Teeara

Nope. Full transit to Los Angeles.

So our driver picked us up 15 minutes early and we were at Terminal 3 a few minutes before 10 a.m. We were quickly whisked upstairs, checked in and waiting in the suites/Key area in less than 10 minutes. We stopped to watch them add ship provisions prior to boarding the ship. I work so I can have this view every year. This is Pam’s first time on a Radiance class ship and my second. We aren’t fans of smaller ships but in order to do the original locks we needed to sail on a smaller ship. Even so, the atrium is lovely. Standing in line at Chops to make our dinner reservations. I came with a post-it with the dates and venues written on it. I got everything I wanted, but I still think it’s stupid that we have to “rush for classes” in order to make specialty dining reservations. After lunch we went for a stroll on the Promenade. We walked to the front of the ship and found the helipad was open.

I literally ran out of the dining room and up 3 flights of stairs to our cabin to get this shot 😉😁😂

I’d be really happy if they would open the cabins.

Pat, are you taking it with you for the final quarter?

We’re here! Our Lyft driver picked us up at 9:45 (we had scheduled him for 10:00). We were at the port by 10:00, checked in and in our waiting area by 10:08. Fastest check in EVER for any of my RCI cruises.

She’s here!!!

So today we slept in a little later since we had been up for nearly 24 hours before hitting the hay. Today we were going to the Tampa Bay History Museum and then dinner at Hattricks with our roll call gang. We aren’t fans of graffiti art, but we sure did like this chalk version we saw on our walk to the museum. We walked past the arena and found this fun sculpture at the entrance. We made it! Now we just need to cross the street. These transparent signs were in front of the entrance. The museum did an excellent job of detailing how the Spanish explorers came to Florida and devastated the natives. There were several movies and dioramas that were of short duration, but were loaded with lots of information (and were quite entertaining). Pam caught a big fish! 😉😁 I wanted to take this window home. There be pirates here! There was a nice observation deck, too. Carnival Pride is in the distance. My very first cruise in 2002 was onboard the Pride. During our walk back to the hotel we walked through a small park and found these beautiful stone benches with art on the back supports. We’ve been impressed with the amount of public art on display throughout the downtown area. Then it was time for our roll call dinner.

Bummer! There’s more of us than are showing in this photo.

Cool story!

I’ll be doing a full video series like I did for the Wonder TA. As for Alaska, my mom and I went during Covid in 2021, rented a car in Anchorage and did a 6 day road trip up to Fairbanks. It was fantastic.

She just went through a 3 week drydock, so we’re hoping for some new ship smell, too. Some work was done inside the ship as well as outside.

I’ll be missing you! But you’ve got Alaska and that is always a fun cruise. We’ll try. How long does it take to get to it once we leave port? We have 5:30 dinner reservations in the MDR.

That Native Sauté was so incredibly good! I’m going to try to recreate it when I get home.

Will you be at Hattricks for dinner tonight?

And we’re off! My roommate Pam and I are sailing on our first Panama Canal cruise and our first time on Radiance. This will be more of a photo journal of our cruise. We are NOT light packers! 😉😁😂. Yes, we each have 3 suitcases and a backpack for this cruise. We flew JetBlue from Boston to Tampa today (Saturday, April 6). The flight was fine and only slightly bumpy. We lucked out and were able to check into our hotel room at Hyatt Place Tampa Downtown and oh my, the room is huge! And Pam is waving hello! to all of you (I was shooting a room tour video for my YT channel). And here’s one of our views! We did the upper portion of the Riverwalk and we really enjoyed it. There were plenty of places to sit, lots of restaurants and activities, too. We also liked the way the integrated art into the walkway. We had lunch at Ulele and it was fantastic. I had the Native Sauté with pan-seared zucchini, squash, carrots, onion, baby spinach, portobello mushrooms, and green beans with a soy ginger reduction over wild rice pilaf. After lunch we took the Pirate Water Taxi and the Island Tour. One of the stops was next to the American Victory ship. You can tour it. The stop is also next to the RCI terminal and we were able to get up close and personal with Enchantment right before her sailaway. We also passed by a pirate ship! Then it was time for a leisurely walk back to the hotel. We love all the lush greenery here in Tampa (and the blue skies). We haven’t had much of that lately in Boston. 😉😁 So if you haven’t cruised out of Tampa before, you should definitely do so and make sure you stay a few days before or after your cruise.

Although you mentioned doing an EB TA (spring), we took a WB TA (fall) on Wonder in 2022. Here's what the conditions were like at sea during that cruise since I know a lot of people are worried about hurricanes with the WB TAs in the fall: The other thing we liked about doing the fall TA was that we were going from cooler to warmer temps during the cruise AND those extra hours added during the crossing were sweet! We enjoyed it so much we're doing our second one next year and really looking forward to it. Whatever you decide, just do it! TAs are a fantastic way to get to know a ship (especially the really big ones if you like them) and a great way to travel.

I'm not seeing anything on Google, but you can post them on Issuu. Have a fantastic cruise! I'm considering booking a Japan cruise in May 2027, so I would be very interested in seeing the Patters, too.

Double post

Wow! Those links are fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

Wow! That was great. Wish I had noticed all of that art ;o) The scavenger hunt idea is genius for your boys.

Hi Bill, I'm assuming you meant my videos ;o) The link you had was for someone else. I'm glad you found them helpful. That's my entire purpose for my channel is to help people research on locations and to see what there is to see in case they are considering these types of vacations. I had thought about doing a video on the onboard art, but wimped out ;o). Is that something y'all are interested in seeing? I'm getting ready to board Radiance in 2 weeks after her drydock for the Panama Canal full transit and I can shoot some video there as a demo. Would love to get some ideas if folks are interested in that type of stuff. We'll also be on the Allure WB TA in October 2025. Definitely going to do a lot more videos of her after her refurbishment. In the meantime, have a fantastic cruise! Wonder was a delightful ship to be on. So much to see and enjoy.

We just about froze on our May 4, 2008 cruise. There was snow on the ground and it was cold. We did a road trip through Alaska in August 2021 and it was still cool, but it the 60s in Alaska proper (Anchorage to Talkeetna to Denali to Fairbanks). By the time we got to Fairbanks it was 80 degrees whereas Anchorage was in the 60s. Weird. If I had to choose, I would rather go in September than May. Good luck in your research! Alaska was fantastic and I can't wait to do another cruise and road trip to Alaska.

Hi Deb! Time to start taking notes ;o)

Oh no! That sucks. I hope you got well quickly in spite of everything. Being sick at sea is no fun. Question: How many time zones did you have to go through for this cruise?