LIVE *** Coral Princess Panama Canal Westbound 3/22/10 to 4/6/10

[heisnuts]

I figured since I love reading other live threads, I would take the time to return the favor.

Embarkation day

We arrived at the dock just before noon and found there was no line at all to get on board. It took us less than 10 minutes to go through security, fill out the health questionnaire, obtain our room cards and get on board. We went to our room first to drop off our carry on bags and sign up for the Chefs Table. We made the cut and will be doing the Chefs Table after leaving our first stop, which will be Aruba.

We then went down to the dining room for lunch and found that the traditional dining room was open from 12:00 to 1:30. While there have been a lot of discussions here about the dining room being hard to get into for lunch on embarkation day, we found the staff very welcoming and there was even a sign outside giving the hours. Although, even with the sign and open doors, the dining room was less than a quarter filled by 12:30.

We have anytime dining and went down to dinner around 6:30 and were seated right away (without making a reservation first). We retired early since the night before we were on a red eye flight from the West Coast to Florida.

Day 1 – Day at Sea

We went to breakfast in the MDR, and like at dinner the night before, we were seated right away. After breakfast we went back to our room to spend some time on our balcony. The day went by pretty fast sitting out on our balcony and before we knew it the afternoon movie, Couples Therapy, was playing in the theater. The movie was good and the theatre was not crowded.

We made reservations for dinner at 5:45, but we probably would have been ok without making a reservation since they seemed to be seating the walk ins without a wait. Dinner was terrific and we went to the show featuring a hypnotist. I was pleasantly surprised to find the show was pretty entertaining and after the show we went up on deck for an ice cream cone (free soft serve cones are served from 11am to 11pm) and a stroll around the upper deck.

Our overall impressions so far are favorable. The only glitches so far have been a cigar smoker in the very first balcony cabin on the Dolphin deck who must have brought a ton of cigars with him. Since he is the very first balcony cabin (D206) all of us on the port side forward cabins will get a wall of cigar smoke every so often and Princess seems to want to do little to enforce the policy of no pipe/cigar smoking on the balcony. The other glitch came this morning when we went to turn on the shower and the head literally popped right off the wall. Maintenance was very prompt to respond and our fixture is currently out for repair. Overall, we look at these as pretty minor inconveniences and have been having a great time so far. Since this is our 6th cruise with Princess, we are pretty familiar with all the processes and the ship seems very familiar to us even though it is our first time on the Coral.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for posting live.

[jfv379]

No shower:confused: I hope you have a mini suite with a bath tub.

 

Thanks for the posting. We'll be right behind you, on the Island, in 36 days.

[Druke I]

Great ship, and the Canal transit is a wonderful trip.

 

Enjoy.

[crafticruiser]

I'll enjoy reading your live postings! Hubby and I just got off of the eastbound cruise on 3/22. Sorry about that cigar smoker though! :eek: Glad he wasn't on ours....we also had a forward port-side balcony. We had a great time and I'm sure you will too!

 

Marcia in CT

[Bowie MeMe]

Just off the Coral on March 22 and so missing her. A little tip that fresh hot cookies in the Patisserie Bar and the Ice Cream bar about 4 PM. They were so good as was the chocolate ice cream. You have a most lovely trip coming up/ Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Sandy R]

Thank you for doing a live thread. Are there ship excursions offered, while you're in Gatun Lake?

 

Sandy

[billet]

Thank you for running a live update. Any tips/discoveries unique to the Coral would be most welcome since we are on the Apr 21 cruise.

[diraebrad]

I'm anxious to hear as well. I'll be on the Coral in October for a one-way Panama cruise. Any tips you can give on your excursions would be welcome. Thanks for posting.

[blazerjan]

Thanks for the live reports.. we're on the Coral in November and I'm really enjoying your posts. I do two questions.. (this came up on our roll call this week) Are the beds really that hard??? Also... will you share your cabin number? Sounds like your in the same area we booked.

[Larry Barry]

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE REPORT - GREAT STUFF. Take care of our room - C610.

 

Phoenicians

[dshefter]

We are also on the Coral in November. Would like to hear more tidbits on the ship and ports.

[LARGIN]

The Coral is one of our favorite ships.. Thanks for the live one..

[Travelrd]

Thanks for your review. I'm on the Island on April 19th, same itinerary. Looking forward to your comments.

[Mrs Moho]

Hi

 

We're on the Coral from April 6th - can I be cheeky and ask if you know or could find out if the Soda Card includes Tonic Water? I've seen Coke is mentioned but not sure if tonic is included, if not will have to take a supply on with us.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Maureen

[heisnuts]

Day 2 – Day At Sea

Well the smoke has cleared. Our first cabin balcony has either gone through their inventory of cigars, they decided to give us a break for the day, or Princess had enough people say something that they decided to enforce their policy of no cigars/pipes on balconies. It was really nice to be able to be out on the balcony a good part of the day without having the wall of cigar smoke heading aft. Our shower is also back up and running. The maintenance crew was quick and had everything back and running within an hour.

It is getting noticeably warmer as we head south to Aruba. We are at 78 degrees and the humidity is climbing. Also, the wind has been picking up after heading south of Haiti and into the Caribbean Sea. This has made the seas a little choppy so if you are forward (like our cabin is) you feel a little movement as we hit the swells. You can also hear the water crashing off the bow of the ship while sitting on the balcony, which we love.

We figured we would try out Horizon Court for breakfast, which turned out to be a good decision. HC has a pretty good selection, and you can have waffles made to order, which the main dining room does not offer for breakfast. You can also have eggs and omelets made to order. For both the waffles and omelets, there is only about a 3 to 4 minute wait as they cook it for you fresh. Also, a really nice feature of the HC is that it is at the front of the ship and there are a lot of tables right in front of the windows looking over the bow. There is nothing like having breakfast at a table overlooking the bow while sailing at 20+ knots as the sun is rising.

The day went by fast and we found that the aft decks are a really nice place to sit and watch and listen to the wake. It really became hard to decide between our forward balcony or the aft decks. We chose an early dinner since we really didn’t have lunch so 5:30 reservations were no problem and we walked right in to the MDR. We skipped the show in the theater since it was the repeat of last night’s show we already saw. It was great to be walking along the deck watching the sunset and then doing a little reading on the balcony before retiring for the night.

Day 3 – Aruba

We are now a little over 80 degrees as we dock in Aruba at 7am, and the humidity is just over 80%. Aruba is a short stop with the ship unloading at 8am and then sailing for Cartagena at 12:30pm.

We chose the Ostrich Farm excursion through the ship, which turned out to be a lot of fun. The excursion is basically a tour of the island with stops at the California Lighthouse, the natural bridge and then the final stop at the ostrich farm. We saw several ostriches and some bought food to feed the birds with them pecking it out of the dish provided. The tour took the entire 4 hours we were on the island, with the bus getting back right at 12:30pm.

Since we were docked on the port side of the ship, we could watch as Captain Manfuso navigated us away from the dock (with the Sea Princess docked right behind us) and then out to sea for Cartagena. After a slice of pizza (since tonight will be the Chef’s Dinner), we went to the afternoon movie, Love Happens.

The Chef’s Dinner was amazing. There really is no other way to describe the meal. You start at 6:30pm touring the kitchen with the head chef and along the tour appetizer after appetizer keeps appearing with champagne to wash it down. From there you are seated at your table in the dining room where course after course is served with 3 different wines throughout dinner. The chef comes out at each course and explains the dish and answers any questions you might have. If you count all the appetizers and dishes, there are about 12 to 13 courses over 3 hours. Needless to say, you will want to come very hungry for dinner (we skipped lunch today) since there will be so much fantastic food coming your way. Words cannot adequately describe how good the food is and the way it is presented. Most of it is nothing you will find on the menu throughout the cruise, and the chef specially prepares it for your dinner. At the end of dinner you receive a signed cookbook (with a menu of what you had), a rose for the ladies, and two pictures taken from the ships photographer during the course of the meal. The meal was so good that this will probably become a meal we buy every cruise. It was that good.

Since dinner lasted until 10pm, we really didn’t want to do much else other than retire for the evening. Fortunately, we set the clocks back an hour tonight as we head west to Cartagena so we will have an extra hour of sleep tonight before heading out on tour in Cartagena tomorrow.

[need2travel]

My sister and brother-in-law are sailing with you, so I'm really enjoying your reports. Thanks for taking the time.

[heisnuts]

Day 4 – Cartagena

Before I begin with today, here are a few answers from previous posts. 1) Yes, the soda card includes tonic water. 2) All of the excursion info for the various ports can be found on the princess.com site. If you go to the “learn about our cruises” link on the Princess home page, you can bring up all of the excursions and prices for all of their cruises. If you are already booked, you can use the cruise personalizer and read about and book all of the excursions offered on your specific cruise. That’s what we did for this cruise and we are glad we did since some of the tours we signed up for were sold out before we boarded the ship in Florida. 3) Our bed is not too hard for us. We did order an egg crate and top sheet by using the fax method listed in previous threads and it was on the bed at the time of arrival. The bed is not super plush, but it is a lot softer than sleeping on a board or floor.

We docked today on the starboard side in Cartagena and arrived around 8am. The ride from Aruba to Cartagena was smooth since we were no longer going directly into the wind.

Today we booked the horse carriage ride, which is really a mini tour of Cartagena by bus and then a horse carriage ride through a lot of the very narrow downtown streets. We really enjoyed the tour and arrived back to the ship a little before 1pm. This gave us a chance to walk around the port shops a little before the ship sailed at 2:30pm for the Panama Canal.

Once back on the ship we went to the afternoon movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats. After that it was afternoon tea and then dinner in the anytime dining room. We did not have any wait again since we were looking for a 5:30 reservation slot. Tonight we watched Confessions of a Shopaholic on MUTS, which turned out to be a pretty good movie. Tomorrow will be Canal day so it should be an early morning, but time will tell.

[Mrs Moho]

Thanks for the info on Soda Card - appreciate your time in finding out for us.

 

Thanks for your updates - we'll be on there next.

 

Thanks again and enjoy the rest of your trip!!

 

Maureen

[Duck Duck Cruise]

Thanks for all your posts. We know how much time and effort goes into a live from thread.

 

We will be doing the West to East Panama Canal full transit on the Coral in

September (18 Day Repositioning cruise from Vancouver) and are absorbing everything we can about the Coral before then.

 

Thanks for your effort and keeping us excited (well more excited than if you weren't posting about your cruise).

 

Have a great Canal transit.

[Putterdude]

Thanks for your posts, we did this cruise in January'09 aboard the Coral and while I think this year's itinerary has changed a bit, it remains one of our favourite cruises. Enjoy and I will look forward to your posts.

[Elcruzer]

Thanks for posting live. Our friends, Sue & Gus are cruising with you. If you see a blond on a red scooter, ask if she is Sue and tell her I said hello. You would most likely find her at trivia.

[Duck Duck Cruise]

While surfing the web today I checked the Miraflores webcam and saw you guys enter and leave the locks. Here are a couple of photos for you.

 

And another one.

 

It looks like it was a nice transit. Keep the Live From coming our way.

Thanks again.

[heisnuts]

Thanks for the pictures. They look great. Here is the next update:

 

Day 5 – Panama Canal Transit

It is now pretty warm with temps in the upper 80s at night and lower 90s in the daytime now. The humidity is just under 80% both day and night.

We made good time from Cartagena so we were a little early to the Canal, arriving around 6am. We entered on the left side of the locks and had an oil tanker to our right but, about 5 to 10 minutes behind us. It turned out that the whole transit we would always be in the locks on the left and the oil tanker was always on our right.

Once in Gatun Lake, we slowly navigated the lake and canals until we reached the Pedro Miguel Locks in the afternoon. This is one lock that lowers the ship into Miraflores Lake. After a very short cruise through Miraflores Lake, we entered the Miraflores Locks. These locks are a set of two chambers that lowers the ship down to the Pacific Ocean level. For these locks, we went down the to main dining room on level 5 so we could watch from the window as the ship started above ground then sank below ground level exposing the wall of the Canal.

Once through the Miraflores Locks we went under the Brigde of the Americas and then around 5pm we anchored at Puerto Amador, where we will stay anchored through the night for Puerto Amador tomorrow.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks, sounds like an excellent day. :)