Live from Emerald Princess, April 16 - May 4, 2023, full Panama transit

jaycruising · May 8, 2023

5 minutes ago, lakegirl16 said:

Can you tell me which excursion this was? Thank you. Your pictures are fabulous!!

SORRY i just saw where you posted this!

Thank you and no problem!

Prost · May 8, 2023

Anyone knows which bar to get the fresh juice from Emerald?

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

On 5/7/2023 at 10:41 PM, Prost said:

Anyone knows which bar to get the fresh juice from Emerald?

I can't say for sure as I didn't have it in my plan, but I am fairly certain I saw someone looking at the juice menu at the Calypso Bar.

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Canal Transit

As previously mentioned we did book into the Sanctuary for the Canal crossing tour. I do recommend it for others, but ONLY if you can get a seat front row, if you can't then I wouldn't do it. I did travel the ship throughout the day to take photos. It was $60 and open from 7-5, but we did stay up there until after 6:30 when we cleared the canal.

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Canal Transit Continued

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Canal Transit Continued

canadarocks · May 10, 2023

Thanks for the advice about the Sanctuary and the Panama Canal day. I've booked us the Balcony Breakfast for that day. I figure we'll be criss-crossing the ship a lot for the rest of the day.

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Fuerte Amador for Panama City

We had booked a private tour here through Viator with a group from our CC Roll call. It was a fantastic tour and we learned a lot about the area. My team at work didn't really believe me when I was telling them today that they don't have addresses in Panama City, a great fact we learned from our awesome guide!

Financial District

Bridge of the Americas

The old city

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Panama City Continued

Great architecture here too!

jaycruising · May 10, 2023

Panama City Continued

Inside the churches

And no visit is complete without the Panama Sign!

plantlady095 · May 10, 2023

20 hours ago, canadarocks said:

Thanks for the advice about the Sanctuary and the Panama Canal day. I've booked us the Balcony Breakfast for that day. I figure we'll be criss-crossing the ship a lot for the rest of the day.

We were on 16 forward for the locks - both sections. You can stand at the railing or on 15, they have chairs. To access that area, use an unmarked door on 15. I was fascinated by the gushing of water in the lake/ponds next to the locks on the Pacific side. Now, I wonder if the water movement can also be observed on the Atlantic side.

CalLuvsCrusingToo · May 11, 2023

Last month, we were in the Sanctuary going thru the locks and glad we were.

Mainly cuz the folks below us,(all forward) some in chairs, others standing.... were getting Blown to bits!!!

I don't know How they stood it.

The ships flags flying above in Santuary, were beating so hard I expected them to rip any minute.

My advice, if its the least bit windy, look to be Behind a glass wall somewhere.

Edited May 11, 2023 by CalLuvsCrusingToo

jaycruising · May 11, 2023

15 hours ago, CalLuvsCrusingToo said:

Last month, we were in the Sanctuary going thru the locks and glad we were.

Mainly cuz the folks below us,(all forward) some in chairs, others standing.... were getting Blown to bits!!!

I don't know How they stood it.

The ships flags flying above in Santuary, were beating so hard I expected them to rip any minute.

My advice, if its the least bit windy, look to be Behind a glass wall somewhere.

That's a great point that I didn't even think about, as we had no wind on our transit day, actually we barely had any wind on any of our days.

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

One of my favourite things about this cruise was the amount of time we had in each port (except Cartagena), we were in port today from 7-7. We had booked a private tour with Thumb's Up tours, it was good but not my favourite of the ones we went on (and not my least favourite either).

I had been really looking forward to CR, as I have had friend's that had been going there for years and I was really interested in the geography of the region. And that did not disappoint. This will likely be the most picture heavy post as I had taken over 250 photos here on the DSLR, so narrowing them down was a chore.

First stop was a fruit market so we could see some of the locally grown produce. These markets are all of the side of the road and you can easily pull over to visit them.

Cashews are also really big here.

This was another market that was across the busy highway

A new friend

Next we stopped at the bridge to view some scenery... like I said stunning.

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

CR Continued

Aside from the amazing scenery you can view crocodiles from here too!

I just love all the colour!

Found this guy just chilling in a tree.

Next we went searching for Red Macaw's, but you know how it is when you are search for animals in the wild. But with persistence we found them in a small fishing village.

Note, I am zoomed in as far as I can on my camera, and then cropped to see these, they were high up!

Caught a few good photos of her flying

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

CR Continued

Now she had found her friend.

Our next thing to search for was Monkey's and we didn't have to go very far to find them. Note the same applies to the monkey's they were far away and we seem to have caught them during nap time.

After this we headed to go for our Jungle Cruise, as I said before they have souvenirs and some fresh fruit, and washrooms here for you to use. They also had these guys playing music for everyone.

More flowers...

Not our boat but this was just like ours, there are many different boats and companies that run these boats down the river. Everyone on our boat was doing a Thumb's Up tour.

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

CR Continued

Enjoying some sun time!

Something startled her and in the water she went

There are so many birds in the area, they actually gave us a little pamphlet to help us identify them.

Spot the crocodile

This is the croc our boat driver taunted to get out of the water... brave man!

Edited May 12, 2023 by jaycruising
photo

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

CR Continued

There was just something about this tree, I just loved it!

Costa Rica cows. They have Brama cows here and they do not get as fat as the ones we have in Canada, but they can tolerate the heat and dry lands better there.

Costa Rica's pink bird and it is pink because it mostly eats shrimp, like the flamingo

I can't remember what they were fishing in here for, but I'm not sure it would be my first fishing spot choice.

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

CR Continued

We had our lunch high on a hill, which was great for views, but not so great when a truck broke down in the middle of the only road down!

Once back at port because we didn't book a ship tour we were left off at the gate, if you booked a ships tour they took you right up the pier.

But if you can't walk long distances they had this little train that would take you back and forth.

Nice aft

And more music to welcome us back to the ship.

2011mom · May 12, 2023

3 hours ago, jaycruising said:

We had booked a private tour with Thumb's Up tours, it was good but not my favourite of the ones we went on (and not my least favourite either).

What did you not like about this tour? I'll be visiting that port next year and will have to figure out what tour to take.

Also, thanks so much for your comprehensive review!

jaycruising · May 12, 2023

6 minutes ago, 2011mom said:

What did you not like about this tour? I'll be visiting that port next year and will have to figure out what tour to take.

Also, thanks so much for your comprehensive review!

It's not that I didn't like it. They were great to deal with, and get everything organized, they gave us a lot of information about the area and got us to all of our stops. My issues were actually more with the vehicle then anything else. It was a mercedes van, and it had bald tires, and the AC kept leaking condensation all over us on the van and the AC was so loud that in the back I had trouble hearing our guide and he didn't have a mic.

I still would recommend it, it just wasn't my favourite of all the ones we did on this trip.

Now the one in PV, I would not recommend! (I've shared some of that previously and will add more)

jaycruising · May 15, 2023

Huatulco, Mexico

Our next port stop was Huatulco. We didn't book any excursions as nothing I saw had great reviews and nothing was super appealing. Since this port has a beach adjacent to it, we decided to just make it an explore the port and beach day. We took our time leaving the ship, we actually did our laundry before leaving too! It was what felt like the hottest day that we had and the humidity was high.

We started making our way down the long pier, lots of views of the aft of the ship.

Views from the pier

By the time we made it to the end of the pier we had decided that we were not going to take a taxi up to the town to look along, it was far too hot.

We walked along the pier shops street and checked out some views and this church.

There are a lot of restaurants along the way that will invite you in for something to eat and a chair along the beach. We just decided to walk to the end of the beach and grabbed a seat and enjoyed time at the beach.

After spending a couple hours here we just walked along the beach to make our way back to the ship.

jaycruising · May 15, 2023

Huatulco Continued

After freshening up, I just wandered the ship taking photos of the bay from different angles.

There were people enjoying all of these mini bays

We watched this guy all morning at the beach, he would take them out for a ride for quite a long time and then once they got back to the beach he would dump them all.