Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Escaping Winter on a Panama Canal Cruise--January 9

We’re doing three back-to-back cruises on this trip. The first one goes from Acapulco, Mexico, through the Panama Canal, and back to Fort Lauderdale. The second leaves Fort Lauderdale and goes partway through the Canal and back to Fort Lauderdale, visiting a few different countries along the way. The third one is a western Caribbean cruise.

We would have liked to have been in Acapulco for a day or two before the cruise left, but we booked the airfare with Princess and they bring you in on the day of the cruise. That’s great if all the flights are on time, but if they aren’t, at least it’s Princess’ problem and not ours.

We went to Toronto a day early…here we are in Halifax…the first pics on this trip!





We had a good day of shopping in Toronto and went to bed early in anticipation of our early start the next day. Our flight left Toronto at 6:30 a.m., so with the new flight restrictions, we had to be at the airport at 3:30 a.m. I thought to myself “That’s crazy…there won’t be anyone there at that time.” Wrong!! The airport was chaos. It was one line-up to another, ending with a final frisk by the RCMP. Good grief! It took us fully 2-1/2 hours to get through all the security clearances. It’s a really good reason to fly out of the US rather than Canada.

After all the clearances, we finally got to have breakfast and coffee. It was good just to sit down!!


We flew to Dallas and then boarded a charter that Princess had hired to go to Acapulco. On each seat was a doggie bag…hmmmm….what’s inside? Surprise! It’s food! Good ole Princess won’t see you hungry…


Flying into Acapulco…




And we’re on the bus heading to the ship! It was warm and great to be there!


We noticed quite a few interesting sculptures along the way. It would have been nice to spend a few days there…


Volkswagens!! Lots of them! The teenagers beside us on the bus were playing Punch Buggy. I didn’t even think they would know what that was, but that game got old pretty quick, because there were so many of them. I can’t think of any other car that makes you shout and point at it when you see it. (Well, I am sure Jim can think of a few!)


Downtown Acapulco…


A hot rod for the car peeps…


The first view of the ship…the Island Princess…


Princess has the embarkation procedure down to a science. We were in our room in no time and checking out the scenery from the balcony. Jim always likes being on the side of the ship where we dock, as he can spend hours watching all the comings and goings below.


We went on a treasure hunt on the ship, which was a pretty easy one! You go around to different locations on the ship and get your card stamped. Then you bring it to the sailaway party to win prizes. Hey, you can’t win if you don’t enter. I want dinner at Sabatini’s! Here we are finished our hunt…


This is cute…just another bar and grill…


Ahhh…the celebratory first drink…


The sailaway party…leaving Acapulco


The live band was good, but you can tell a lot about the age of the cruisers…considering there are about 2600 guests on board, there aren’t too many people here! I think most people, like us, had a very early start to the day.


Passing by a Carnival ship as we leave…


One of the singers “getting down.” If you can imagine she even got Jim to sing…sadly, I have no pictures of that. I think I was in shock!


We didn’t win a thing and headed back to the room to unpack and fall into bed!

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