Category: Repositioning Cruise

Our final stop before Miami was Aruba, another island I had never visited before. I started by hopping on the Oranjestad trolley that goes from the Cruise port to the downtown.  It makes six stops along the way.  The stops include the House of Parliament, National Archaeological Museum, Fort Zoutman, the Protestant…

The next stop after two days at sea was the island of Curaçao.  Lying 68 miles off the coast of Venezuela, it is a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Willemstad, its capital lies in Schottegat Bay, one of the finest natural harbors in the West Indies.  It is part of…

Heading to Curaçao We were supposed to stop in Cartagena, but because of the political situation, we went past to Curaçao. For more than two centuries, Cartagena was the main gateway through which the Spanish Empire transported the riches of South America to Europe.  Gold from Colombia and Peru, and silver…

Wednesday: 10/8 Today we continue our route southeast along the coastlines of Costa Rica and then Panama.  We will travel about 505 nautical miles, and the course will take us around Isla de Coiba and Punta Morro de Puercos in the Peninsula de Azuero. We are close to shore, only 25…

Today started early. The pilot came aboard around 5 am.  There are two sections to the canal: the old Canal for smaller Paramax ships and the newer Canal for larger, new ships. The Queen Elizabeth is the largest of the Paramax ships, so we used the old canal.   New, larger ships are…

Tuesday 10/7 Puntarenas is called the Pearl of the Pacific. It sits along the Gulf of Nicoya on a peninsula in Costa Rica.  It is the largest city in the central Pacific and home to fine Spanish colonial architecture. The first European to discover Puntarenas was Gil Gonzalez Davila in 1522.  The…

Saturday: 10/4 As we were having breakfast we were treated with another pod of dolphins, some spinners, entertaining us with their jumps and flips.  There was a huge number of them, and the show continued for quite a while. We were warned that we were travelling through a tropical depression, and…

Tuesday 9/30 This morning, we arrived at the Port of Los Angeles, which is actually in San Pedro, south of Los Angeles. Again, having lived in the area, we had no desire to go offshore; however, Bob needed to get a prescription filled, so he walked until he found a…

Sunday: San Francisco 9/28 Overnight, we picked up our pilot to guide us under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco.  That all happened before I awoke, so I will have to see it when we leave tonight.   We docked at Pier 27 on the Embarcadero, close to Fisherman’s Wharf. Since…

Thursday: 19/25 The day has finally arrived; we are packed and just waiting to leave for Pier 91.  I did not see the Queen Elizabeth arrive this morning although I did see the Coral Princess come in.  It will be paralleling us to Los Angeles and then will return to Vancouver, B.C.…