Stop and Smell the Flowers: 2009

We had a fantastic time on our Panama cruise. We left out of Fort Lauderdale on December 29th and returned January 8th. Our vacation started with us enjoying a full beach day at Holland America's private island, Half Moon Cay. It was my favorite beach day of our entire cruise! The weather was perfect, I was able to enjoy reading while Alan spent his time splashing in the water. I finally braved the water and once in frollicked like a youngster catching a glimpse of a fish passing by now and then. We found some nice rocks that I thought would make nice paperweight sourviners. Lunch was provided and we were even able to hop board a large country truck equiped with benches for us to sit on for the short ride over the dirt road to the Lunch Tent. There was a buffet style lunch served with burgers, chicken and ribs with all the fixins to go with it. There was a cool breeze wafting through the covered picnicing area. A small little baby chick was running to and fro trying to find his brothers and sisters, hopefully he caught up with them. After our delightful lunch we wandered over to the bar for a drink before heading back to our ship. This was the way to start our vacation!

The itenerary for this cruise included Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao, Panama and Costa Rica. We had never been to any of these places so it would be an new adventure.

Alan enjoyed Aruba where we went to a beach isle. It had snorkeling and a water park. I spent the time there just kicking back watching everybody while Alan snorkeled and slid down all kinds of water slides. He fell at one slippery spot and cut his knee but that didn't keep him from enjoying himself.

Since this cruise was during his birthday and New Year's Eve he was able to enjoy celebrating while on the cruise. Our travel agent, Mary, gave us a gift of a dinner at the specialty restaurant Pinnacle Grill for Alan's birthday so he had a 22oz porterhouse steak plus half of mine. He was in 7th heaven. I can't believe that he ate the whole thing. The New Year's festivities was packed with music, dancing, and of course champagne. The place was jam packed with standing room only. We stayed long enough to toast in the New Year and share a New Year Kiss. Then off to bed we went since we weren't use to late nights.

Curacao was my favorite place. It is filled with colorful pastel buildings. We played with the dolphins at Dolphin Acadamy. They were so soft and the reason is that they shed their skin every two hours. They are fed special fish that is imported from North America and they get to swim out in the open ocean daily and feel freedom. They could just swim off but they always follow the boat back to the Acadamy.

Going through the Panama Canal into Gatun Lake was fascinating! It took several hours and once at Gatun Lake we took a lifeboat to shore so we could hop on board the Panama Railway. We sat in a dome car all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In Costa Rica we went to the sloth sanctuary and learned all about sloths, both the 2-toed and
3-toed sloths. They're really quite different. It rained hard while we were there for an hour and then cleared up. We went down a river and saw all kinds of sloths in trees and wild birds. It was a beautiful place.

Our vacation didn't end when we got back to Fort Lauderdale as we went for a ride on an airboat in the Everglades. I even got to hold a couple of baby aligators.

We had a fabulous time and have lots of fond memories of our trip and the people we met.