Zuiderdam Panama Canal April 19 to May 7

[pepsigirl64]

Do you want to come along with me on a Panama Cruise?? I will do my best to describe the trip on the Zuiderdam from April 19 to May 7.

 

I am starting this a few days into our trip but I will go with the old saying of “better late then never”, anyways that sounds good to me. We flew from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday the 17th and spent a few days with some friends. They took us on a great tour of the Miami area. On Friday the 19th we arrived at the pier around noon, boarding went rather quickly and we were in the MDR enjoying lunch by 1245pm. Let me also include that I am NOT the person to find things wrong with the ship. We signed up for the “Behind the Scenes” tour that is scheduled to take place the day we are in Cartagena. Well, let me jump ahead a few days….we cancelled the tour. They would not accommodate me with a scooter, did that upset me, you bet your sweet bippy. I was not a Happy camper and told the front desk. Did it do any good, no…was I looking for anything, no. We looked at it as saving $300.

 

Internet package, well I had read that for the past 3 cruises it has been different. Well, it is back to the regular offered packages. This is my first time using the internet, we have the 250 minutes for $100. I must say that I am impressed with the service so far. It is day 4 and on the average to send an email to family and friends about our adventure and checking on Facebook, I have been using about 10 minutes. So, since it has been doing well, I thought I would had CC to my list of things to do.

 

Our first two days were sea days, we all know how lazy those can be!! We are in room 6111, a nice spacious suite. It looks like new carpet and drapes, even though we have never been on this ship, they look new. I had read in another thread about a loud banging in our room and surrounding rooms, but as of today, it is very quiet at night around here. I think the loudest thing around our room is when I sit on my balcony with my laptop playing music. Now don’t go overboard, it is quiet, but it can sound loud on a sea day!! No complaints from anyone so I guess it is okay, LOL. Our AC is working great and the toilet flushes on command. We haven’t encountered any odd smells.

 

Monday April 22 found us in Curacao from 8am until midnight. We didn’t take an excursion, in fact we don’t have any booked on this trip. I guess you can say we are boring!! We just went to Punta, over the bridge and walked around a bit. Okay, truth is…my husband walks and I scoot. (I rented a scooter for the trip) He says he walked over 5 miles, all I know is that I had to recharge my scooter to continue during the day. It was a great day, the weather was on the warm side with a nice breeze. I am guessing in the mid 80’s. If I complain about anything on this cruise it will be the heat, but so far so good. We came back for lunch and had room service so he could take off his shoes for a while. We watched it go from sunny to cloudy back to sunny, it poured for a few minutes, but as soon as it came it was gone, Soft serve ice cream is a bit of an issue, it doesn’t want to freeze, so it is hit or miss for it and it is my favorite. We went out for another walk, only to get caught in another rain downpour. It was fun to watch the people run for cover. It only lasted about 10 minutes then the sun was out again. Dinner was a BBQ that had to be moved inside because of the weather. It was still tasty and consisted of chicken, ribs, steak, sausages and fish.

 

Shows, well we haven’t gone to any yet. The usual dance show and a guy on a piano. I heard the piano guy

was good but sadly we were tired and went to bed.

The crew is doing a wonderful job as they always do. It is a great feeling to be greeted by crew that remembers us from other cruises. Is it my bubbly personality?? Or do we cruise too much?? Or is it because I have Hershey kisses for them?? Either way it is a good feeling. Tomorrow is another day.

[pepsigirl64]

Well if I wasn’t posting this on the same day as my first installment, I would ask if I have acquired a following of our adventures. I guess that I will have to wait until post number 3. If you haven’t noticed, I will tell you that I am not an English major, I write as I think.

 

Aruba, Tuesday April 23 8am to 430pm. We started the day early and were out on the pier by 930am. Well it was sort of early!! We hired a taxi for 2 hours for $80. He took us around to all of the touristy spots and was very informative about the island. Later we walked around the town for a bit. This is our first time in this part of the world, so it is all an adventure to us. Just because we are all friends here, I will tell you a secret…I had no clue that Curacao and Aruba were islands!! My geography includes the USA, ask me a question about the states and I should be good to go with an answer. Anywhere else, I am going to guess!!!

 

We have open seating for dinner, tonight seemed to be slower than usual, but we weren’t going anywhere and I am on vacation, so “whatever”. We go to the 10pm show as the majority of the people have gone to bed by then. The 8pm show gets so crowded, if you aren’t there by 730, it is too late.

 

Oh, did I tell you that we went to a show the other day??? We saw Parental Guidance, it was funny. Just like the evening shows, if you aren’t there about half an hour before, you won’t get a seat. We usually don’t go to movies, but decided to try it out. They have been playing some good ones Lincoln, Skyfall, Life of Pi, Les Miserables and Argo so far.

 

Team Trivia is one of our favorite things to do, it is amazing all of the useless knowledge that a person can collect over many games of trivia. On sea days it is a collective game, the CD is adding all of the scores together for a “big” winner. The prizes have been a bottle of champagne. On port days, it is regular trivia. So far our team has won the first two on the sea days and were second place today, YAY for us!!

 

Tomorrow is a sea day, the first plan is to sleep in. We usually sleep with the curtains open and get the sun in the morning, tonight they are getting closed!!!

 

“sea” you later.

[dobiemom]

I'm tagging along 'cuz when you get to San Diego, I'll be embarking! :D

 

Who is playing in the Piano Bar? Can you find out if he (or she) will be on for the 4-days to Vancouver?

 

Looking forward to more installments. ;)

[trub]

thanks for taking us along with your cruse - sounds great!!

 

have fun and keep the updates coming.

[IRL_Joanie]

I'm tagging along 'cuz when you get to San Diego, I'll be embarking! :D

 

Who is playing in the Piano Bar? Can you find out if he (or she) will be on for the 4-days to Vancouver?

 

Looking forward to more installments. ;)

 

........I board her 4 days later:)

PepsiGirl64, I wish I'd known you were in a scooter before you booked your Ship Tour. I've known nearly from the beginning that there is no way that they can allow us to do it. To many ladders to go up and down, amongst other obstacles. I even begged to pay full fee for it, and only do the tour of the Bridge portion of the tour, but........no, it is not allowed to do only a portion of the tour:(

 

Loving your review and do not care how much you skip around:) It is YOUR review and you are writing it as you want to:)

 

Joanie

[CoronaCRZR]

Thanks Pepsi girl for your updates.

We were on the cruise before you and I am glad they dailed the pricing for the internet back to where it was, I guess I was the only fool having to pay the $249.

 

I did the behind the scenes tour and must tell you that we traversed many internal crew stairways which can be rather steep, and there is NO way anyone with a scooter could get that done.

 

For us the Zuiderdam is a great ship and well maintained. I hope you are enjoying the food as I feel they have the best I have ever had on any cruise.

 

Have a great trip

 

Ted

[cpcanuck]

Thanks Pepsigirl! I am eager to follow along as I "wait" to get on the ship in Vancouver! I have a bit of time to kill - 17 more days! Good thing there are generous people like you who are willing to share your stories along the way!

 

I hope you have a great time - I think my next cruise might be the Panama - so I will be interested to hear your experiences on this ship!

 

cpcanuck

[solocanadian]

Thanks for posting, Pepsigirl64. I'll be boarding the ship in Vancouver. Please do tell who is playing in the Piano Bar and what you think of him/her. Do you have duvets on the bed instead of blankets? Everything was new except the carpet in my verandah suite on the Zaandam last month. Even had brand new mattresses.:D

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your live from the Zuiderdam, thanks for taking the time to post it. We'll be on her May 7, so nice to get some recent reports about her. Have a wonderful rest of your cruise, looking forward to more reports.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for deciding to start a "Live" report.

Great so far.

Good to hear that the Zuiderdam has gone back to the regular prices for the Internet.

[KNOT2L82SAIL]

Pepsigirl, thank you so much for taking the time to do your report. Love it. Your style of writing makes it seem that we are right there with you, talking about the day. Way to go.

It sounds like they have increased the speed of the internet...big Yahoo for that one.

Have a wonderful cruise and thank you for talking with us. :)

Waiting for the next installment.

[Mumsysailor]

I'm tagging along too. Thanks for posting Pepsigirl.

 

Mumsy.

[Himself]

This is an awesome cruise. I did it in '98 on the old Westerdam. I hope you love it as much as I did!

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for taking the time to share your cruise experience with us.

[Linda&Vern]

<snip> PepsiGirl64, I wish I'd known you were in a scooter before you booked your Ship Tour. I've known nearly from the beginning that there is no way that they can allow us to do it. To many ladders to go up and down, amongst other obstacles. I even begged to pay full fee for it, and only do the tour of the Bridge portion of the tour, but....no, it is not allowed to do only a portion of the tour:( Joanie

Joanie - Thanks for pointing that out. To PepsiGirl64 - I know you are disappointed. My DH has done the tour on the Z and thought it to be worthwhile. But his legs (knees) were killing him when it was over. The daily Explorer from last month on the Westerdam states about this tour: "Requires intermittent effort throughtout, including walking medium distances over uneven surfaces and/or steps. No elevator access."

 

I hope you are enjoying your cruise. We loved the Panama Canal and thought the Z to be a great ship to cruise on.

[Divi]

Thanks Pepsi Girl, for doing this. Looking forward to hearing more about the cruise and the ship.

[EagleRocker]

Pepsi Girl - thank you for your fun and helpful reviews so far; I am anxiously waiting for your next installment! We board the Z on May 10, so I am glad to hear that the ship looks good and functions well. I hope the rest of your cruise is fantastic.

[startwin]

I'm tagging along too, Pepsigirl:) Enjoying your reports and looking forward to more!

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Hi Teri, I am so thrilled you were able to post and have to admit I have been waiting, I even brought your name up a few days ago in another post because I was thinking about you :)

I am so thrilled to hear that they have the regular old Internet plan back. That truly is a relief. If you get a chance can you ask the Internet Manager if they plan to keep these plans the same for Alaska cruises. Since I am boarding for the 4 day I know I will have the plans you currently have and should be able to do like I did last year and purchase all my minutes on Tuesday the 7th and then they will just carry over my remaining minutes into the 7 day cruise portion.

I am glad to hear the deck 6 neighborhood is nice and quiet since I will be up the hall in 6101 ;)

Have a fantastic next 12 days till you come home to the Left Coast. :)

[JamesEM]

Thanks for posting, DW and I are considering doing a canal trip next year.

[Keith1010]

Thanks for posting from your cruise.

 

Keith

[scamper]

My friends Scott and David are on there, too. Hope you're having fun.

[pepsigirl64]

I want to start this episode with a BIG THANK YOU, I am so happy that I have a following for our adventure. To answer a couple of questions that were asked…Piano Bar, is Jim Fischer, I was told he just boarded with us, so he will be on for awhile. We went in tonight to check him out so I could give a good report. We found him very entertaining and he seems to have a good following. The other night it was standing room only, tonight we got there early but it got quite busy. The internet prices will remain the same for the next few months, our package was 250 minutes for $100, there was a cheaper one and a few for more $$. Also, we have Duvets on our bed, no blankets.

 

Wednesday April 24, Sea Day. We slept through breakfast. The day was lazy, DH did some juggling out on deck 10 for a bit until he came into the Crow’s nest to join me, he got slightly over heated. We did our daily game of trivia and were 2 right answers short of winning, I really need to listen to DH, we would have gotten one closer. The ocean was very smooth today, the wavelets were only about 3 feet and we cruised at a speed of about 10 mph. In fact our entire trip has been very smooth!! We decided to pass on happy hour, couldn’t decide what drink would make us Happy today. It was formal night, Land and Sea was the specialty, filet mignon and prawns. So we spiffed up and had a very good dinner and topped it off with a delicious chocolate tart, okay we had two!! Tonight’s show was called “Hard Days Night”, a tribute to the Beatles. It was a GREAT show. I had a Weng Weng to drink, it consists of Vodka, Gin, Tequila, Rum, Bourbon, Rye, Scotch, orange juice and grenadine. Let’s just say that Teri was a Happy girl for the night!!

 

Columbia started very early for these lazy sleeper inners, 630 was the time to get up. We met another couple on the dock at 8am to share a taxi around town. After being bombarded by tour guides, we made our way to the taxi drivers. I am “special” so we got a minivan for $20 each for a 2 hour tour. We figured it was good, so off we went. It was a great tour of Cartagena, the “old” town was the best. Narrow streets, old buildings, cobblestone walkways and street. Vendors everywhere, always putting stuff in your hands, no, no, no are the words spoken from us. DH did buy a t-shirt. We only stopped at one place to shop, as the other couple wanted some coffee. The cab driver took us to an emerald store, the kind of place you know that he is paid to bring people to, but no, no, no were the words again. I played the “I have to sit down because my knee hurts” in order to leave. Everyone followed me!! Okay, so how many of you want to know about the weather?? HOT is the weather, but for those of you that really know me…I am happy to say that I am NOT the one complaining….you should hear DH, gripe gripe gripe!!!! He is making me laugh. We were in port from 7am to 1230pm, we were back on ship by 11am…just in time for lunch, but first a cool down with an ice water rinsed washcloth!! OH, I forgot…as we walked through the terminal area we saw blue and gold Macaws, scarlet macaws, Keel billed toucans with colorful beaks, green Amazon parrots, a monkey in the tree and a local small duck with long legs that thought I was tasty. One more thing about our adventure, I know why I was “special”, they like larger women here as the pictures we saw painted were of large women and in the center of town was a statue of a large naked woman laying on her side, I told every one that I posed for the statue!!! So if you go to Cartagena and see the statue, think of me!!! As I am writing this we are sailing out of the area through an inlet with land on our side, not sure what is on the other side, but we have a nice view out our window. Now I see the open waters time to head to the Panama Canal.

 

Ice cream time consisted of vanilla soft serve with chocolate sauce on our way to trivia. Useless knowledge continues to fill our brains. One of the questions was if you have Hoof and mouth disease, what are you?? The answer is a horse, but everyone said cow, there was almost a stampede. After team trivia we went to visual food trivia, did you know that a slice of butter looks like jack cheese?? The bonus was artichoke hearts, who knew?? Other people, not us. The tie breaker question was “how many squirts from a cows udder makes 1 gallon of milk?” For those of you that don’t have a cow in your backyard to check, the answer is 345. At 430 we needed an appetizer for dinner, pizza and more ice cream was picked.

The seas are a little wavy, rocking a little bit, but not bad at all. Dinner was in the Dining room, DH had salmon with a side of steak, I opted for the BBQ chicken salad. Flourless chocolate cake was for dessert, along with a blackberry sundae for DH. Our evening ended with some time in the piano bar listening to the singer, then onto the show in the main lounge. We both agreed it is one of the better shows that the singer and dancers have done, it is called Dreampark. It actually has been awhile since we have seen a new show!

 

Tomorrow is the Panama Canal, we will be waking up at 530am to begin our day.

[dobiemom]

Thanks for answering the questions. Enjoy the Canal crossing! :)

[kazu]

Enjoying your live thread. Thanks for taking the time and sharing with us. Enjoy the Canal:)