OK i can hardly believe it but we're already BACK! (booked on the 24th, got back home on the 12th hahahaha!)
For all the help that we've received on this awesome thread, I want to reciprocate, so for anyone interested, here's how we did it. There are probably better ways to do it, smarter cheaper better, had we more time to prep and research, but overall my spouse is super impressed with the quality of scrambled plans - VERY impressed LOL.
Again, this is for a Colon to Puerto Caldera 7 day itinerary on the Wind Star, January.
1. We flew to Panama City, 3 nights in the Le Meridien (for the hotel, a "meh"... not much walkable and not too interesting a neighbourhood, but we got it at a decent price, and then uber is super affordable in Panama City).
2. We had 2 full days in Panama City. Day 1 did the Gamboa Rainforest Resort trio (Aerial tram, sloth sanctuary and butterflies / orchids frogs, plus the Monkey Islands Gatun lake boat cruise back to back. I believe this would have been split into TWO $120 pp tours if we were to have waited till port day and booked w WS. We did it in the afternoon so not much wildlife (too hot, and it rained so the sloths all went into hiding, and the monkeys were already overfed). Gamboa Rainforest Resort tour dept a little disorganized and the trio of a package still had a lot of "what now..." and was pretty unguided, but good price to pay for the medium quality experience. I believe it's the same tour you'd get even if you pay double and book w the ship.
3. Day 2 we uber'd our own way to Miraflores visitor center - we arrived at ~8:20 ish and happened to see the Wind Star crossing Atlantic-bound, going to Colon!! pretty awesome. Make sure you arrive before 9 am... or after 4 pm. 2 hours here would be enough, do the IMAX and skip the museum (it cost USD 100 for family of 4 as we did both. brrrr(
We took uber to the Albrook Mall from Miraflores (we had to buy some last minute supplies and clothing), then uber'd again to old town. Would have been good to get a guided tour of old town as tourist signage wasn't great for English tourists but by the time i asked, all English tours were sold out. Worth a stroll.
4. Booked with VINCENT (thanks to the forum post upstairs who mentioned him) to pick us up from Le Meridien to go to Colon port. He was perplexed how we found him, and was overjoyed when i told him he's now famous on Cruise Critic LOL. He recommended a half day trip to Portobello but we requested to see the Agua Clara locks and Fort San Lorenzo. What we didn't know was that the 9 miles paved road to Fort San Lorenzo had more potholes than i have ever seen in my life as a Canadian.... and it took us almost an hour to drive that 9 miles (i know right? i know some ppl who can run faster than that....). Vincent was great - on time, engaging, LOVES his country, knowledgeable and gives us so much info enroute. The pot-holed filled road wasn't all for naught - we found out it actually was an old american army base / restricted area, and they used to do rainforest survival training there prior to Vietnam war. You still get some relics now, while you navigate thru the potholes. Colon is rough and i suspect not safe for independent strolling around.
5. Full canal transit was great. Wear UV clothing and a very good hat, and some sort of tripod if you plan to do a time lapse video like i did...
6. Fuerto Amadour / Balboa port is basically Panama City. We booked the Embera village tour with Monkey Adventures, private tour. Paid less and got a better experience. We got to swim in a bottom-clear waterfall before visiting the SAME village that the official Shorex visited (while we were at the waterfall). We got grilled fish for lunch and fruits - so there is obviously different levels of "tour" groups could buy from this village and obvious that we got the top package (waterall, grilled fish, fruits, dessert, personal tour of living quarters, butterfly sanctuary). Our guide Thomas was great. Got back to tender boat half an hour before last boat. Note to anyone who wanted to visit the biodiversity museum: it's CLOSED on Mondays (so, yup, we had to miss it)! Plan accordingly if you could.
7. At sea day - lots of stuff to do on the ship, not a dull moment 😄 The food on this ship is really quite good. Steaks rival our local top steakhouses. Lots of types of grilled fish to choose from. I always lose weight on Royal Caribbean.... but i think gained a bunch on this 7 day cruise LOL.
8. Isla Parida... or what it's supposed to be. Apparently (according to our funnyman Maitre'D) we're the first ship in a looooong time to have to MISS this port due to waves / weather. So, nothing to report. Captain tried to salvage the situation by offering a 3 hour landing at Golfito which is across the bay from Jimenez, so we got off the ship and walked around with the Naturalist and saw lots of birds.... but nothing to write home about. We didn't even find anywhere we could have a drink. At least there's good cell phone signal in port and in town.
9. Puerto Jimenez - so we're one of the few lucky people who get to visit this small port that large ships don't get to go, and it's 6 hours by car from San Jose so most tourists won't venture this far. We ended up doing the one and only official Shorex here - the chocolate farm tour to Finca Kobo. I tried to write to another chocolate farm but wrote them 3x in a week and no response. The ship Shorex tour is OK. It's more an edible plants tour and we got to see (and taste) lots of different tropical fruit trees, herbs, tumeric, and if you ever seen the superfood "Nomi" at your local health food store, you should see what it looks like.... it taste like blue cheese jello (!!!! that's why they sell processed supplements...). There were about 25 people from the ship all in the same group with the same guide, it felt OK, everyone got to see and taste. Interesting black sand beach where we wet-landed but i don't see anyone swim there. Saw half a dozen macaws and a toucan while waiting for the tender. We took the advice from this thread and brought battery operated fans for the kids to wear around their necks and it was awesome! If you wanna bring some Kleenex and/or wetwipes, you will become a popular person on this tour LOL.
10. Quepos. After MUCH research, we went with Manuel Tours for Manuel Antonio park and met Berny, and got an experience much much better from (what i heard) the rest of the ship passengers got. We paid probably 1/3 vs ship, got a PRIVATE tour (2 adults 2 kids), and every other guide comes to Berny to ask him where to look! When others were excited to see a sloth, Berny found us a sloth who has a BABY in her arms.... at the tree top (with his naked eyes! and showed it to us on his $5000 Swarovski telescope. He spotted finger-nail sized hummingbird chicks in their nests, colourful poison grasshoppers, species of lizards that are camouflaged (yup, eagle eyed...) I can't recommend him more highly - you get the gist.
We got dropped back at the Marina and we tender-boated back to the ship for lunch and to put down my 300mm lens and camera, before we come out out to a zipline canopy tour. We booked privately with the TitiCanopy tour - there was quite a bit of confusion with booking (too frustrating for me to recount) ,and then they were 20 min late picking us up making me worry that i got the wrong location, etc etc. Anyways, when we did get to the ziplines, everything was GREAT. 4 guides plus a camera-man for a group of about 10. My younger kid (age 7) had sooooo much fun. The ziplines were well set up, long, and awesome. LOTS of climbing up flights of metal staircases (not too wobbly; we generally felt safe) but this is NOT for someone who has ambulation challenges.
11. Disembakation - we booked the 8-in-1 with GioTours, and they (like Berny with Manual Tours) are A+++. Highly recommended. I didn't look into the tour description too closely when I booked so I was a little surprised to find that this tour does NOT include San Jose, but it's for the better coz San Jose would have been much easier to tour on our own than what we ended up getting to see with Pablo of Gio Tours. This tour included a full 90 minute boat ride of the Tigris (?sp) river where were get within 2 feet of 2000-lb crocodiles, and "jesus chris lizards". It all reminded me of the zodiac rides at the cliffs of the Galapagos islands. Lunch included and it was actually decent food. Pablo made MULTIPLE unscheduled stops when wildlife appears, and we got within arms reach of a tribe of monkeys, some babies carried on mom's backs. Macaws, Toucans, I think we got more wildlife on this tour than the 1.5 days at Jimenez. We even got to visit a local fruit stand and ate lots of never-seen tropical fruits (hahaha i'm noticing a theme to my post). He dropped us off at sundown at our hotel (way past his booked hours), huge smile on his face and still eager to carry our suitcases. Two thumbs up. Would call them again if i'm ever back in San Jose.
OK sorry for the long post. Hope this helps anyone who's still planning. Love these two countries. Loved this cruise trip. Pura Vida!
In quepos we used https://www.epicadventurescr.com/activities/manuel-antonio-national-park-tour/ to tour the park . Our guide was excellent and a very small group. I would suggest you check them out as they picked us up and took us from our landing spot to the park. Much cheaper than the ship tour and a lot less people.
WOW ladies and gents - I am thoroughly amazed at ALL the detail of information you all shared here! Thank you Baldtomato for your trip report. We are embarking on the same trip next week (slightly longer 10 days) and all your helpful information should make this an awesome experience!
Booked Panama Canal last minute!
in Windstar Cruises
Posted
WOW ladies and gents - I am thoroughly amazed at ALL the detail of information you all shared here! Thank you Baldtomato for your trip report. We are embarking on the same trip next week (slightly longer 10 days) and all your helpful information should make this an awesome experience!