From Atlantic to Pacific gee the traffic is..non-existent! We're Cruising!! - WBPC 2/24/19-3/10/19 - COMPLETED

[ukintheus]

We got back on the bus and made a short trip to be dropped off for the walking tour of the old city. This was the part that I wasn’t sure Mum would be able to do, but Dora had already come up to me and said she would take it very slow so that Mum could keep up, because she really wanted Mum to see it. Awww... it was so kind of her.

The streets reminded me of Old San Juan with beautiful, old, Spanish architecture. The streets in the old city are pedestrian only, unless you have a disabled permit.

We stopped in this plaza that had the La Gorda Gertrudis (Fat Lady Sculpture) by Ferando Botero. Dora explained that it was supposed to be good fortune if you touched the statue - she then pointed out the parts that were shinier than others - those were what you were meant to touch!

Right next to the statue was the Convento de Santa Domingo and we went inside to take a look around. All of the stops in the churches in town were fairly brief and it was hard to hear everything that Dora said because they are all active churches so she spoke more quietly.

Another beautiful and very elaborate altar.

We continued our walk through the old city. There were a lot of places that had elaborate gates and very beautiful courtyards. This was a restaurant but there were also small boutique hotels like this.

Our walk continued and we went through the Bolivar Plaza. I didn't hear a word Dora said about this as there were several beggars and vendors there, all of whom seemed to be hell bent on getting to Mum. I was too busy defending the space to pay attention.

Our next stop was at the Iglesia Santa Catarina De Alexandria, the Cartagena Cathedral. It was another beautiful example of their architecture. This church had been attacked by Sir Francis Drake during it's construction, but Dora said she wouldn't hold it against Mum. She told us that there was a lot of bad blood between the Colombians and the British. This is not new news to us Brits - we tried to take over most of the world at some point - not many are happy about it.

We continued on to the Iglesia de San Pedro Claver.

Once inside Dora took us to the cloisters where we all took a very welcomed break and sat on the cloister walls while she was explaining the history.

We then walked through some of the beautiful old cloister gardens to get into the church.

Another beautiful church, with a quick stop here sitting on the benches to take some photographs.

The remains of Saint Peter Clavar are displayed at the altar. You couldn't get really close enough to take a good look though.

The walking tour concluded with a stop to either get a drink or to do some shopping. There were several coffee and cigar shops. We found a small café that had a table outside and welcomed the chance to sit and relax for a bit.

I got another iced coffee but this one was so strong I couldn’t even drink it!! It would put hairs on your chest and braid them!! Scott got a local beer - he was smart.

We had about 20 minutes here and then met Dora back outside and walked down the road to get out of the city walls where our bus driver was waiting for us to go back to the ship. We said goodbye to Dora, she was great, and I highly recommend her to anybody looking to do a tour. I'm so glad now that we did this.

We did a little bit of shopping in the stores at the end of the pier. I had offered to buy Maggie some caramels that she was looking for as she wasn't going to be going ashore. There was a big gift shop that you enter first that didn't have them, and then once we got outside we realized there was a Juan Valdez shop. I got some coffee for us and the caramels there.

Meanwhile, Scott was busy snapping away. He took loads of photos here, but I'll just share a couple.

They have a shuttle that takes you back and forth along the pier and we used that to go back although it was hot on board. By now the temperature had really started to climb and although it hadn’t been as awful as I had feared, it was definitely warm.

 

[ukintheus]

Back on the ship we decided to head to Cabanas for some lunch. Today they were showcasing Mexican food, but I think we still managed to find some curry tucked away. No photos of the food – I guess we were taking a break from the cameras!

Right at about 2 pm all of the tours seemed to be coming back and Cabanas was filling up so we went back to our cabins. We all decided that a siesta was on the cards and rested for an hour or so.

Here's a photo of the shuttle, I also think that's a crew member doing a sprint back to the ship.

We all had a rest and enjoyed the AC for a couple of hours. We were up and about in time to watch sail away though. It was an interesting port to leave from.

You could see La Popa on the hill in the very distance as we slowly made our way out.

After watching Cartagena disappear from view, we all decided to go and see the Ricky Kalmon show at 6:15 pm. Another show for us! I'm actually impressed myself as I write this!

After the show we had to make a quick stop in the gift shop as Mum had decided she couldn’t read the time on the watch she had bought the other night, and so we needed to find another one. The choices were pretty limited and she ended up with a neon pink watch strapped one. She said she didn't care - she just wanted to see the time! We came back upstairs and Scott tried to switch the batteries from the new one to her old one but they weren’t the same size. Oh well.

We went down to Tritons for dinner. I had the wedge salad and beef tenderloin,

Scott and Mum both had the Bruschetta with Parma ham.

Scott had vegetable biryani and Cobb salad.

Mum had the cod (picture below) and Maureen had celery soup and beef tenderloin (again, no photo - sorry about that).

Mum looks tired here...aww.

Tonight's puzzle from Charlie.

And here are the dessert selections. Banana bread pudding for Maureen, crumble for Mum, some chocolatey thing for me (wasn't that great), and cheesecake for Scott.

 

[ukintheus]

When we left from dinner there was nobody having photos taken so despite everyone being dead tired, I managed to convince them to have a couple of pics taken before heading up to bed.

Upstairs were Minnie and Daisy and so more photos, although I know everyone really didn't want to. But..."we'll be glad we did later" I kept saying. Yeah, I was right.

We finally got back to our cabins and had this cute bear waiting for us. I'm also pretty sure I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Overall thoughts on Cartagena are that I am so glad that we took the tour. I think it would have been borderline crazy to go to such a beautiful city and NOT go and see the sights. Maybe if you've done a ton of Panama Canal cruises you wouldn't, but if you only go once - DO IT - even if you are 90!!

Coming up: The Panama Canal Crossing Day!!!

 

[ironz]

Great report so far!! I'm one of the ladies that organized the group part of the Dora tour on our FB group, but the other lady is who was so nice to make the tour meet-up cards. I'm so happy that y'all had Dora as your guide and that she made it a good tour for your Mum! It was definitely a good tour!
p.s. I need to do a trip report... been procrastinating.

 

[ukintheus]

Great report so far!! I'm one of the ladies that organized the group part of the Dora tour on our FB group, but the other lady is who was so nice to make the tour meet-up cards. I'm so happy that y'all had Dora as your guide and that she made it a good tour for your Mum! It was definitely a good tour!
p.s. I need to do a trip report... been procrastinating.

You both did a great job at organizing - thank you for that! It really was a good tour, I hope yours was just as good.

I understand about getting a trip report started You'll have to come back and let me know so I can come and revisit it through your eyes.

 

[ukintheus]

Really enjoying your trip report. We love Jo as well. We had Putra (if it's the same one) as our server but it was on the Fantasy. He was wonderful!

Thanks for joining in. Putra is great. I don't remember now if he said he had come from the Fantasy or not. Crew are shuffling so much right now with the new ships coming in.

 

[bcwife76]

Wow, what a fantastic tour!!! I'm so glad your mum was able to get on ok - Dora sounds like a total sweetheart, you were definitely in very capable hands!!

 

[ukintheus]

Day 8 – Saturday, March 2nd – Panama Canal

Today was the day and we were up early! Maureen said that Mum was up the earliest at 5:15 am and tried to tiptoe across the cabin so that she could take a look outside. The rest of us were up between then and 5:45 am and everyone made a beeline for the veranda. I had read that there are the “early birds” who get up to the front of the ship at some ungodly hour, and way before 5:15 am, so we had already decided we were not going to mess with that mess and to stay in our cabins for the approach. This was our early morning view. Ships everywhere!

The sun was just about to come up. Scott got some great photos today (in case you doubted it ) and I love the ones he got of Mum.

We were going very slowly but we were moving and we could eventually see that we were approaching the breakwater. There were lots of ships sitting waiting, including a Royal Caribbean ship that appeared to be moored up as we slowly sailed past it.

We ordered coffee from room service and firmly parked ourselves on the veranda. There was definitely the feeling that we didn’t want to miss a thing! We watched the pilots come on. Capt. Puckett had told us that there would be 4 pilots coming on board and also 26 linemen.

At about 7 am we went up on to deck 10. For some reason, this morning was the morning I decided to take photos of the doors! I'm determined to get my use out of the Star Wars magnets I bought that didn't arrive in time for our SWDAS cruise!

I don’t know if you can tell from this photo what the crowds were like up at the front. Insane. That’s all I can say about it – there was no way you could even get close enough to get a photo above people’s heads.

We were about to go under the Atlantic bridge, which is still under construction.

Martin, the bar tender (so nice, so nice, so nice ), was walking around making Bloody Mary’s from a cart and the tomato juice was freshly squeezed. Who cares if it was only 7:20 am?? They were delicious, although Mum decided to just get a tomato juice. And right behind the Bloody Mary wagon was the DCL photographer!

We stayed up on deck 10 to watch us sail underneath the bridge. There were a couple of construction workers up there that waved down to us.

It was really heating up already and so we elected to go back down to our cabins and watch our arrival into the Agua Clara locks. Capt. Puckett was narrating our passage today, and we couldn’t hear him too well on deck. Mum really wanted to hear what he was saying so it was much easier to listen to him on the TV and pop in and out onto the veranda. Off to our right hand side were the old Gatun locks and we could see ships in transit there.

There were tug boats in front, behind and beside us as we slowly moved forward.

Here is a tanker moving towards the old locks, you can see the tug boats tied up to it maneuvering it in. They use mules to pull the ships through the old locks though.

The pilot boats were still zipping around as well, it was unclear exactly when the pilots and linemen all got on.

This was our view as we got closer. Today was the day I was patting myself on the back for going ahead with these cabins. They were close enough to the front that they worked out perfectly.

And this was the view on TV. Considering you couldn’t get near the front, it was a good compromise.

The approach to the pier was very slow, and Scott and I decided to go and see if there was anywhere else on the ship that had a better/different view than we had from our cabins. The Atlantic bridge was now behind us but we could see that the Royal Caribbean ship had begun its journey into the canal as well.

We ran into the DCL photographer again. They did a good job of getting out and about today.

Quick pic of the tugboat in the back.

We decided to venture forward on deck 4 and see how far we could go. Not far was the answer.

We stayed down on deck 4 for a little while and took some photos of us coming into the pier. As I said, it was taking a while.

We ran into the same photographer again on deck 4!!

So after a good look around, we agreed that our cabin had about the best view and made our way back there. In front of us was an LNG tanker and Capt. Puckett said that he thought they were holding us to allow the LNG tanker to get into the next chamber so it wasn’t so close to a cruise ship full of people. Here you can see the tanker already in the second chamber.

We could see the ships going through the Gatun locks above the trees.

Finally we could see the water moving where they were reducing the level of the first chamber.

There was also a bit of wildlife watching going on – this alligator was doing a spot of sunbathing on the bank.

 

[ukintheus]

The first chamber gate opened and we began a slow maneuver in at about 8:30 am. You could see the gates in close up on the TV.

These are the gates, there are two on each end of the chamber and they are hollow.

Looking back to the gates closing, and off to the left of the photo are the basins that supply the water to fill the locks.

There were some pretty big fish hitching a ride up!

There was quite a bit of time to kill, so here are some selfies of us all while in the first chamber.

Once the ship was completely in the lock, we were moored up as well has having a tug boat in the front and the rear. It was really interesting to watch it all happen.

We managed to get the attention of one of the DCL photographs that was on the dock. I have to laugh at how Mum is barely tall enough to be seen!

We were now level with the Gatun lock buildings.

Scott decided to go back up to deck 10, so some of these photos are from up there. Here is the Aqua Clara control tower.

This was the view on the TV.

And now we are entering the second chamber. I’ve also got a video that shows how slowly the ship moves that I took between the second and third chambers.

The process for the second and third chambers was exactly the same. It took about 45 minutes to clear each chamber so it was a slow process, but there was a lot to watch with all the activity on the dock.

Scott got this picture from the front of us in the second chamber with the water level rising. He said he about had to beat his way up there. People weren’t being gracious at all about letting anyone through, even just to take a quick photo and then leave.

We eventually got into the third chamber. Scott got these photographs from deck 10.

This was the view from our cabin.

And this was the view from the back of the ship.

By now we were getting hungry, we hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast, so we ordered room service. I got a BLT and a steak panini for Scott and I. I also got this! In my defense it was very hot!

We cleared the last chamber at about 10:45 am. Here’s Mum and Maureen as we are leaving. If you look very closely you can see the Royal Caribbean ship moving out into the lake. She had gone through the old set of locks and had beaten us through!

We went up and met Scott on deck 10 and watched us sail away from the locks and into Gatun lake. It was really hot and humid by now.

Hello Judy!!!

The DCL photographer found us again. I crack up at the one of us all in the port hole…seriously?? Crop that thing down!!

And here's a little selection of us sailing out into Gatun lake.

Hey look!!! We made it to the front of the ship! Ha ha!

 

[ukintheus]

A quick photo of the navigation markers that the pilots use to line up when they are crossing. We had learned all of this stuff from Capt. Puckett's talks, and it all came in handy today.

The LNG tanker was in front of us the entire crossing and once we got into the main part of the passage we all sat down and chilled out for a little while.

Well, not all of us chilled out.

It seemed a good day to pop open my other one of these! Yum!

Mum and Maureen went to guest services get our passports stamped but the line was really long. They went back after about an hour and were much more successful! I had to take a photograph because it was my first stamp in my brand new USA passport. I just became a Citizen in January!

We continued our sailing through Gatun Lake and the Culebra Cut during the afternoon. We popped in and out from the cabin to the verandah depending on what was going on. It was really interesting to see the scenery change, the massive cargo ships or the small sightseeing boats.

We went under the Centennial Bridge at about 2:30 pm but we elected to just watch from our verandah as it was really hot and humid and going up into the blazing sun didn't sound good. We did get one brief rain shower during the afternoon but it just ramped the humidity up (if that was possible) rather than cool anything off.

At about 3:15 pm we could see that we were coming into the Cocoli locks and so Scott and I went up to deck 10 to see what we could see on the other side. The pool looked pretty busy as we went past, and it was so warm that I’m sure the water felt great.

The front wasn’t as packed now that it was in the blazing hot sun but there were still some that were toughing it out!

They had a station set up in the shade with iced water, lemonade (I think) and cookies.

We found a nice spot in the shade of the smokestack and I ran down to Mum and Maureen to get them to come and see the view from the opposite side. The LNG tanker was already entering the first chamber.

The old Pedro Miguel locks were on our left and we could see a tanker going through.

And it was so hot that we felt like a nice cold beverage was very much needed. The girls ordered a Mai Tai, and as you can see by the color, they didn’t go light on the rum!!! Scott got a Blue Moon.

The server took a photo for us.

We could see sky scrapers in the distance, which I assume was the outskirts of Panama City but when I looked on a map it looks to be too far away.

Scott snapped some photos of us girls, which aren’t great because we were sweating to death and also windswept all at the same time. You can see the Royal Caribbean ship behind Mum as it entered into the Pedro Miguel locks.

We stayed up there for a little while and then came back to the room for a quick cool off. We began going through the Cocoli locks at about 4:30 pm and again there were three chambers to the system.

 

[ukintheus]

We all watched us going into the first chamber from the veranda and then Scott, Maureen and I decided to take a quick jaunt down to deck four as we were going through the middle chamber.

Scott was having fun with the DCL photographer on the dock. We got his photo.

And he got ours.

Maureen went back to the cabin and Scott and I went over to the other side for a little while.

We went back upstairs to watch us going through the very last chamber with Mum and Maureen. It was about 6:20 pm when we cleared the final chamber as they were holding the LNG tanker in front of us, which had us there for about an hour.

Looking back you got a good view of the tanker behind us.

We sailed off as the sun was setting, and went past the Bridge of the Americas right as there was a gorgeous sunset, it couldn’t have been better.

By now it was dark, about 7:30 pm, and we could see tons of ships around us that were anchored waiting to make their way through.

It was time to get ready for dinner, we had missed 80’s trivia with all the excitement (shocking!). We had slowed down again, and basically come to a stop. Sure enough, we dropped anchor and they announced that we would be refueling. Tonight we were back in Tiana’s for dinner and as we got down there we could see the fueling ship had pulled alongside us. Here’s a cheesy photo of Scott – and some of the lights behind him are on the fueling ship.

I had cauliflower soup and then the lobster tail, Scott had King crab legs and also the lobster. I’ve posted before and after pics of the de-shelling for your viewing pleasure.

Mum and Maureen both had the mushroom tart for their appetizer, then Mum had the salmon, Maureen had the prime rib (again no photo of Maureen’s ).

 

[ukintheus]

Here’s the front of the dessert menu for tonight.

I had the flan, Scott had the almond tart, and Maureen had the tres leches cake.

We were all very tired tonight, but I managed to convince everybody (again – I know, I’m so bossy ) to take a couple of quick photos in the atrium as there were hardly any lines.

This one cracks me up because evidently when Mum is told to do a “thumbs up” she can’t do it without a funny expression as well!! So. Flipping. Funny!!!

Mum and Maureen went straight to bed while Scott and I ventured over to Preludes to see what the line was like to have photos taken with Cinderella. As soon as we saw the line ....yeah, we gave up.

This elephant was sitting waiting for us, along with a lithograph to commemorate our crossing.

The refueling ship was still there so I took a quick photo, for trip report purposes of course.

I know I fell asleep pretty much as soon as I got in to bed and I didn’t feel the ship moving until about 4 am, at least that’s what I felt it was, I didn’t look at the time!

Oh, one last thing about today. Two quotes from my Mum from today. 1. "Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to do the old locks." 2. "I wonder what it's like going the other way?" You've got to laugh, we weren't even through it the first time!!!

Up next: At Sea Day #3
Also: I won't be updating for a few days, so the mega posting session is over for a bit. Scott comes home tonight from working in Saudi Arabia. He's been gone for 6 1/2 weeks since the day after the cruise and I can't wait to see him!

 

[bcwife76]

Wow, there's a reason they call the Panama Canal an engineering marvel!!! It's really incredible, for sure!

6+ weeks?? Wow!!! Well enjoy the homecoming

 

[disneyfaninaz]

You got some incredible pictures. Brought back great memories of our crossing, except we had more of a cloudy day! It looks like one of our favorite photographers, Devison, was on your cruise. He's the one you took a picture of on the lock. He was on our Med cruise!

 

[mandymouse]

Hey Jenny, what an amazing cruise so far. Shame about Scott's camera, but pleased he managed to get a new one. Loving all the pics, but most surprised at the amount of DCL ones you've had (though they are lovely), and you've done well with the shows too and of course the alcohol count Looking forward to the next update and hope Scott has arrived home safely

 

[TestingH2O]

Enjoy having him home!

That sunset is spectacular.

 

[Magical_Suitcase]

What an adventure with your camera! I guess the good part was you did get to go somewhere you normally would not go while in George Town.

The new camera takes great photos!

ordered us an All Hands On Deck and we drank the rest of the wine from last night's dinner.

One of our favorite things to do when cruising.

Mr. Skinnypants.

Cool giraffe!

Your Mom is so lovely. Does she live with you and Scott?

Scott was having fun with the DCL photographer on the dock. We got his photo.

An he got ours.

Funny! And great photos!

Two quotes from my Mum from today. 1. "Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to do the old locks." 2. "I wonder what it's like going the other way?" You've got to laugh, we weren't even through it the first time!!!

I agree with you Mom.

By the way, we saw Susana on our last cruise and took a photo of her. She asked me to send it to you but I have to have Rob send it to me first, it is on his phone. She looks so beautiful in her new attire.

 

[ukintheus]

Wow, there's a reason they call the Panama Canal an engineering marvel!!! It's really incredible, for sure!

6+ weeks?? Wow!!! Well enjoy the homecoming

It was really cool, definitely something to say “been there, done that”.

You got some incredible pictures. Brought back great memories of our crossing, except we had more of a cloudy day! It looks like one of our favorite photographers, Devison, was on your cruise. He's the one you took a picture of on the lock. He was on our Med cruise!

He was a great photographer, and he was exhausted that night when we saw him in Shutters. They worked really hard that day.

Hey Jenny, what an amazing cruise so far. Shame about Scott's camera, but pleased he managed to get a new one. Loving all the pics, but most surprised at the amount of DCL ones you've had (though they are lovely), and you've done well with the shows too and of course the alcohol count Looking forward to the next update and hope Scott has arrived home safely

Hey Mandy! I bought the package from DCL for the first time. I figured for two weeks on a cruise like this it might be nice to have and I was glad I did. I wouldn’t bother for a Caribbean cruise because none of us like to have our photos taken. Not long now before you are off on your next adventure! I bet your are excited! I know you will have an amazing time.

Enjoy having him home! That sunset is spectacular.

That sunset was so pretty, you can tell because we missed 80s trivia which is one of Scott’s favorites.

Your Mom is so lovely. Does she live with you and Scott?

By the way, we saw Susana on our last cruise and took a photo of her. She asked me to send it to you but I have to have Rob send it to me first, it is on his phone. She looks so beautiful in her new attire.

Mum goes back to the UK in the summer when it’s hot here but she stays between myself, my sister and my brother from November to April. We all live in the US. Awwww, we miss seeing Susana! I’d love to see the photo when you can find it.

Having the hubby home again is awesome! Plus, I have a whole list of jobs for him to do!

 

[ukintheus]

Day 9 – Sunday, March 3rd – At Sea Day #3

I woke up at about 7 am, looked at the time and promptly rolled back over and went back to sleep. Ahhh...at sea days are just the bees knees. Next thing I knew it was just gone 9 am. Scott was already awake and lazily playing on his iPad. We had Palo brunch booked for the four of us at 10:30 am so we got up and got the day rolling. I went outside to check on the weather and it was absolutely beautiful, it was so much cooler and breezy and just a beautiful day. We ordered coffee from room service and sat outside on the veranda for a little while before getting ready.

I didn't get any photographs of the four of us! Ugg... so annyoing, but anyway, we made it up to Palo on time and were seated quickly.

Scott managed to get his "traditional" plate photo.

Although I had not requested her, Duan was our server today. We had her as our server the last time we were on the Wonder so that was a happy coincidence. I don't think the menu has changed recently, not that I noticed anyway.

Here's my plate of yummy stuff from the buffet. There's so much to choose from, but you know you have other stuff coming so it always makes it more difficult because I really have to focus on what I can eat vs. what I want to eat!

Scott's plate....which looks really good right now!

He went back for some shrimp and I stole one, they were huge!!

Duan also talked us into getting a flat bread to share. We got the spicy italian sausage one and I got some arugula off the buffet, threw some balsamic dressing on it and topped the pizza with it - sooooooo yummy.

The complimentary mimosas had gone down well but we decided to get a Bloody Mary - the one yesterday was still on our minds and Palo is one of the only places you can get it with fresh squeezed tomato juice. Plus, they stick all kinds of yummy things in it.

Up next for me was the Eggs Benedict, Maureen got this as well.

Scott got the Eggs Florentine without the hollandaise, which he thinks tastes like cheese.

Mum skipped any of these but she got the lasagna for her main course.

I got the Chicken Parmesan, which was delicious as always, Scott got the sirloin steak, and Maureen got the artichoke ravioli (which is my favorite but no photo. )

We still managed to squeeze in a few desserts of course, although we were struggling at this point.

Scott went for a combo from the pastries and the desserts.

I stuck to the dessert table.

Duan tried to get Mum to have one of the lemon meringue desserts, and it sat all by itself on the table for quite a while as Mum refused to put another bite in her mouth! Doesn't it look sad and lonely! I think in the end I gave in and ate it.

We threw in the towel on any more food and waddled out of there completely stuffed and went back back to our rooms to get changed into something more comfy. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we sat outside and watched the waves.

The new itineraries for the summer of 2020 had been announced and today was the opening day for Platinum members to book. I took at quick look at the Alaska dates to see if anything would fit into Scott's rotation schedule.

There was one date in June that might work so I took a quick look at the prices.

Ugg....Alaska is sooooo expensive! I didn't pull the trigger on this one...that's just crazy pricing for one week - that's what we paid for this 14 night Panama Canal.

There were some pretty views today as we sailed up the coast, it was all in the distance where it wasn't particularly photo friendly, but it was lovely to sit out and watched the world go by.

At 2 pm there was an open house down in the kids club for the adults, and although it took some convincing, I managed to get everybody to come down with me.

It was already pretty full by the time we got there, and it was really packed in the end with them having to add more tables. This isn't a great photo, but it's the only one I've got, so....

They had the stuff on the tables to make slime, or, in DCL speak "Stich's Space Goo".

One of us was happier than the others to be there. Hey! I don't have kids, I've never made slime before!

 

[ukintheus]

This space was soon overtaken by adults all perching on the tiny children's chairs.

Sinks for the shorties...so cute!

We actually waited quite a while to get everyone seated....if the kids have to wait this long they have a lot of patience!!

Our professor showed up. She had some crazy name but I can't remember it and I didn't write it down!

There was a cute story line behind Stich's drool being our Space Goo.

Scientific instrumentation ready and waiting...

My experiment in the making. We were allowed to put the glue in ourselves, but everything was put in for us. Not to be trusted!

After the goo making we were entertained by some crazy foam making. The first one used an audience member.

And then Prof. Crazy did her own crazier version.

We took a look around and took some photos. We all agreed that it was pretty good fun, even those that thought it wouldn't be.

I forgot to take a photo of our creation in the Lab, but we got to take it with us (I have no clue what we were supposed to do with it ), so here it is.

On the way back to our Cabin, Scott grabbed some popcorn from outside Buena Vista and we took a quick look at our photos in Shutters. They were selling a video of our passage yesterday that had been taken from the front of the ship. They had condensed it down to about 3 minutes and it was pretty cool so I bought it. It was $49.95 I think. I don't know what the publishing rules on it are or I would add it in here.

We hung out between our cabins and the verandas for the rest of the afternoon. At about 6:15 pm we decided to go up onto Deck 10 and see what the sunset might be like, although it didn't look promising.

It was super windy up there, and getting chilly so the girls gave up and left Scott taking photos, while we went back down to the room.

Scott starting to get sore throat tonight, courtesy of me. It was fairly noticeable on the ship that lots of people were starting to cough and hack. We made a quick stop at the gift shop on our way to TV Tunes Trivia for some more cough drops. Unfortunately, we were horrible at TV Tunes, but that was no big shocker! We left there and went on to our dinner which tonight was back in Tritons and was the Frozen menu.

Scott and I both had the coronation scallops and Mum and Maureen both had the split pea and ham soup.

Scott was going to order a salad as well, but Sasha said it would be too much food, which was kind of wierd at the time . Then, it all became perfectly clear as Sasha surprised us with some curry, rice and chapatis.

DEEEELICIOUS!

And then our entrees showed up!! Uggg....so not hungry now!

Scott, Mum and I all got salmon for our entree and Maureen got the pork medallions.

We got shown a couple of crayon tricks this evening as Sasha wanted to join in. The first one was Charlies, and the second one was Sasha's. It was right around now that Scott managed to start solving Charlie's every night. I think this one by Sasha stumped us though.

None of us wanted any dessert but Sasha bought us an order of the pancakes to share (no photo ) and they were way better than I remembered them. We left the dining room early tonight and it was only about 9:20 pm. For some reason the dining room had been really empty. Because we were so early, the photographers weren’t out and about and so we missed getting our photo taken in the atrium. This cute dragon was waiting for us in our cabin though! We had an early night tonight, watched a little TV, and then let the waves rock us to sleep.

Coming up: At sea day #4