Why this cruise? Because it was there! A fantastic opportunity to visit four South American countries and the "bonus" of daylight transit of the Panama Canal.

Embarkation was quite tedious -- two hours in a line moving at the speed of molasses. But the building was quite hot, so the molasses flowed reasonably well. Once on board, things were fine.

Cabin: Inside, forward. Biggest drawback was being on Deck 6a (sort of like Platform 9 3/4, kinda hard to get to), no elevator access -- had to either go up or down flight of stairs to reach it. Night #3. in rough seas, there was a continuous random banging thud against our back wall -- as if a pair of tennis shoes were looped around an invisible staircase behind the wall. They moved us to a different cabin seven doors down that night. All was well afterwards. Worst part was losing our cabin steward, Milos, who became my instructor in Bosnian for the rest of the voyage. Our new cabin, and steward Mingxu, were excellent. Read more