We were trying to decide what we were going to do when Norine had 2 weeks off for Spring Break, somewhere warm... bing-bing... I get an e-mail from Holland America while we are talking about it. What's that? an 11 Day Panama sunfarer cruise for less than $100 per day, including all your meals and some very cool ports of call we have never been to... BOOK IT!
Panama Canal Sunfarer Cruise
First we flew to L.A., we left just after midnight and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 8 in the morning, tired and exhausted, we had some breakfast at Chili's, and headed to the cruise ship terminal that was 8 minutes away... Well 8 minutes if you don't count the taxi lineup.
Once you arrive at the terminal, it's a series of lines... Line to check your luggage, line to get the magic #, line to get your ship ID, then you sit in a large waiting room waiting for your magic # to be called so you can board the ship... The Holland America Zuiderdam, a rather large ship that holds just over 1900 passengers. Apparently if you want to feel young, you just need to hang out in one of these terminals... I didn't dare yell out BINGO when they called magic #32 for fear it would create a stampede by the golden age set.
As soon as we boarded we made our way straight to our room, we have a nice suite with a balcony right at the front of the ship, our luggage is already there waiting for us. Being a cruise, the first thing we did was made our way to the buffet. Without much delay the ship leaves Ft. Lauderdale and heads towards the Caribbean. After a short "pass-out" we explored the ship to figure out where everything was.
It's a little cloudy as we pull away from Ft. Lauderdale, hopefully that will change soon.
Unlike 70% of the crowd here we are not early bird diners, so we had our dinner times changed to 7:45, and joined 2 couples that would be our regular companions at dinner, both from Chicago, 1 recently retired couple, and an older couple from Poland, interesting company, but we'll need to work on Mr. Poland to get him out of his shell.
Dinner was amazing, 3 courses plus dessert... Followed by a show that sets the stage for all the performers on the ship. We went to check out the Crow's nest to join the party, but apparently the geriatric crew go to bed early, there was us and 2 other people, time for bed.
Day One - Half Moon Cay, Bahamas
When we wake up we are pulling in to our first stop, Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. An absolutely beautiful privately owned island with and amazing soft sand beach with aqua blue waters. It's still a little cloudy, but it's 80° (25 Celsius), so we'll be ok. We are all loaded into little boats (known as Tenders) and shuttled over to the Island.
After lubing up with sunscreen and nestling in to our clamshell, it starts to rain, and 1/2 the fogies head back to the boat...
This would actually be perfect, because not long later it stopped raining, and there was way more room on the beach.
Nice calm clear water full of large silver angel fish, great for a float.
We went for a walk and checked out the island, it's really quite unique. There is colourful cabanas you can rent, several bars, and unique activity areas such as horseback riding, kayaking, jet-ski's, parasailing, even some nature walks.
The interesting thing is, the island is completely vacated until the next Holland America ship comes along, well except for the elusive beach chickens.
We grabbed some BBQ and had a little chill time before they came and told us we had to get on the tender to head back to the boat. We resisted as long as we could, and were the last people to leave. Before leaving, we wandered around the little shopping area to delay departure as long as we could.
Ready for the next destination.
Spent a little time watching the HALcats before dinner, I almost do a spit take watching some of the wissened attempt to slow dance... they couldn't possibly move any slower as they hold each other from falling over.
Another great dinner, three courses plus dessert... this isn't going to end well. this time Mr. Poland actually laughed a couple times and started talking a bit. Mrs. Poland is very funny with her heavy accent, and she's hard to get to stop talking.
Tonight's show is a stand up comic, very funny, asking me where I am from, he laughs at our airport where he can't tell if he is supposed to Exit or get Sorti'ed. Once the show was over we headed to the Northern Lights night club and danced till about 1am when the music went all Hip-Hop/Rap on us.
The Showroom The cram-packed disco
Tonight also started our routine, come back to the room to see what crazy towel creation the guys that clean our room have created,
I think this is a frog.
Day Two - Sea Day
Today was a day of travel, the ship works its way past Cuba and Haiti and across the Caribbean Sea, as far as you can see, it's nothing but Sea... did you see what I just did there?.
We slept in a little, had the buffet breakfast and headed to the Spa where we had a very nice 75 minute hot rocks massages... I'm sure I'll pay for that later, but it sure worked out the stiffness from our long plane flight.
After the massage we lubed up again and worked our way to the outdoor pool, we found some great seats, and after baking in the sun for half an hour it started raining again. Within 5 minutes we had the pool mostly to ourselves, and then the sun came out again. The rest of the afternoon was spent here, when we got back to the room I discovered that apparently my sunscreen must have rubbed off...
Lobster boy lives!
After chilling in the room a bit, it was time for dinner, tonight was one of three formal nights, so we get to play dress-up and get some photos taken (we'll see if we actually buy them). Turns out we did buy a couple.
The retirees had booked dinner in one of the premium restaurants, so tonight was just with Mr. And Mrs. Poland (Mitch & Maria). Whether it was the smaller crowd, or getting to know them better, Mitch actually participated in the conversation, and we had a very nice dinner...
3 courses and dessert of course.
Just an appetizer A simple dessert
Tonight's show was a "Great Performances" show based on great performers from the Beatles to Tina Turner. The dancers and singers were fantastic. Inspired by the quality of dance we headed back to the Northern Lights to dance up a storm as they played music from each decade. A few Piña Coladas later we headed back to our room sore and exhausted.
