South Caribbean Cruise Summer 2013 Day 8

Today we got up early and had breakfast as we entered the port city of Colon, Panama.  After breakfast we were to go to the city without using one of the ship excursions.  When we got to Colon it was very hot and humid and a rainstorm was brewing. It started to rain not long after we exited the ship.  For the next 4 hours it was shoe………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..shopping.  That is all I can describe.

After we were done we found a taxi to carry the gigantic bags back to the ship however we started talking to the driver who was a guy named Vivian Tugwell.  He offered to take us to the canal tourist area so we chose to do that before we returned to the ship.  We agreed and then we had a short bit of traffic before we were on our way to the canal.

At the canal tourist area we were able to climb up onto a platform and watch the locks as they opened and closed and the water levels changed so the boats could be raised or lowered 85 feet to or from a man made fresh water lake that would carry them to locks just before the other ocean. We were on the Atlantic side obviously and we were watching ships being lowered down. The  locks take about 10 minutes to equalize the water level. The large boats are moved from 7am to 4pm or something like that and the smaller boats are allowed to travel through after. The tourism guide person at the site explained the largest ships to go through are Carnival cruise ships.

After we watched the ships moved through it was 4pm and time for the canal tourist area to close so we packed back into the cab and were driven through a moderate amount of traffic back to the ship where we boarded immediately and then dropped off our stuff in the cabin and headed out to have a quick lunch a bit late in the buffet. From there we went back to the room and got cleaned up and dressed and headed out to show a little bit late. It was called Bon Voyage and was a series of sketches including the captain’s wife Greer (who is British) doing a dance routine. We talked to her later on and found out that was how she got started on cruise ships.

After the show we went to dinner. Daniela had the braised oxtail and I had the rabbit which both were excellent.  For started I had a lentil soup and Daniela had an artichoke salad.  The dessert was a selection of cheese for me and a lemon meringue for Daniela.  We chatted with the Colombians for a while then finished eating and headed over to the disco only to find it was dead.  We headed back to the piano bar (Fragata) and the pianist was playing along with a singer. We watched them until they were done then basically headed back to the room and packed our suitcases to be delivered to land and then we chose to call it a night. It was a very long and tiring day.

The pictures from day 8 are found here.