We're just cruisin' along...

[SummerInFL]

Wow! What wonderful photos! I can tell you had such a great time! Great photo of you!

Was nice seeing you VF, for our 5 minute meets. That dessert looks heavenly, they weren't kidding when they say people eat so much food on a cruise. Crazy!

More please.

[Legally Brunette]

Awesome TR Joanne! I just can't get enough of the pictures from your cruise. I think that it's time for the LB clan to go on a Disney Cruise pronto!

[aashee]

Beautiful. Thanks VF!

[pratt55]

Darn it all I should have sent you one of our many empty boxes so you could stuff it with any of that yummy food and send it to me. I can't wait to see more.

[scillacc]

I scanned some of my navigators- sorry I haven't found all of them, email me if you want the pdf of them
scillacc@yahoo.com

[DLRP_bopazot]

WOW thanks for sharing ! i was in Orlando when you guys were here i have seen a couple of them . But i didnt made it to the Airport . snif snif

I want to make a reservation for a Disney Cruise now lol

[MissChristine]

Oh JoJo, the pictures are wonderful! The scenery is gorgeous...the people are stunning...the food looks phenomenal...wow! I'm jealous.


I need my honeymoon to get here now!!

[quiltmaker]

Great TR. The food looks so yummy. It's making me hungry and I just ate.

[Villains Fan]

Originally Posted by DLRP_bopazot

WOW thanks for sharing ! i was in Orlando when you guys were here i have seen a couple of them . But i didnt made it to the Airport . snif snif

I want to make a reservation for a Disney Cruise now lol

I'm sorry you couldn't make it to the airport, I had heard you were in Orlando. That's ok, it was an awfully early morning

Originally Posted by MissChristine

Oh JoJo, the pictures are wonderful! The scenery is gorgeous...the people are stunning...the food looks phenomenal...wow! I'm jealous.


I need my honeymoon to get here now!!

I know you probably told me, but are you going on a cruise? And if so, where?

Originally Posted by pratt55

Darn it all I should have sent you one of our many empty boxes so you could stuff it with any of that yummy food and send it to me. I can't wait to see more.

Trust me, I could have filled up an entire truckload of food, there was soooooo much! But for once, I didn't seem to have a box on me

Originally Posted by Princess Buttercup

Joanne, here is one of mine and Ken's favorite pictures of you from the trip!

I remember when Ken took that picture...great snorkeling, amazing scenery, gorgeous weather, good friends, and rum punch, life was so perfect at that moment!!!


Thanks everyone for your gracious comments...trust me, there's plenty more to come!

[Villains Fan]

Ok, and on we move to Day 3 - Mickey Dreams show and Day 4 - ARUBA!!!

Apparently day 3, I didn't do much of anything except relax (yeah, it was a rough life) since I don't have any pictures except for the show that night. It was called "Mickey's Dreams" where "Mickey Mouse's dreams come to life in this musical spectacle." This was a mixture of Disney and Cirque Du Soleil.









Day 3 - ARUBA!!!

Disclaimer: Some of these pictures are the same as Princess Buttercup's since we were together, but they're so pretty, it's worth viewing twice

Got up this morning and realized we'd finally come to the place I was looking forward to seeing the most. I had booked an excursion that took us on a 45 minute catamaran ride around the coastline to a 15' deep snorkeling area and then on to a 60' deep area to snorkel above the wreck of the Antilla, a 400' long German ship that sunk back in 1940.

Here are the two catamarans coming to pick us up:



My trusty shipmates (From back, Westley, Princess Buttercup, Chernabog, and skywaygrl):


Say goodbye to our ship


I love the back of our ship



Westley and Princess Buttercup admiring the view:


Just an artsy picture I liked:


Our snorkeling spot:


A few underwater pictures of the fishies. As you can see, tons of fish:






And then on to the Antilla shipwreck site:





After some amazing snorkeling (and thankfully barracuda free), we headed back along the shore to our ship. A few shots of the trip back:



Aw, this is the life...


Some clouds rolled in to add a little touch to pictures:







And we're back to our happy home:


After having lunch on the ship, PB, Westley and I went into town to do a little siteseeing/shopping. Here's a few pictures of the city:







PB following the daisy path:




That was it for Aruba...it was a beautiful place with the most amazing snorkeling I've ever seen!


Next up...the Panama Canal!

[kelly]

love it

[Princess Buttercup]

That Cirque du soleil show was amazing! Ken and I were so impressed with the athleticism! And the fact that the performers were doing their maneuvers on a moving ship made it even more impressive!


Joanne, you were so patient while Ken and I were trying on the white clothes at that one shop! He loves his shirt and I love my dress so we're glad we bought them!



It's funny how we're all already dreaming of the next cruise we want to take!

[wolfy]

Have to love all the colors in Aruba! Thanks for the pics....was wondering how your day went......

[Villains Fan]

Finally, The Panama Canal!!!

The schedule was to start going through the first locks around 5 am, so our group arranged to meet at 4:30 and camp out at a table in the back for the trip through (a lot of people just staked out spots all night at the front of the ship ). Me not being a very good morning person decided I'd arrive fashionably late, like 6 am. According to the schedule, we should have been through the first set of locks by 6:30. Imagine my surprise (and happiness) to find out when I reached the deck at almost 7 am, we had been delayed and hadn't even started going into the canal yet!

Anyway, just to warn you, there are a lot of pictures, since this was just one of the most fascinating things I'd ever seen.

We reached the lineup to go through the canal on Thursday night, here's a picture of the port:


Here's the lineup of ships waiting to head into the canal:

At night (sorry, it's not clearer):


The next morning:


We're heading into the channel:


The shores were lush with trees and greenery:


We're getting closer (if you look closely, there's a ship in first lock on the left side, where we are heading):



And closer (the first ship has moved up into the second lock):


And closer (sorry for the bluriness, this was taken through a window from the gym):


We're pulling in:


We're going in!


Looking down from the top deck, you can see how little clearance there was on the sides:


We're in the first lock. First they close the little bridge so vehicles can go across, then they close the lock doors:




Now the lock starts filling with water. It only took like 10 minutes to fill and we went up around 20-25 feet per lock:


We were lucky, there was a freighter going through the locks on the right side behind us, so we could see what it looks like from the front:




Here's the freighter going into the second lock, while we are in the third:


Me



After an hour or so, we reach Gatun Lake, which will take us most of the day to cross to get to the locks that will take us down to the Pacific Ocean. Here's a few pictures of the lake as we go across:








The Centennial Bridge:


A giant dragonfly on a chair <shudder>:



I hate to admit it, but I was off doing something when we hit the Pacific side locks and missed going through those except for one lock. I was walking through a hallway, and this is what I saw out the window...the wall of the lock, after the water had gone down:



And coming out of the lock:


And here is the lineup of ships waiting on the Pacific side to go through the channel (I think we counted 29 that we could see):


Now we are in the Pacific Ocean and what a greeting:




Passing through the Panama Canal was something I don't think I will ever forget. Everybody on the ship just seemed to be in awe of this and talked about nothing else for the next few days. It's such an amazing engineering feat, especially when you take into account how long ago this was created.

I watched a show on the Panama Canal a couple of months ago, and if you ever get the chance, you should watch it...very interesting.


Ok, that's the end of this chapter...Next up, Acapulco!

[Princess Buttercup]

That picture of the water through the porthole is cool!



Remember when they told us how much the Disney Cruiseline had to pay to go through the locks?


Does anyone wanna guess?




















































$400,000 dollars!








The cheapest anyone ever went through it was for 40 cents and it was a man who swam it. It took him 10 days.