2008 Panama Canal Cruise

Today’s port is Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala.  We did the excursion Lake Atitlan and the Mayan Highlands.  Basically, we get off the ship (early), and take a bus an hour and a half or so to get on a boat to travel across Lake Atitlan.  Several of us were really struck by the irony that we’d gotten off a big boat on a big body of water only to take a bus to get on a small boat on a smaller body of water.  In all seriousness though, this was a pretty good, if fairly long, excursion.  We took a bus up to the town of San Lucas Toliman where we had to run the gauntlet from the bus to the boat of the locals trying to sell things. Most of what the women were selling were the locally made textiles, which were actually pretty decent looking.  The prices they’d ask for initially were a bit high.  Cathy ended up buying two, one about two by three feet, the other probably more like two by five feet, for a total of $30.  She probably paid a little more than she really needed to, but oh well, the $30 probably means a lot more for them than it does for us.  If you don’t like aggressive vendors, you’re not going to like this area.  We’ve experienced the Caribbean vendors, and quite honestly, these were even more pushy.  They also use their kids to try to sell you little trinkets also, and you almost have to trample your way through to get through the mobs.  After getting on the boat (complete with cheap plastic chairs on the top deck), we headed out along the shore of Lake Atitlan.  Absolutely gorgeous, the weather was basically perfect, not too hot.   Lake Atitlan was formed from an ancient caldera, so all around the lake you’re surrounded with peaks and a couple of volcanoes.  We traveled along the shore for a ways across the lake, seeing a couple of the small towns that are situated on the shore.  Eventually our destination was Panajachel, where once again you had to run the gauntlet of people selling stuff to get up to the hotel where our lunch for the day was being served.

Lunch was a buffet at the hotel in a covered patio area that had an excellent view of the water (although depending on where you were able to find a seat, you couldn’t necessarily see real well while you were sitting down). It was a bit crowded, since there were several buses of people from the ship here.  After a while for lunch, it was run the gauntlet again to get back to the boat, then back across the lake for the long trip back to the ship.

Overall, while you did spend a fair amount of the time on the bus, I did feel that this excursion was pretty decent.  Lake Atitlan itself is well worth the trip to see, and when you were up at the altitude of the lake, you were away from the very warm temperatures that we were getting back at the coast.

Today’s port is Huatulco.  Unfortunately, kinda a short stop here today (I know on the 10 day itineraries it was actually dropped as a port).  We chose to do the Huatulco Swim and Sail excursion.  Just as a short note, in the past on cruises, we’ve tended to go with independent operators on most of our stops, but when researching this cruise, we really didn’t find as much in the way of choices of independents, and ultimately pretty much ended up doing ship excursions in all the ports.  Makes the trip somewhat more expensive (this was by far our worst bill of the cruises we’ve taken).  This trip involved about 3.5 hours out on the Luna Azul sailboat, a 44 foot sailboat, had about 18 people on the excursion.  Unfortunately, in the morning, there really wasn’t much of any breeze, so all our early travel was with motor.  Went up the coast a ways, past some of the bays that Huatulco is known for.  Swung by the bay that the guy normally stops for the swimming part, but unfortunately, the waters in that area were just inundated with tons of small jellyfish.  Needless to say, that didn’t look like a great area to go swimming.  So we went back to another bay, which had a little more development (although still part of the national park I believe, so not much, and there still were very few people), and since there were no jellyfish there, moored and we had about a half hour, 45 minutes to swim. Shorter than what we were supposed to have, but that was caused by having to go to the backup choice.  Very nice water, pretty clear, although we weren’t in a good area to try snorkeling.  Never really noticed this before while swimming in salt water, but it’s amazing just how much of a difference a deep breath makes in the buoyancy of your body.  With my breath expelled, floating straight up, I found the water to come up to a point just under my mouth.  Taking a deep breath, I’d rise several inches out of the water, really to the point where my shoulders were exposed.  After the swimming it was time to head back to port, and at least for this section, we did get to do a little sailing because at least a little bit of a breeze had set in.  All in all I’d say that it wasn’t a bad excursion, no hordes of people, and the price wasn’t bad.

Got back with just a little time to do a bit of shopping.  Cathy ended up picking up some vanilla, and I picked up a bottle of tequila.  Other than that, just pretty much back to the ship for sailing.  I do think it would be nice if they did a slightly longer stop in this port, because I think there’s things one could do with more time.

Tonight’s comedian was Kevin Hughes, and the title of his show was “A Night of Romance and Passion”.  To be honest, this didn’t sound like it was going to be encouraging, and after two bad comedians, we weren’t sure how this was going to go.  (Kevin actually had performed the night we sailed, but we hadn’t gotten a chance to see him, and hadn’t heard anyone say anything about him).  This performance however was well worth going to.  Unlike the previous two comedians we’d seen, he was actually very funny, and is really one of the better comedians we’ve seen on a ship.

(Photos from today)

Ah, three glorious sea days to start the cruise out.  I know there are a lot of people that don’t seem to like sea days, but personally, give me a sea day any time, and I’ll be perfectly happy.  And to be honest, I do basically nothing during the sea day.  Cathy will wander around doing various activities around the ship, especially trivia, but personally, the chance to sit back and do absolutely nothing is what really appeals to me.  One of these days I’m hoping to do a trans-Pacific cruise, those ones that have plenty of sea days between stops.  It’d be perfect for me.  Just me, a book, and the horizon.

Speaking of the Pacific, one thing that’s really struck me is just how calm it’s been.  These days cruising down to the first ports have been absolutely smooth, by far the smoothest of any cruise we’ve had.  In a way, it’s almost a little disappointing, I like a little bit of movement.

Prime time of the year for possibly seeing whales, but really have only seen one possible.  Never got a great look at it, but it did appear to be a whale.  Surfaced a few times in the distance, but it was a ways away.  Did see some spouts on another day, but never really saw where the spouts were originating on those.  Other than that, saw a few flying fish, and some sort of larger fish that was jumping up and seemed to be landing back on it’s back.  Not sure what they were, although from the brief glance, made me think of a tuna or something.

The evening of the 24th the entertainment that we tried was the comedy magic of Tim Metivier.  Tried is the operational word here.  Cathy lasted a few minutes before deciding that this guy just wasn’t funny.  I waited a little longer, but when the guy spent 5 to 7 minutes working on setting up a joke (and it was all setup work), I gave up.  Just wasn’t worth the time to sit around for something that just wasn’t interesting.

On the evening of the 26th we tried yet another comedian.  This guy was John Rizzo.  Oh boy.  It’s not pretty when even the comedian recognizes that he’s bombing.  Heck, Metivier at least was getting some laughs from some people.  This guy was just plain terrible.  You could just kinda watch the deer in the headlights look come over him as he realized it just wasn’t working.  But then, we didn’t stick around very long after getting an initial impression of how the show was going.

(Christmas Eve photos)

(Christmas Day photos)

Got up in the morning and walked around the convention center in Long Beach some to get a look at the Whaling Wall that’s painted on the Long Beach Arena.  Then hopped on the free shuttle bus in the Long Beach area to get a look at the Queen Mary.  Only took a quick look from the outside, because it was time to head back to the hotel, gather up our stuff and head to the pier to drop off the luggage.  Then it was back to Long Beach to drop off the car, and cab back to the pier to get on the ship.  Ship ended up leaving a little late because there were some people with Princess arranged air that were late getting in, which unfortunately meant that we left after dark, so any pictures we took as we left really didn’t turn out that well.

(Photos from today)

Stayed last night in Grover Beach, which is near Pismo Beach.  One thing I’d read about ahead of time is that apparently there’s a spot in Pismo Beach that the Monarch Butterflies come to winter at, and we were here at the right time.  So in the morning, we went by the grove where they’re supposed to be.  We were there a little earlier than when the docents show up, and wandered around and saw about 4 butterflies.  Weren’t sure if the rain the night before had caused issues or something, but were about ready to give up when one of the docents came in a little early (I’d seen her sitting in her car across the street, I’m thinking maybe she got out a little early because she saw us and a couple other people already wandering around).  Apparently our problem was that we weren’t looking quite high enough in the trees, and that what we were looking for was supposed to look more like dead leaves. Sure enough, looking higher in the trees, you could see tons of butterflies all gathered there.  Started seeing a few more flying around also as the day was starting to warm up a little bit.  Also saw a few hummingbirds flying around.

We’d done most of the rest of the drive along here, and it’s just not quite as scenic as the stuff further north.  If I ever drive through Oxnard again, it’ll be too soon.  That evening, we wandered around to the Shoreline Village area for dinner, and then headed over to the Downtown Disney area for a couple hours.  Cathy was able to buy an Eeyore pin, but was very disappointed to discover that the big huge Disney store there really only had about one clothing item that had Eeyore on it.

(Photos from today)

Picked up the new rental car early in the morning.  Ended up with a Mazda 6 this time, which was a little tighter with the luggage (although not too bad), but was still better to drive than the Chevy Malibu in my opinion.  At least it felt like it’d go somewhere when you stepped on the gas, although it was a little noisier.

Headed off down the coast, driving along CA 1.  Nice drive, although we were getting off and on rain, which was really quite disappointing.  Drove through the 17 mile drive in Monterrey, which was a fairly nice scenic place.  Saw several places along here with seals and sea lions, and at one point where the sea lions gathered at an island slightly off shore you could really hear them making noise.

Stopped at a beach near San Simeon to look at the elephant seals.  Bunch of them along the beach, and at one point saw a couple of the males battling for dominance. Of course, between this stop and the stop shortly before for lunch/dinner, that pretty much put us getting in too late at Hearst Castle to make the last tour.  So Cathy didn’t manage to get to take that tour.  Since we were staying about an hour further down the road and the early tours the next morning were sold out also, wasn’t real practical to come back the next morning.

(photos from today)

Just as a note on the Hertz neverlost system, which we had in the Chevy Malibu that we had for the first day, I have to admit, I’m not anywhere nearly as impressed with it as I am the Garmin system that I use (It looks like the Neverlost system is done by Magellan).  Very slow to recalculate a route if you got off the route it wanted, and even worse, we had several times when it gave us directions that just plain didn’t make sense, including turning in places where there were no roads.  Got us somewhat lost on the way from the airport to the hotel, and was something of a nuisance driving around the next day (although we still used it, but I do feel the Garmin system I carry around is better).

Ah yes, that thing I hate so much about hotels, the connecting room.  Early in the morning, it sounded like we were basically sharing the room with some other family.  Probably wouldn’t have been too bad as it was about the time we’d originally planned on waking up, if we hadn’t gotten in so late.  Seemed kinda odd to have been placed in a connecting room with the other room occupied, since I thought in general that most hotels avoided that unless they were fairly full, and the hotel definitely didn’t have the impression of being very full.  When I asked at the front desk, they said it’d probably been assigned because the views from those rooms were considered to be fairly good.  The did offer to move us, but we decided it wasn’t really worth it, because we were only there one more night, and would be leaving early the next morning.  I will say this, they did make an effort to make us feel better about the situation, ultimately lowering the room rate, and comping the parking fee (and quite honestly, I didn’t push for anything, I just wanted them to know that I felt it was an odd practice to put people in connecting rooms like that unless they had to).  Oh, and I think they may have moved the people in the room next to us too.  (I did feel a little bad also about the people in that room, because I’m sure they weren’t real thrilled with us when we came in at 1 AM the previous night.

Spent the day wandering around San Francisco.  Since we had the car through about 2PM, we visited places it would be easier to get to with it early.  Went to the Golden Gate Bridge and walked partway across it.  Then drove over, and drove around the Marin Headlands for a little while, found an entertaining one lane road at one point.  Then went back and stopped by the fort under the bridge to take some photos, but didn’t go in because we were pressed for time.  Then hit Alamo Square, and drove down Lombard Street.  I ended up having to circle around several times at the bottom so Cathy could get out and take some pictures (couldn’t find any parking).   After that, it was time to turn the car in and try to find something to eat.  After wandering around some, decided to eat at the Boudin Bakery.  Wandered around the Pier area, taking pictures of the Whaling Walls and the seals.  Walked down to the Ghiradelli Square area, and ultimately ended up getting in line for the cable cars since Cathy definitely wanted to do that.  Stood in line for a long time, and at one point there was a fair period of time when no cable cars came at all.  Overhearing the workers there, it kinda sounded like they’d broken a cable.  Eventually it resumed, and we were able to get on and ride the length of the line.

At the end of the line along Market Street is really where the crowds seemed to be congregating.  Too many people for a smaller town type of guy like me.  Ate dinner, then looked to catch the F train back around to the hotel area.  Not sure what was going on that night, but although they were supposed to be every 10 to 15 minutes, it was more along the lines of an hour before we finally got one of those trains.  Thankfully it wasn’t too full, so we were able to get on.

(Photos from today)

Whelp, that thing you always dread when you need to leave for a trip from a wintery city, snow, did indeed come in over the night and really hit us pretty good. Mixed good and bad news.  There was enough snow that it meant that Cathy’s school was cancelled for the day, so we didn’t need to worry about rushing from her work to the airport to catch the plane.  Of course, we still had to get to the airport, which first meant clearing the six to eight inches of snow that had piled up on the driveway before going anywhere.  Oh, and we needed to stop somewhere on the way to the airport to buy a new suitcase, because the zipper had broken on one of the pieces we’d planned to use.  Driving was pretty bad, but the snow did start tapering off near the middle of the day, which was encouraging for making the plane.  Finally making it to the airport, the incoming plane was indeed running late, but still early enough that it looked good for making it out close to on time, and since the snow had stopped, meant no deicing.  Our flight out actually left pretty close to on time, which was good, because we had a tight connection in Phoenix.  However, we fought 190+ mph headwinds the entire way, and ended up getting in close to an hour and a half late.  Thought for sure we’d missed the connecting flight, but when checking the monitors after getting off, discovered that it was still listed as boarding, and at a gate just a couple away from where we were.  Sure enough, they’d just announced preboarding, so we actually made it.  Turned out the crew was late, so we actually ended up making it into Oakland that night, picking up our rental car to drive over to the hotel in San Francisco.  Ended up checking in around 1 AM, a couple hours after we’d originally expected.  Oh, and that new bag that we’d bought that morning?  US Air managed to trash it pretty good, with a couple of good slits in the back of it.