While a sea day may be a bit boring, it does afford us the opportunity to visit the gym, explore some of the public areas of the ship, and catch up on reading, blogging or just plain rest. We have a lovely stateroom with a wraparound balcony, so we can sit out and watch the world sail by.
I have a good time interacting with the various crew members, several of whom I know from our previous Viking Ocean cruise. I am learning a few basic words in several languages and am also finding out about our crew members, their lives and families and their interests. Everyone has a different story and a different reason for working on a cruise ship.
Carol and I divide our time at sea between eating, drinking, hanging around in the cabin and attending the various forms of entertainment. On sea days, there is always a trivia contest and it is fun to compete in these good natured, low key events.
I like to spend a few minutes each day at the Guest Services desks, kibitzing with the helpful group that handles all the customer questions and complaints. I usually have a question or two and often some “suggestions” that are offered in the spirit of fun, like having a contest that I would be likely to win, such as “name that crew member.”
There is no shortage of places to get food on a ship and the Sun is no exception. There are lighter items at Mamsen’s, a Scandinavian themed counter and the Pool Grill. The main dining venues are the World Café, which is a buffet and The Restaurant which has pretty much the same food but is a full-service facility.
The two specialty restaurants are the Chef’s Table which serves themed four course tasting menus, rotating every four days and Manfredi’s, a full service Italian restaurant with a decent wine list.
Carol and I eat breakfast in the World Café, except when we want herring and go to Mamsen’s. We tend to get something light for lunch, like soup and sandwich in one of those same two venues. For dinner, we will try each of the menus in the Chef’s Table and then generally eat in the buffet as there is a variety of sushi and sashimi and we can sample small portions of whatever looks best, finishing with some excellent gelato. From time to time we will go to Manfredi’s and will likely go to The Restaurant when we feel like a more formal dinner with a nice bottle of wine.
For booking early, we received substantial on-board credits, which were originally allocated among shore excursions, shops and spa, but have now been amalgamated so that we can spend them on anything we wish so that we can have wine instead of buying overpriced good that we don’t want in the shops.
I have generally booked the morning excursions so that we aren’t getting back to the ship too late. Cocktails begin either right before dinner or soon after we have been to the gym.
Our sea day between Jamaica and Costa Rica passed quickly and we were up for a light breakfast before disembarking at an industrial pier in Puerto Limon. I was happy to have booked two excursions as the port itself was anything but inviting.
The first excursion was the included one to the Tortuguero Canal, which runs through a rainforest with dense trees and a variety of animal life. We took a small boat, that Carol didn’t like so much but it was sturdy and didn’t rock, even when our guide prompted us to stand up to view an animal on the opposite side.
Although it was difficult to get photos, we did observe quite a few animals, including both the two and three toed varieties of sloth, howler monkeys, iguanas and several water birds. We didn’t find any crocodiles or snakes which didn’t distress the ladies in the company very much.
For the afternoon excursion, I thought that since we live in (actually near) Chocolate Town, USA, it would be a disgrace not to visit the Cacao Museum and Plantation. During the trip, our guide cut open a cacao pod and we were perhaps the only two to have seen one before in Chocolate World or The Hershey Story.
At the plantation, we were greeted by some howler monkeys in the trees and then by our local guide, who took us on a walk through the cacao trees, where he pointed out the pods in various stages of ripeness, as well as other plants such as vanilla.
There was a tepee along the way that had an exhibit featuring some of the indigenous people of the area. Our guide speaks several of their languages though the few words that he tried to teach us were difficult to comprehend.
The most interesting part of the tour was chocolate making, which isn’t too like what we see in Hershey as the scale of production and quality are much different. We were told that this plantation only sells to the exclusive European chocolatiers and then treated to a demonstration and tasting of some hand-made chocolate.
We had seen and tasted raw beans and some at a couple of stages of drying and roasting, then our guide ground so fully roasted cacao and his assistant cooked it, added some sugar and other ingredients and rolled it out into a sheet. She then cut it up for us to sample, adding flavorings if we wished. I used ginger and it was spicy and flavorful.
There were whole beans and ground cacao for sale in the shop, but we didn’t feel we needed to carry the product for over four months until we return home so the sample we had will be enough.
The next port of call was Colon, Panama, another industrial port in a rough neighborhood that made us happy to have booked an excursion as spending the day in town would not have been too appealing. Rather than do the included visit to Panama City, we felt it more interesting to take the tour to Gatun Locks and the Expansion Project. When you hear “Panama” you usually think “canal” so it seemed more sensible to learn something about the reason people come to the country.
While a drive from Atlantic to Pacific in the US takes several days, in Panama it takes less than an hour. Of course, that is a big reason that Panama was selected for the canal! We visited the Gatun Locks, which are on the Atlantic, or Caribbean, side of Panama and were able to see a ship going through. The canal was dug, and a system of locks serves to raise or lower the ship to take it through the canal. Gatun Lake, a large artificial body of water was created to avoid digging a much longer channel. Ships go through locks on the side where they enter the canal, then they traverse Gatun Lake and go out through the locks on the other end. Our ship took about eight hours for the entire passage.
Fortunately, our Captain and/or Cruise Director was able to change our time of entry from 02:30 to 07:30 so it was much easier to see the whole process. As we entered from the Caribbean, we had to go uphill so we entered a lock, waited until the water level was equal to that of the next lock, then traveled through, with the gates opening and closing to facilitate our progress. Locomotives called “mules” after the animals that pulled the canal barges of old, help ships through the canal, making certain that they don’t crash into the doors or the walls.
There are many vantage points on the ship, but we chose to remain on our balcony rather than brave the crowds up in the Explorer Lounge. The bridge camera view on our TV gave us view of what was going on up front while we would observe the gates closing behind us and the progress of the ship that was following us.
While not physically thrilling, the trip was an amazing experience as we had long wondered if and when we might ever cruise the Panama Canal and it was quite amazing to watch the system at work. When we finally heard the Captain’s announcement that we were entering the Pacific Ocean, we felt as if we had a worthwhile experience.