10-Day Island Princess - Panama Canal Partial Transit - Chistmas Cruise Photo Review

BillOh · January 2, 2013

F
Aft pool:

Royal Loyal here, following you to see the canal sites and for future reference when we start checking out other lines - Love the aft pool, would be nice to have a pool with a view, we love the Cantilevered hot tubs on the Royal Freedom and Oasis class, but I also always like looking at the wake of the ship.

Familygoboston · January 2, 2013

Great so far!! Love the new decorations...hardly sedate though;) of course I am a bad judge my DD (the one who has been accepted to Design school...yeah!) says I am a beige-a-holic:p

We haven't sailed Princess since Alaska...we enjoyed it, but also felt that the pools were out-of-control! Too many kids, some literally leaping from the upper balcony into the pool, pool staff was just completely ignoring them:eek: And I agree that the "adult pool" was open far to often to the kids, I thought that was just an Alaska thing because it's the only "enclosed" one, but that seems not to be the case on your cruise either.

We are doing the S Caribbean you did last Christmas next November on Jewel. I am really looking forward to those ports. We had a cruise on Adventure that included Aruba, and while I love voyager class and think I we would have loved AOS, I wasn't nuts about the idea of Aruba...just doesn't look like a place an active couple like us would like. Panama canal looks really interesting, can't wait to see the photos!

Loving the photos...your dresses are lovely as always. Must be a Southern thing...my girls and I end up in the MDR with a wet pony and a pair of capris...we just don't do dressy, except for Formal Night;)

Thanks for the review!

Edited January 2, 2013 by Familygoboston

Familygoboston · January 2, 2013

Royal Loyal here, following you to see the canal sites and for future reference when we start checking out other lines - Love the aft pool, would be nice to have a pool with a view, we love the Cantilevered hot tubs on the Royal Freedom and Oasis class, but I also always like looking at the wake of the ship.

Bill, That pool did remind me of the cantelevered hot tubs on Oasis...This one looks lovely! Nothing like a pool with a view:D

BillOh · January 2, 2013

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Wow, that's quite a vertical leap, no trampoline just out of sight?

LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

Wow, that's quite a vertical leap, no trampoline just out of sight?

Haha, she was a dancer and a cheerleader, so she has hops. But I also trick the eye with a low angle. I was on my knees to take the photo.

LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

Great so far!! Love the new decorations...hardly sedate though;) of course I am a bad judge my DD (the one who has been accepted to Design school...yeah!) says I am a beige-a-holic:p

We haven't sailed Princess since Alaska...we enjoyed it, but also felt that the pools were out-of-control! Too many kids, some literally leaping from the upper balcony into the pool, pool staff was just completely ignoring them:eek: And I agree that the "adult pool" was open far to often to the kids, I thought that was just an Alaska thing because it's the only "enclosed" one, but that seems not to be the case on your cruise either.

We are doing the S Caribbean you did last Christmas next November on Jewel. I am really looking forward to those ports. We had a cruise on Adventure that included Aruba, and while I love voyager class and think I we would have loved AOS, I wasn't nuts about the idea of Aruba...just doesn't look like a place an active couple like us would like. Panama canal looks really interesting, can't wait to see the photos!

Loving the photos...your dresses are lovely as always. Must be a Southern thing...my girls and I end up in the MDR with a wet pony and a pair of capris...we just don't do dressy, except for Formal Night;)

Thanks for the review!

There were definitely days when I was thinking, "Where the heck is the cruise staff to tell these kids to stop?" One evening around 5 PM, a lot of kids ages 4-10 (really, there were 4 year olds swimming in the pool with no parents watching) without adult supervision were being completely dangerous by the lido pool. They were running all around the pool (ahh, no running by the pools! Learned that lesson the hard way when I busted my knee open at 5 years old), chasing one another and shoving eachother in. It was completely dangerous, and I was watching on the edge of my seat, afraid I was going to have to leap up and save a drowning child or carry an injured kid to medical services. Not only was I shocked at the poor parenting, but I couldn't believe that there wasn't a crew member there to tell them to stop running. I'm really surprised that no one got hurt, and I felt responsible and obligated to watch because there were no other adults paying them any attention.

Aruba is a total beach/sightseeing port. Not much for the adventurous folk. But Rachel loves the beaches, and if Rachel ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. The Panama Canal was awesome. I can't wait to share it!

Dressing up is a total southern girl thing. We wear dresses to football games in the south!

erbunny · January 2, 2013

I am really enjoying your review. DH and I just booked this itinerary for next year. It will be our first Princess cruise, and we are really excited about it. Looking forward to the rest of your beautiful pictures.

LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

So our 20 minutes at the castillo were up, and we all got back on the bus... or so we thought. Apparently, there was one guy traveling alone who was sitting in the front seat, and he had gone and bought a ticket to go inside, even though he was told not to. We were annoyed that he was delaying our tour, so everyone was saying to leave him since he didn't follow instructions. However, the tour operator had a bigger heart and went inside to find him. It was good to know then that he wouldn't leave us anywhere, even if we didn't follow instructions.

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

Our next stop was the monastery. We had to pay an extra $5/person here to go inside, but it was well worth it.

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The view from up here was amazing.

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

The tour guide took a real liking to my dad, despite a big language barrier with the tour guide not so great at English and my dad's terribleness with accents. So they walked all around the monastery together, the tour guide telling my dad all sorts of things.

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Interior courtyard -

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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Rachel bought a little purse. She had heard they were only $1, but when she got there, the guy wanted $20. No thanks. He lowered it to $7 and wouldn't let Rachel give it back to him.

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JWJs · January 2, 2013

Thank you! :)

My camera is the Nikon 1 J1. My father's camera is the Canon EOS Rebel. And then my sister's camera (which hasn't appeared yet and won't until we get to port) is the Nikon AW100. If you're curious about which camera was used for a particular photo or even the settings used to take them, if you click on the filename link, Flickr will tell you what camera and the exact shutter speed, aperature, etc. for each photo. It's pretty !

Thanks for the camera and Flickr info! Especially cool is the Flickr info! I need a new website for my pictures....was using Webshots which changed to Smile. Don't care for Smile at all...Flickr may be it for me. Thanks again. :) And...I continue to enjoy your photo/review. Love your style!

LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

We drove around more. I enjoyed just driving and not having to get out and be harassed by street vendors.

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We had the option of going to the market or going to a grocery store. We chose the grocery store collectively because I think everyone had seen their fair share of souvenirs and was more interested in making purchases without being harassed.

The tour guide helped us purchase the local coffee and the local beer. Rachel and I also picked up Oreos and Pringles.

It was neat to see the grocery store. It was Christmas Eve, so it was ridiculously crowded as everyone was stocking up for the holidays. Rachel was disgusted/fascinated with their meat section - nothing was wrapped. It was all just out for you to pick. "Take a photo of that!!!"

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

We left old town and headed into the newer development.

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Our next stop was a museum. Rachel wanted to stay on the bus. "Oh, come on!" As soon as we got in, we realized it was an Emerald museum. Rachel loves jewelry. "And to think you were going to stay on the bus!" "I didn't know what kind of museum it was!"

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We got paired with a tour guide who showed us around. At the end of the tour, I saw a sign that said no photos. Oops. I wasn't the only one, though. Normally I check on these things, but everyone else was clicking away, so I didn't question it.

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LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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Cleopatra's necklace. Rachel told me to take a photo of this.

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Like Disney dumps you from rides into gift shops, they strategically dumped us from the museum into the jewelry store where our tour guide then attempted to sell us $24,000 jewelry. There were more reasonable pieces, but there simply wasn't enough time for us to decide to make a purchase. So we looked around for a bit, then left to get back on the bus.

Edited January 2, 2013 by LittleMissMagic

LittleMissMagic · January 2, 2013

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RickEk · January 2, 2013

Like Disney dumps you from rides into gift shops, they strategically dumped us from the museum into the jewelry store where our tour guide then attempted to sell us $24,000 jewelry. There were more reasonable pieces, but there simply wasn't enough time for us to decide to make a purchase. So we looked around for a bit, then left to get back on the bus.

We took a Princess excursion in Cartagena and we also ended up at the tour guide's relative's jewelry store. Seems to be the way things are done there... :rolleyes: