Live: Apr 20, 2024 Summit 14 Night Panama Canal Westbound Cruise!

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, janabellev2.0 said:

Happy assisted me onto the ship today (he was pushing wheelchairs).  We will be seeing lots of each other as we sail up the coast!

 

Thanks for sharing your travels through the Canal and on to LA/San Pedro! I've enjoyed watching my ship come in!!

Very cool! Hopefully Happy will be nice to you in the casino as well!

[mahdnc]

Here is a brief time lapse video taken of our arrival at San Pedro early this morning.  The video was taken from our aft balcony.

Edited May 5 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

We visited the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in downtown Los Angeles.  When I went to graduate school in the Los Angeles area, I was blown away by the idea that smelly tar pits existed in a metropolitan area.

 

 

Here is a photo of one of the largest tar pits.  Although not evident in the photo, you could see a steady stream of gas bubbles rising to the surface.

 

Several pre-historic animal remains are found in the tar pits such as the mastadon:

 

Not sure how people can work with the public watching them behind a window:

 

[Barwick Cruiser]

Thank you so much for your review and all the great photos. Glad you had a  wonderful voyage and were able to enjoy some informative presentations. Hope your travels home are smooth and uneventful! Any future cruises in the plans? 
Cathy

[fshepinc]

Heads up, fellow travelers! I came home with a little something extra - Covid 19. A passenger at my dining table was ill, and in quarantine for the final two days of the cruise. I started feeling bad last night, and tested positive when I got home today. Very mild case, but I encourage others to get tested if they feel ill. I thought it was just a head cold, and wouldn’t have thought to test if it weren’t for the known exposure. Hope all of you stay well!

[mahdnc]

33 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thank you so much for your review and all the great photos. Glad you had a  wonderful voyage and were able to enjoy some informative presentations. Hope your travels home are smooth and uneventful! Any future cruises in the plans? 
Cathy

We are booked on next April’s Solstice TP from Sydney to Honolulu. We’re looking forward to it!

[mahdnc]

25 minutes ago, fshepinc said:

Heads up, fellow travelers! I came home with a little something extra - Covid 19. A passenger at my dining table was ill, and in quarantine for the final two days of the cruise. I started feeling bad last night, and tested positive when I got home today. Very mild case, but I encourage others to get tested if they feel ill. I thought it was just a head cold, and wouldn’t have thought to test if it weren’t for the known exposure. Hope all of you stay well!

Thanks for the warning. I hope you feel better and fast, Charles. 

[Fly and Sail]

3 hours ago, mahdnc said:

We visited the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in downtown Los Angeles.  When I went to graduate school in the Los Angeles area, I was blown away by the idea that smelly tar pits existed in a metropolitan area.

 

 

Here is a photo of one of the largest tar pits.  Although not evident in the photo, you could see a steady stream of gas bubbles rising to the surface.

 

Several pre-historic animal remains are found in the tar pits such as the mastadon:

 

Not sure how people can work with the public watching them behind a window:

 

 

Nice! I used to live a few blocks away, like 15 years ago, and I always enjoyed coming here.

[thepoint]

On 4/22/2024 at 3:18 PM, mahdnc said:

The weather during the past two sea days has been terrific.  Smooth seas and blue skies!

 

Could you please tell me what cabin this is?   Thank you.  

[DaKahuna]

@mahdnc Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful journey.  It brought back so many great memories.  Wishing you a safe and uneventful trip home. 

 

[mahdnc]

51 minutes ago, thepoint said:

Could you please tell me what cabin this is?   Thank you.  

8166. I will post some information about this nice cabin when I get a chance. 

[90scruzer]

On 5/3/2024 at 8:58 PM, mahdnc said:

Cream of Wild Forest Mushroom Soup

It appears to have the Forest mushrooms chopped via blender or other means.  Sacrilege!   I'm sure it's just a bad photo :P.  

 

Thanks again for all the information shared.   I've put celebrity back in the mix for our future PC cruise .. now just trying to find the best one for my work itinerary (ie. in 2026 😢 )  

[mahdnc]

12 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

@mahdnc Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful journey.  It brought back so many great memories.  Wishing you a safe and uneventful trip home. 

 

 

You are welcome.  Your live thread last year during your Panama Canal cruise was very helpful.

 

I will be following along your Japan live thread!

[mahdnc]

On 5/4/2024 at 2:29 PM, mahdnc said:

From the deck of the USS Iowa

 

The museum has a place behind the security shed to store your luggage if you want to tour the USS Iowa after your cruise. 

 

My wife corrected me here.

 

The museum has long term plans to put in some kind of luggage storage facility to make it easier for cruise ship passengers to visit the battleship.  In the mean time, they will take your luggage and will store it for you near on the deck of the ship under the watchful eye of the admissions people.

[mahdnc]

We stayed at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel last night.  It is located very close to LAX and they offer a free shuttle to the airport that runs 24/7.  We were told it make a stop at the hotel every 30 minutes.

 

After arriving at the hotel last night, we dropped off our bags with the bell  hop who took our luggage up to our room while Marcia and I drove our mini-van rental to the nearby airport location for Enterprise Car Rental (partly to avoid the hefty parking charge at the hotel).  After the navigation disaster that I had returning our car to the downtown Miami location (also Enterprise), my wife went with me this time.

 

The rental agent that was checking us out was nice enough to remove the one way drop off fee ($35) and our total cost was about $65 for renting the Pacifica mini-van for the day.

 

We were so tired from the whole disembarkation day and museums touring, that we opted for an Uber ($10) for the short ride back to the hotel.  The funny thing was when I pressed the confirm button on the Uber app, our car was already in front of us by some miraculous coincidence.  It was $10 well spent.

 

My wife asked me to cancel our dinner reservation at the Strand House located in Manhattan Beach because she was so tired.  Our wedding anniversary was on May 3 which occurred on our last sea day.  I wanted to take her to a nice land based restaurant with a view of the sun setting over the ocean during our last night of our vacation.  But when you are tired, it's hard to enjoy something like that.  We had been to that restaurant a few years ago during a land vacation to the the national parks.  We had time to walk out to the pier to watch the sunset.  Here was the view back in 2022.  It may seem rather boring after being out at sea for two weeks.

 

 

We decided to simply eat at the hotel restaurant which was pretty mediocre food-wise and service-wise.  

 

 

[mahdnc]

My wife is a Lifetime Platinum Elite member with Marriott.  For that we got free breakfast at the hotel's buffet.  And for that we got, once again, mediocre food and mediocre service.  Or maybe we have just been spoiled being on Summit for 15 days.

 

Our cost for a standard room with king size bed was $176 including taxes and fees.  Our window had a view of the planes taking off from LAX and I geeked out for a while as I watched some planes go by (including the massive A380 double decker plane).

 

 

We checked out and were lucky enough to catch the 9am shuttle.  There is no formal queueing system for getting on the bus which can take about 20 passengers and their luggage.  The Avianca uniformed people knew exactly where to stand for the bus and they were the first ones on.  After that it was a free for all because instead of an orderly line to get on the bus, we had a funnel shaped crowd.  Luckily my wife and I were the last two people on the bus.

 

 

We were dropped off at the main American Airlines terminal.  We went to the self serve kiosk to get our luggage tags printed up.  And then we lined up to check in with an agent.  We had a couple that tired to cut in line in front of us.  An American Airlines attendant told them to go back to the end of the line and then turned around to help a different customer. The couple wouldn't move and told us something unintelligible on why they should be in front of us.  We told them they needed to go back to the end of the line and after some bickering they move to the back but they called us "mean" people.  After we finished with our check in, I noticed that the same couple was at the self serve kiosk getting their luggage tags printed out which is what you had to do before you could get in line.

 

 

Our flight to Chicago was very uneventful.  I had downloaded some movies and watched The Bricklayer (2023) starring Aaron Eckhart and The Beekeeper (2024) starring Jason Statham.  From their characters' performance in both movies, you could replace your entire army with just these two guys.

 

As soon as we got home, we unloaded our luggage and quickly drove off to retrieve our dog from the sitter.  Daisy was very happy to see us as we were to see her.

[mahdnc]

There are a few more subjects that I will be posting on later this week.

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, mahdnc said:

I will be following along your Japan live thread!

 

Thank you.   I hope the video’s I posted of last nights Taiko Drum performance in the theater work for everyone.  It was really a joy to experience those drums again.  

 

 Just returned from today’s excursion and going to try and get some pictures posted before heading to the Helipad for sail away.  

 

 

[MikeMary4449]

13 hours ago, mahdnc said:

We had time to walk out to the pier to watch the sunset.  Here was the view back in 2022.  It may seem rather boring after being out at sea for two weeks.

 

 

 

Thanks @mahdnc for the wonderful review of your Panama Canal cruise.  We have enjoyed every minute of it!  I can understand that you were tired after a busy day in Los Angeles, but I was looking forward to a picture from the restaurant in my hometown of Manhattan Beach.  Thanks for posting the picture of the sunset, even if it was from 2022.  That view never gets old to me!  Safe travel home.  Mary

[hcat]

another great review... Glad you are home safe without any travel issues!

[lasman]

Enjoyed reading all the great daily reviews of the Summit's Panama Canal cruise to LA.

We will be boarding Summit in Vancouver on May 24 for the northbound cruise to Seward. Our second trip on Summit as we previously took the Maine, Maritime Provinces Canada 10 day last year. Love the ship.

Although it sounded as though you had a great voyage, we will be doing Holland Nieux Amsterdam from SAN to FLL in October.  Not as many Sea Days, more interesting ports for exploring Mayan ruins and history,  hopefully avoid stormy weather.  

 

[mahdnc]

41 minutes ago, lasman said:

Enjoyed reading all the great daily reviews of the Summit's Panama Canal cruise to LA.

We will be boarding Summit in Vancouver on May 24 for the northbound cruise to Seward. Our second trip on Summit as we previously took the Maine, Maritime Provinces Canada 10 day last year. Love the ship.

Although it sounded as though you had a great voyage, we will be doing Holland Nieux Amsterdam from SAN to FLL in October.  Not as many Sea Days, more interesting ports for exploring Mayan ruins and history,  hopefully avoid stormy weather.  

 

 

I hope that both of your cruises go real well!

[Mummo]

On 5/3/2024 at 12:25 PM, mahdnc said:

We sat at the top floor and had a better view of the "chandelier". I couldn't understand all the "shower cap lights". No matter how I looked at them, they were not pretty.

[Mummo]

Thank you David for the wonderful nametags and this post. I wish we had been able to access it while we were on the ship because there were so many good hints. 

We will see you in less than a year on the TransPacific cruise.

AND, we will be chatting on that thread until we embark in Sydney.

 

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, Mummo said:

We sat at the top floor and had a better view of the "chandelier". I couldn't understand all the "shower cap lights". No matter how I looked at them, they were not pretty.

 

Our table was located on the top floor except we were right by the entrance to the MDR so we couldn't never looked at it on a regular basis.  Here is what it replaced (2010):

 

Edited May 7 by mahdnc