Posting live Panama April 21st

[karatemom2]

Thank you so much for all your reports! Sorry to hear about the Noro onboard. Take care and stay well!!

[2 to cruise]

Tallcruiser,

Thank you SO MUCH for the time you have spent posting all your wonderful adventures aboard the ship and your excursions. I know I have looked so forward to hearing all about your wonderful trip!

Enjoy the days you have left and we'll look forward to hearing from you when you get home. I know how those last few days are, you look so forward for so long and it goes so fast!!! Enjoy the days you have left!!!!

[SHIPMEOUT]

Robin, dear friend, thank you so much for all your wonderful posts. You still have lots of "juicy" days left (that what Al would say to me, trying to cheer me up when we were in the last week of our cruise) :p.

Oooh, be careful of that Noro. I can't believe people don't wash their hands. I was a real nut-case in our cabin with all the hand-sanitizers and sprays I had all over the place.

So glad your cruise is so wonderful. Every time I looked at the webcam the water looked smooth and the sky beautiful. I can't wait to hear more about the ports you liked the best so I can start planning for January!

I wished I had caught you going through the Canal later in the day with the signs on your balcony. Maybe someone else was able to snap a picture of that off the webcam.

When you start to get sad about ending the cruise, just remember you have Hawaii to look foward to in February!

Stay well, take care, and I will talk to you soon.
Cindy

[Colo Cruiser]

Great Canal shots. :)

[Momma Mojito]

Robin, Again many many thanks for taking the time and expense of writing your reviews. They have really been great!!! I thing we all owe you!!! We will take up a collection for you, and send you a check.
HAHa Kidding aside ,thanks JoAnn

[jrobinso]

I can't believe that this is our last day and we are on our way home. this has been the fastest 19 days ever. Our hot humid weather is now gone, the bathing suits are packed away and we are back in long pants and sweaters.

Overall this has been a great cruise and I'm sure we'll all love to answer questions when we get home. Weather...hot and humid once we got to Cabo, it turned chilly by yesterday afternoon. No problems at all with bugs during this cruise. Seas have been extremely calm. there is a little bit of rocking now, but it is minimal.

We did the Ultimate Balcony dinner for 4 on this cruise. It was awesome. I would highly reccommend it. The food and service were just perfect.

I still have to say that the food has only been okay. I'm not a coffee drinker, but again there are many complaints about the coffee. My husband did purchase a coffee card and has enjoyed his "free" brewed coffee in the morning.

Ice cream and cookies are served at Horizon court from 3:30 to 4:30 every day. They do bring a cart around the lido pool.

Sorry if Robin covered all of this before, I didn't read the previous posts.

This has been a fabulous CC group. We've made some life long friends, for sure. We are doing Sabatini's as a group tonight to say our "good byes".

I'll fill in more information when I get home.

[Colo Cruiser]

Jan,
Not good when 19 days go by like that!!! :eek:

[sparkle]

Hi Robin,

BDC and the 2/3 of the film crew here thank you for your wonderful posts! We really enjoyed "riding" with you. :):)

Hi Cindy and Al!

[spingal]

I have loved reading this thread and can not wait to hear more when you all get home. Thank you for posting "live"!!

So glad you had an amazing cruise! :D

[2 to cruise]

Can't wait to hear more!

[Momma Mojito]

I also can't wait to hear everyone's reviews about your cruise. With all of you becoming such good friends I'm sure you will have plenty to tell us. And thanks again for posting live!! With being on the ship that long, will any of younce ( this is a word in Pittsburgh we use for you) have sea legs?I've never had them, but then again I've only been on seven day cruises. JoAnn

[jrobinso]

We're home. Great cruise and great friends. Lots of hugs and some tears as we said goodbye last night and this morning.

No "sea legs', as this has to be the smoothest cruise I have ever been on. The sea was like glass for most of the cruise.

Lots of laundry and stuff to do, but if you have questions ....ask away.

By the way, it looks like the Noro Virus on board was handled pretty well. Just remember to wash your hands and carry sanitizing gel with you. We did encounter some who really felt it wasn't necessary to use it, but for the most part I think the passengers were pretty compliant. It might have been helpful for the ship to officially recognize and inform passengers of the outbreak, as you had to depend on rumors. I think it might have brought some of the noncompliant passengers in line.
Jan

[spingal]

Tallcruiser,

I am anxiously awaiting your stories from your wonderful cruise!! :D

I loved your "Live from" thread. :D

And many thanks to JRobinso your posts too! :D

[Bucky3]

Hi to all our CC ship mates! Robin, you did such a great job of reporting while onboard. I never got to use the computer more than a couple of minutes - hubby used our minutes and I think half of them were wasted WAITING!!

Anyway, we are now in San Diego with our daughter where we've been celebrating Mother's Day and three family birthdays including mine which is today!!! I chose to take some time out to read all about our trip through Robin, Jan, and those of you lurking here.

We certainly agree with all about how really great this cruise was and the perfect weather with the calmest seas ever was all icing on the cake. We love the Island Princess, and our starboard balcony was just wonderful.

We do regret not spending more time with the CC group. We had two other couples with us on this trip, so we were pretty busy plus naps on the balcony took some time too!! Nobody in our group got sick, everyone enjoyed the cruise even though a couple of them were apprehensive about such a LONG trip - they ended up agreeing it was too short!!

Hope everyone is safely home.

Bobbie

[goat rancher]

Glad you all had a great trip.....Anxious to hear all the "details"...
We had to switch off of our planned Pacific Panama cruise BUT will still be going to Panama (YAY!) and will still hit Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua so any info on these areas would be great. Did anyone do the tobacan hot springs tour in Costa Rica or the tour to turubari park?? How were the coffee prices in Costa Rica and Guatemala??

[Lew's cruise]

Ship and cruise sound great. We'll be doing the canal on the Island for Christmas and your info is greatly appreciated. Again thanks.

[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Monarch Sun 8/75
Majesty of the Seas 8/94
Norwegian Dream 4/99
Century 4/00
Galaxy 12/00
Dawn Princess 12/01
Infinity 4/02
Horizon 4/03
Grand Princess 12/03
Constellation 2/05[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Constellation 12/05[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Caribbean[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana] Princess 4/06[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Costa Magica 12/06[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Oosterdam 2/07[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Norwegian Sun 4/07[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Crown Princess 2/08[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Island Princess 12/08[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3300cc][FONT=Verdana]Celebrity Solstice 4/09[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Tallcruiser]

Hi everyone!!
We regretfully had to disembark the Island Princess Sat. 10th. We had such a great group of CCers I miss everyone already. Well I didn't even have a chance to unpack yet. I dropped my luggage in the living room, ran some quick laundry and packed my car and hit the road for 5 1/2 hour drive to AZ on Sun. I spent Mother's day night with my youngest son. And picked up my kitty from his house, I stayed until this morning and I have just arrived home again NOW!
It will take a couple days to collect my thoughts, I may post at a trickle and I hope my CC friends will help. There is so much information to share!!!

Let me say first that the Island Princess was in Wet Dock for all kinds of up grades before making her way up to Alaska. I didn't think we tore her up that bad!! LOL

Debarkation was smooth. It is now a "silent" debarkation. Everyone is designated a time and place to be to know if their color is called to move to costumes. It went well. Although I would have liked to stay in my cabin until 8:30 am. :p

Goat Rancher! Yes, yes yes! I went to Tobacan hot springs. It was told that many make the journey to see the Volcano more than once and never see it due to it being covered in clouds! WELL! It was crystal clear!!!! It was out of this world!!! The Volcano was active and spewing ash and sand!
The resort is just picture perfect! And the water and falls are hot and heavenly. Don't Pooh Pooh the idea. It was about 90 that day and high humidity. BUT!!! The taking of the waters was very soothing, and believe it or not the HOT springs were refreshing! Very nice accommodations and yummy buffet included. Clean, Clean Clean. Changing rooms, bathrooms and showers. Also towels were provided. GO! JUMP IN! You will love it!
oops am I getting loud:eek: . I just can't contain my excitement!!!
Yes it is a loooonnnnngggg ride but well worth it! Beautiful rain forests to drive through. You will see all kinds of sights on the Pan American hwy.

I still have to unpack and down load pictures. I will post more as soon as I can!

Bobbie, I am glad we did meet. I hope you will post here and share your trip!

Lew's cruise, how terrific. Dec will be hot but not the rainy season there. The Rainy season is from May to Nov. I hope you have as smooth seas as we had! The Island will be all spruced up by then. You will have to tell us if you see any difference.

Wait until I tell you about our "Private tour of the Theater and stage and behind the scenes" it helps to know someone. A couple from or CC group were the parents of the show manager and his girlfriend was a lead dancer in the productions. More on that later...............

[Tallcruiser]

([COLOR=darkorchid]Debarkation was smooth. It is now a "silent" debarkation. Everyone is designated a time and place to be to know if their color is called to move to [COLOR=red]costumes[/COLOR]. It went well. Although I would have liked to stay in my cabin until 8:30 am. [/COLOR]:p )

He he, I meant customs!!:p :rolleyes:

[spingal]

I can't wait to hear more!! Thanks for all of your wonderful posts! :D :D

[nomorework]

We did the Costa Rica Favourites tour, it was $199 each, pretty pricey, but a full day tour, it included the aerial tram through the rainforest, which we saw two toucan, and an iguana, we were disappointed as we thought we would see more wild life, the tour also included the jungle cruise, where we saw heaps of crocs in a dirty filthy rubbish strewn river. The lunch was good and facilities at the aerial tram clean. I think Robins tour of the hot springs sounded better as we also did the aerial tram in panama and honestly they were the same.
In guatamala we did the Filidelphia coffee plantation which was excellent, then we were taken into Antigua to have a look around - about 1 hour, we went to a market, there was a shop at the coffee place that sells coffee and a few souvenirs the coffee was about $6 and the souvenirs were better quality and prices than in the market and you did not need to barter. Much easier. The lunch provided on this tour was really nice.
Nicragua - we did not do a tour here as we have seen many mud pots in NZ, so we looked around the town and hired a tuktuk (bike thing) and went out to the beach.
Huatulco is the pick of ports, we chose the mountain bike excursion, it was a very hot day but worth every bit of sweat. We wished we had longer at this port.
Any other questions?

Robyn

[Momma Mojito]

Have any of you posted photos of your cruise on any site that we can view? Thanks ,JoAnn

[spongerob]

I hope you saw us waving at you from Coral Princess. I have a video of the Island passing us. I'll see if I can figure out how to post it.

[jerseyk]

[quote name='spongerob']I hope you saw us waving at you from Coral Princess. I have a video of the Island passing us. I'll see if I can figure out how to post it.[/quote]

Hi Rob, we were with you on the Grand around the U.K. last summer.
The ships passing in the Canal was great. My arms are still tired from waving:D
Walter

[Tallcruiser]

Hi
I have started posing a review
[URL="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=14875255#post14875255"][COLOR=#810081]Island Princess 19 d. Panama canal review - Cruise Forums - Cruise Message Boards - Cruise Critic#post14875255#post14875255[/COLOR][/URL]