They were beautiful works of art which took many hours to create and will be destroyed when the parade carrying the floats will pass over them.

Antigua is known for its well-preserved Spanish-Baroque architecture and colonial churches.

We went to the Jade Museum as part of the tour. There were several pieces from the Mayans on display. It was an interesting stop. The museum opened in 1995 to give visitors an overview of 3,000 years of Mesoamerican jade and its importance to six different cultures from as far away as Costa Rica and Guerrero, Mexico.

We also went by the markets. Tobey and I both wished we had more time to explore and try some of the different foods!

We did get an ice cream cone to share. The vanilla was SO yellow and they put a strawberry marmalade on the top. Pretty tasty.

They even had the little three-wheeled taxis in Antigua!

We also saw the Santa Catalina Arch. Built in the 17th century, it originally connected the Santa Catalina convent to a school, allowing the cloistered nuns to pass from one building to the other without going out on the street. A clock on top was added in the era of the Central American Federation, in the 1830s.

All too soon we were back on our tour bus back to the ship. Tobey and I both enjoyed Guatemala and wished we had more time there!

Back on board ship, we went to the comedy show and enjoyed the music. Tomorrow is another day at sea.