Live! Radiance of the Seas - Panama Canal cruise - April 8, 2024

[FionaMG]

1 hour ago, ONECRUISER said:

Was on last Fall's Radiance PC and Ducks were overkill, one Passenger alone said she brought 200 to spread around. They are Kinda rare on this sailing...

 

I've never found one 😭

I do have two but only because they were given to us in goodie bags on a cabin crawl a few years ago. 😂

[RobInMN]

7 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

Was on last Fall's Radiance PC and Ducks were overkill, one Passenger alone said she brought 200 to spread around. They are Kinda rare on this sailing...

We found 1 "Normal" duck a few days ago, and re-hid last night. But yeah, I've not heard of many ducks this cruise. 

[ONECRUISER]

11 hours ago, FionaMG said:

 

I've never found one 😭

I do have two but only because they were given to us in goodie bags on a cabin crawl a few years ago. 😂

My Grand Daughter found over 50 of them on Radiance last Canal Cruise, on this Cruise seen 2 but I'm not actually on lookout for them

[Teeara]

12 hours ago, FionaMG said:

 

I've never found one 😭

I do have two but only because they were given to us in goodie bags on a cabin crawl a few years ago. 😂

My roommate found a tiny one on embarkation day.

 

I found this one in my medicine cabinet after our cabin crawl. 😁❤️. Otherwise I’ve never found a duck yet.

 

  
 

It made my day.  I’m keeping him.

Edited April 18 by Teeara

[Teeara]

Sorry for the delay kids.  My cold has been getting better but I’ve been going to bed early so I’m missing some of the time I would usually use for posting here.

 

Our second sea day after Puerto Quetzal was pretty quiet.  We spent a good portion of the day in the Colony Club reading.  The temps are much cooler than the previous days and with my cold I want to be warm.

 

In the afternoon they had the enrichment lecture on Puerto Vallarta.

 

 

They told us we would be docked 3 miles from old town but across the street from Walmart (for those who are interested).

 

We ate in the WJ and it was British night.  I got the fish and chips.  Buyer beware.  I could immediately tell that it wasn’t whole fish, but a fish cake.  The texture wasn’t what I was expecting so I didn’t enjoy it.  They did a good job with the tartar sauce though.

 

 

Back in the cabin I prepared our Wash & Fold laundry bag for tomorrow.  For comparison, the Cruise Compass is letter size.  
 

 

We were only doing undies and socks for this load.

 

 

I’m not seeing any maps or Compass for this day.  My apologies.

 

[Teeara]

Today we were in Puerto Vallarta.  We were indeed docked across the street from Walmart.

 

 

We had the Top 5 Vallarta Highlights and Shopping tour at 8:30 this morning.  Our first stop was the Malecon along the waterfront.

 

 

 

 

 

We caught a couple of rides for the next part of the tour.

 

 

 

We checked out this mural during a bathroom break.

 

 

Our next stop was this church.

 

 

 

 

We had a few stops during our walk.

 

 

 

 

We stopped at a square with some beautiful mosaic benches that were reminiscent of the ones at Park Guell in Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were given time to walk down by the beach where there were a lot of beachfront restaurants.  Too bad we didn’t have time for that.

 

 

They took us to a jewelry store then back to the ship by 1:00.

 

 

We had a beautiful sunset tonight.

 

 

Here is the Cruise Compass.

 

 

 

 

 

And here are the location maps:

 

 

 

 

 

[Teeara]

Here are the Windjammer nightly themes for dinner:

 

Day 1:

 

 

Day 2:

 

 

Day 3:

 

 

Day 4:

 

 

Day 5:

 

 

Day 6:

 

 

Day 7:

 

 

Day 8:

 

 

Day 9:

 

 

Day 10:

 

 

Day 11:

 

 

Day 12:

 

 

Day 13:

 

 

Day 14:

 

 

There is no dinner for Day 15 since that is disembarkation day.

 

I hope you find this helpful.

[RobInMN]

Some ship pics:

 

The Puerto Vallarta port is pretty compact for fitting 3 ships:

[Teeara]

30 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

Some ship pics:

 

The Puerto Vallarta port is pretty compact for fitting 3 ships:

Love your shots, especially the one with the 3 ships!

[Jimbo]

@Teeara You said you weren't feeling well. Do you think you may have caught noro, since it has been reported on your sailing.

[Teeara]

15 hours ago, Jimbo said:

@Teeara You said you weren't feeling well. Do you think you may have caught noro, since it has been reported on your sailing.

Nope.  I didn’t have any noro symptoms.  Just a garden variety head cold. 

[RobInMN]

From Guest Services:

2014 passengers

 

Captain's Q&A (and hotel director):

Only 29 kids.

Didn't give numbers or percentage, but said that the Noro counts were "not severe"

Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

Delay on entering first lock was multiple pilot delays followed by a worker shortage for the locomotives(mules). Went slower than normal in the lake so that when we reached the Pedro Miguel locks, we could go right in without waiting again. 

 

 

 

 

 

[RobInMN]

Forgot 1 other item worth mentioning. Captain Rumen said that their are 3 levels of command. Con, Navigational Command, and Full (Bridge?) Command. Full command is never given up, but the Panama Canal is the only place where the pilots take Navigational Command. This means that if anything happens, they take responsibility. Anywhere else, while the pilot has input, the Captain maintains responsibility.

Navigational Command has Navigational override. 

[Teeara]

2 hours ago, RobInMN said:

From Guest Services:

2014 passengers

 

Captain's Q&A (and hotel director):

Only 29 kids.

Didn't give numbers or percentage, but said that the Noro counts were "not severe"

Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

Delay on entering first lock was multiple pilot delays followed by a worker shortage for the locomotives(mules). Went slower than normal in the lake so that when we reached the Pedro Miguel locks, we could go right in without waiting again. 

 

 

 

 

 

I knew there weren’t that many kids onboard.  Only saw about 10 during the entire cruise.  They were all well behaved (as opposed to some adults we came across during the cruise).

 

 

[perfect match]

On 4/20/2024 at 12:53 PM, Teeara said:

Sorry for the delay kids.  My cold has been getting better but I’ve been going to bed early so I’m missing some of the time I would usually use for posting here.

Hope you’re feeling better soon. 🥰

[Teeara]

It’s 11:30 pm here in Boston and we’ve been traveling since we got off the ship at 8:30 am PST (11:30 am EST) and we still aren’t home.  
Major traffic leaving Boston due to road construction.  Ugh. 
 

Anyway, I do plan on finishing up this thread tomorrow after a shower tonight and good sleeps in my own bed tonight.

[island lady]

Thanks for the excellent review my friend...and welcome home!  🥰

[Teeara]

Sadly, these are the last 2 days of photos I have to share with you for the last 2 sea days.  
 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Giovanni’s for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24 by Teeara

[Teeara]

Last of all, I wanted to share all the new Alaska items for sale in the shops.  They brought it in a couple of days before the end of the cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Teeara]

I hope you enjoyed the photo journey of this Panama Canal cruise.  We had so much fun (even if I did catch a cold).

 

I will be doing a much more in depth review on my YouTube channel.  If you’re interested in a lot more video content from this cruise, please feel free to check it out.  I expect the first video in the series to drop in a week or two.

 

https://youtube.com/@TheEmptyArmchair?si=3lkqT_1hVRg9-fTp

[Coralc]

Thanks so much for taking the time and such an interesting review @Teeara. We really enjoyed following along.  Bummer for the people on the following 4 night cruise to Vancouver. Your ship is broken. Propulsion problems, and they have lost all of their ports. 🙁

Edited April 24 by Coralc

[perfect match]

Thank you very much for sharing your Panama Canal cruise with us. I really enjoyed sailing along with you!

[FionaMG]

Thanks very much @Teeara for bringing us along and for the heads-up about your youtube channel. 😊

 

If you remember, would you mind coming back here just to say when you put the first video up?

[Teeara]

6 hours ago, FionaMG said:

Thanks very much @Teeara for bringing us along and for the heads-up about your youtube channel. 😊

 

If you remember, would you mind coming back here just to say when you put the first video up?

I will certainly let you know.  I usually post on Wednesdays at 6pm.  Fingers crossed for next week (definitely not tonight since we’re still unpacking and getting settled here at home).

[2funtime]

Teeara,  I have enjoyed your postings and look forward to our Oct sailing through the Panama.   
What's your opinion of The Key on the Radiance since it's a smaller ship.   There are 3 of us and I'm trying to rationalize paying the price.