PB and Westley Get Locked Up

[kelly]

Love it

[Princess Buttercup]

Originally Posted by Olympicnut

Just loving these cruise TR's. And thank God nobody caught malaria while traversing Panama

Very true!



But Katrina got bit by a bug on her zipline excursion and her leg looked pretty bad!

[jane2073]

I am really enjoying your report!!
Can't wait to read more!!

[Westley]

Panama continued...

I was trying to find a picture that showed the 2-foot clearance between the lock wall and the ship, and this is the closest I could find.



There just isn't a great way to find the perspective you need from where I was taking pictures.

Anyway, the lake was the slow time. Time for lunch, showers, workouts, etc.There was a buffet running almost all day, with fancy bits such as these.


The Panama and Mexico themed merchandise started appearing.

The Maui merchandise wasn't for sale.


Our group kept checking in with each other around Teresa's "gear collection."






We crossed the continental divide, and there are tons of photos of this area on the net. Here is my panoramic contribution.


We crossed under Centennial bridge and headed into the Miraflores Locks.








The Miraflores Locks were complete with flores


Finally we disconnected from the mules and waved goodbye.


After clearing the last locks, we said goodbye to our canal pilot and rope crew. The pilot boat raced up to come alongside...


And the crew stepped off. Once they were all offloaded, the left us to go back to the canal area.




We passed under the Bridge of the Americas and into the Pacific Ocean.




After more showers, it was time for Dinner in Animator's Palate, where the theme was East Meets West. This was a souvenir menu which most of us had signed by the wait staff, and after more Panama Hats (a tasty rum beverage) it was hard to choose between the Prime rib of beef or the tasty lobster

So we were at sea again for more travel towards our next port. More about that later.

[Westley]

Oh, yeah. The sky looks gray in these pictures, and it kind of was a gray day as I recall, but it was very warm and humid. The air felt "thick," and it could be difficult to feel like you were getting enough air if you exerted yourself much.

[NeverNeverland]

Originally Posted by Westley

Panama continued...

The Miraflores Locks were complete with flores


.

I thik that does a great job too of showing how close you guys were!

[penguinsoda]

Wow! These pictures are just amazing!!! I can't imagine trying to navigate a ship that size through a canal with such a tight clearance on either side! I never thought I would ever be interested in going on a cruise like that, but after seeing all of the pictures so far it looks like it would be an amazing time!

[Westley]

I managed to wake up most mornings at sunrise, and this morning was a nice one. Of course, as soon as I brought my camera outside it fogged up since it was so warm and humid outside. But here are my first Pacific sunrise photos.




The day was a Sea Day, and most of my pictures from the day are just pics from around the ship. Here are some details from behind the glass elevators midships. This is what you would see going by as you traveled up from our deck to decks 9 and 10.














Here is what the elevator door look like. (yeah totally geeky to include, but maybe you're curious?)


This was our door - quite tame compared to most


This was the scene before dinner that night


I have some dinner photos to post next time which include The Boa.

[Villains Fan]

OH NO, not The Boa !!!

[penguinsoda]

Yes the boa!!!





Ok I don't know what the boa is but if Joanne is concerned.... I wanna see it!!!

[Princess Buttercup]

^ Boas tend to bring out the craziness in peple....that's why I made sure to bring one along. It got around as did my black shawl and some of my costume bling bling!

In that last picture Ken posted, in the bottom right hand corner , you can see a girl with cute braids and beads in her hair. That was one of the things you could do on sea days is get your hair braided and beaded and it was fun to see all the little girls with their various hairstyles.

[Princess Buttercup]

Okay, I've been put in charge of writing about this part of the trip.......

So each day, there was a drink special. We would usually ask for a sample of one and then decide if it was worth ordering an entire drink or not. This one didn't even sound good to Ken or me.




So it wasn't the booze, but the boa that made some of us a little crazy that night:













Or maybe it was the magic wands (they were from Pratt 55 after all)





Oh wait, I guess some of us were drinking the Tusk of Dusk! LOL





Here we were waiting in line for a ship photographer to take our photo












I know someone MUST have a copy of the photo where we're leaning over the rail! LOL


Here's what it looked like when we looked up:





We settled down in time for dinner:














But then our waiters got us riled up again:




(cute menu huh?)




Or maybe it was Disneyphile and her sparkliness






Earkid was a princess too!



Our waiter Adrian needed a little sprinkling of pepper:





I guess Kerry and Shawn were stuffed after dinner





Or this delightfully cute and delicious dessert:








Our waiters held up pretty well all night, especially considering the dessert nicknames Katrina was calling them! LOL











I don't know what everyone else did after dinner, but Ken and I went to the Buena Vista theater and saw "The Bucket List." We'd already seen it before , but it was even better the second time around , especially since we saw it with a full theater of viewers who also enjoyed it.

Some of the other fun things we did after dinner on other nights that week were : a cabaret show , a hynotist show, karaoke (Shawn and I sang "Locomotion" but flubbed it up big time), and a game show that was like the dating game. Another night, before dinner, we went to "Who wants to be a Mousketeer?" and I got picked to be one of the contestants. I got all five answers right so I won a baseball cap, a coffee mug , and a pin. There were also several games of Bingo and the first time Ken and I played he won a Cars Playstation Game.


Ken and I also went to one of the Tequila tasting seminars. It was great. We got to sample Reposado and Anejo and there were also orange slices and yummy chocolate truffles. When the seminar ended we stayed in the Diversions lounge and played another game of scrabble. Whenever you played games in that lounge , you got tickets to put into treasure chests as part of a contest between the port side and starboard side of the ship. We put our tickets into the starboard side treasure chest of course!



At this point, we were only 7 days into the cruise and if it had ended then , they would have had to drag us off kicking and screaming because we were all having such a good time!

[Aladdin]

Our waiters held up pretty well all night, especially considering the dessert nicknames Katrina was calling them! LOL

Sure, leave us hanging like that ~ DETAILS, please!

[Princess Buttercup]

^ LOL


Well Katrina is an outrageous flirt, but the guys knew it was all in fun.

The guy on the left is Adrian and is from New Zealand . He made us think of the cook from Ratatouille except with brown hair instead of red. When he asked Katrina what she wanted for dessert, she said New Zealand kiwis!


Levent , in the middle, is from Turkey and Katrina told him she wanted Turkish delight!

The guy on the right, Giuseppe , is from Italy and he had the cutest accent. And no matter what we were eating, he would come around with the paper shaker and ask us "Pepper Madam?" in the cutest voice. He also had one of those little crumb scrapers and he said to Cherbabog "You are a very very messy boy!" Now you have to imagine that being said with an Italian accent to get why it sounded so funny!

Our waiters were awesome! They seemed to really like us and if not, well then they did a good job pretending like they did!

[Legally Brunette]

I love it! Keep the pictures coming!