Panama Canal

[jocan]

We will be on the Island Princess in February 2010 from Ft. Lauderdale to Acapulco.Can anyone offer ideas as to what to do in the ports of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua and Puerto Quetzal in Guatamala? Are the town centres within walking distance of the ship? Thanks ..

[katiepe]

San Juan Del Sur town is right at the pier and from what I have read here and online it is a safe town to walk around and that is what we are doing.

Puerto Quetzel has really nothing there apparently. Lots of people suggest Antigua or Go with Gus tours. We are taking the ship's Lake Atitlan ourselevs.

If you search the forums you will see lots of info about both these ports.

[west coast cruiser]

You should go on Princess Roll Calls and look for a thread for your cruise. Then go to Ports of Call. There is lots of good information in both of these places.

We are on the Jan. 9th our to Acapulco on the Island Princess and we have booked all of our tours with Princess.

WCC

[jlq3d3]

San Juan Del Sur is a small beach town. You need to tender, and the ship doesn't have a lot of time there. It leaves at 2pm. We hired a driver for 70$ to take us around so that we could see the area. He took us through Rivas which is a bigger town next to SJDS. Most taxi drivers including ours didn't speak English. It was worth it for us because we at least got to see some of real Nicaragua, but I don't think there are any major tourist sites around there. Another thing the port was good for was the internet cafes, which charged about $1 for either 1/2 or 1 hour of internet time, which is so much better than the ship's rates. There is also a nice beach there.