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We had an uneventful flight home. While it's fun to be on a cruise, there truly is no place like home so it felt good to get there.

Katie has sorted through her pictures and posted them to her flickr website. If you're interested you can see them at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kishrieves/sets/72157616729537688/

Time to start planning another voyage.

April 11 - Last Day at Sea and Almost Home

What can I say? Princess arranged for another perfect day at sea. We sailed along the coast of Cuba this morning and through the day we saw much more traffic. We spent another leisurely day with the only chore being packing. It’s much easier to pack for the trip home since there are no choices to make.

We don’t stay out late in the evening, but I’ve heard that’s not the case with some of our shipmates. A bartender at one of the lounges told me that many of the cruisers show up at the bar at 2:00 AM and stick around until 3:30 or so. I don’t know how they get up the next morning!

Well, it’s been a lovely cruise and we caught this sunset shot so it seems fitting that it should end this chapter of our cruise blog.

April 10 - Ocho Rios, Jamaica

We docked this morning in Ocho Rios. Another ship was at the main cruise pier so we were at the oil storage docks, still very close to downtown shopping. Katie went off on her diving excursion. I hadn’t planned on going ashore but decided I should just to see Ocho Rios.

I was pleasantly surprised! The last time we were in Jamaica we were assaulted by vendors everywhere. Not so this time. The van/taxi deposited us at the Taj Mahal shopping center. Kind of a funny name for Jamaica. Shops there and at the other place I went had the usual tourist stuff. The second shopping center I went to had a large central plaza and there were some reggae musicians and a few dancers performing. There were some shady seats so I sat and watched and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Katie returned from a successful diving trip. They did two dives. During the first she didn’t see many fish; at the second site she reported seeing many more colorful fish and coral. Maybe I need to get updated on my C card in case she and I take a cruise to a place we can dive in the future.

We sailed at 3:30 for Ft. Lauderdale and home.

April 9 - At Sea in the Caribbean

We awoke to another bright and beautiful sea day. We worked out at the gym and went to the Thermal Suite. Then we lazed by the pool, Katie outside and me inside. With tomorrow at Ocho Rios and one more day after that I wanted to not overdue the sunshine.

Tonight was the second formal night. It was also the Captain’s Gala Dinner with lobster and giant prawns or beef Wellington. Everything was delicious.

Two Locks at Gatun

Two

April 8 - The Panama Canal

We began our approach to the Pacific entrance to the Canal around 6 AM. We sailed under the Bridge of the Americas and made our way into the first of the 2 Miraflores locks, each of which raises the ship 27 feet. It’s always amazing to watch the operation and realize that the gates and mechanisms are the originals from almost 100 years ago. It’s also incredible to think that there are no pumps and that the entire operation uses gravity to accomplish the raising and lowering of these huge ships. Behind us we could see the Celebrity Mercury also making the transit today.
After going through the 2 Miraflores locks we approached the one lock at Pedro Miquel. The last time we went through her a few years ago (on the Coral Princess that time too) we saw a very large alligator in the waters along the shore here. Sure enough, there he was! I’m not a good judge of sizes but a couple of men on the balcony next to ours commented that they thought he was at least 10 feet look. He would have made a lot of shoes, handbags and wallets!

After being raised again we began our all day transit through the Canal. A lecturer was aboard as always and as we went through the Culebra Cut, the most difficult part of the construction, he talked about the more than 30,000 people who died building the Canal. It’s in the process of being widened by the Panamanians.

In the afternoon we sailed through Gatun Lake and approached the Gatun Locks to exit into the Caribbean. Ahead of us we could see our sister ship, the Island Princess which had spent the day in Gatun.

The Gatun locks are three steps down to the sea. We went all the way aft and watched much of the transit and it was most interesting because we had a very large container ship just behind us in our series of locks and the Mercury in the locks next to us. As we were positioned in the 2nd of the 3 locks, the container ship entered the lock above us that we had just left. His bow loomed above us and as he drew closer to the gates it was an interesting sensation to have this huge vessel looking like it was coming right at us.

We finished our trip down and sailed for a brief stop at Cristobal, Panama. In the terminal building there was a market with vendors of lots of touristy things. The favorite purchase seemed to be Panama hats as evidenced by the number of people wearing them as we reboarded the ship.

Now it’s off to a sea day and Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

The Lotus Pool