Hello to all, and a happy late Thanksgiving as well. We have officially been back on US soil now for about 28 hours. We left on Wednesday, November 19th from Fort Lauderdale aboard Holland America's Zuiderdam. We then spent the next 10 days cruising around the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. We visited Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, Aruba, Curucao, then cruised through the Gatun Locks in the Panama Canal. Once we passed through the canal the first time we did pull into Gatun Lake and waited about 4 hours to get clearance to go back through the locks and back into the Caribbean Sea. We then went back through Gatun Locks again and docked in Panama for a few hours. The next day we were on to Costa Rica. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, living a life completely different from the one we lead at home. We both managed to exercise everday (except the day we went through the canal because there was just too much to see and we didn't want to miss a minute!), ate a late breakfast, later lunch and then dinner around 8 pm. I read 5 books, played bingo several times (didn't win a dime), saw several shows, watched a few movies-well you get the picture! ALOT of relaxation and no specific schedule to follow, just living in the moment.
This was our 5th cruise with Holland America and we continue to love this cruise line. This was the biggest ship yet that we have been on, and only fit in the Panama canal by about 2 feet all the way around. At times, if you were at a window you could literally reach out of a window and touch the sides of the canal. It was simply amazing to think that those walls were built almost 100 years ago (first voyage through the canal was in 1914) and how many people have passed between those walls. I think we prefer the smaller ships in the Holland America fleet, this one was just a little too big for our liking, but none the less, this cruise line really knows how to cater to its passengers. We are already wondering if we could squeeze one more cruise in before heading to China. We would love to do Canada/New England or go back to Alaska once more. We have been to Alaska twice already but have only scratched the surface of what there is to see.
We did have some nice photos taken on this cruise of us together-I don't think we have had any good pictures taken of us since our wedding in 1996! I will try to post those here later.
Well the Christmas countdown has begun-since we have only been in civilization a few hours the panic part has not set in yet, however, I know the clock is ticking and there is shopping, christmas cards, baking, etc to be done before the big day! I hope you all had a truly great Thanksgiving and all have something to be thankful for this year. I am thankful for my wonderful family, great friends, a job I love, a beautiful home, our health (both mine and Patrick's), Grady and many, many more things that I don't have space to list!
Wishing you and yours a safe, happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season-
Until next time
Sunday, November 30, 2008
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