Just back from the Partial Panama Canal Transit. What a great cruise, wish I was still on it considering we came back to 7 degrees and snow! As usual, we flew in the day before, that way you don't have to worry about delays and we get to relax before we get on the ship. Had dinner at our usual place Chuck's Steak House. We have always had good service and food there so we tend to go there when in town. We stayed at the Homewood Suites right by the airport. I am a Hilton member so I could use my points for a free room. Nice hotel and really close to the port and airport. They do offer pick up from the airport and a van that goes to the port the next day. I know they charge for the van to the port but not sure how much as we had a rental car. Got up the next morning and had a leisurely complementary breakfast. Not as good as Embassy but still fine, after all we were going to get plenty to eat on the ship. We then rearranged the luggage and headed over to the port around 11:00. As we were entering the port we see a big sign stating that the Zuiderdam was going to be delayed. We went to the port anyway since I needed to return the car as to not be charged for another day. We dropped our luggage off, then dropped off my wife and daughter. I headed over to the airport to return the car to Hertz. Returned the car and then found out that unless you were National or Alamo you could not take the bus to the port. Seems that not all the companies signed a contract with the Airport to be able to use the bus. I found a Hertz representative and they confirmed that. Now if you want to have a ride to the port you have to return the car to the Crown Center Hotel. They were nice and gave me a complementary ride since this is all new . I was not the only person who had this problem. Not sure where the Crown Center is but will find it in Feb. when we go on our next cruise. Once at the port it was a Zoo. They were still unloading people from the previous cruise. Seems the Zuidy had engine problems and got into port really late. Usually when we get there it is a breeze but not this time, and the port people (not HAL employees) did not know how to handle this - guess this was not in their training. We met up with our friends who were traveling with us but arriving from a different place. We decided we were not going to let this ruin our trip, we knew the ship would not sail without us so we just sat back and relaxed until we could board. Because of our Mariner status we were given an invitation to eat lunch in the dinning room once on board. That was nice to not have to fight the crowd at the Lido since everyone was getting on at one time. We found table 141 with the waiter Eddy and decided right away we liked the table and waiter, so we made dinner reservations for that table and waiter at 7:45 each night. You can only do this for 3 days in a row so we just kept on renewing it. We sailed about 45 minutes late. .

We were in room 5093, a very nice room with a balcony. Plenty of storage for the three of us and a perfect location, center of the ship up and down and front to back. Very convenient to get anywhere on the ship. One hint, we found the outside glass elevators were much quicker than the regular elevators. The room really needed some repairs, the chair had a hole in it, one of the closet doors over the couch was broken, we wanted to have the table removed since there is no room when the bed is pulled out for our DD. I always travel with a packet of post-it notes and just leave them on anything that we need all during the cruise since you very rarely see the room steward. Works like a charm. Over all the ship could stand to go into dry dock but from what I was told this is not happening for a couple of years.

The next day we woke up at Half Moon Cay. Great Island, won't go into detail since there have been so many reviews on it. IMHO it is one of the best out there. My DD and I did the horse back riding. We did it mainly because they take the horses into the water which we had done before and really enjoyed it. First we did the land part which was nice, some good views, then back to the stable and changed into our bathing suits and they took the saddles off the horses and up we went again. We started off slowly but then all of a sudden the guide made this clicking noise and off we were at the races (literally, mine was a retired race horse!) Didn't know there was going to be galloping so it was quite a surprise to all of us. About ½ way through a woman fell off the horse. I guess the horses don't like other people in the water when they are in there since there was some excitement and they were telling the woman she had to get back on the horse. The woman had some bruising from being pushed back on the horse, not from the horse or the fall. I did see her later in the cruise and except for some pain from the bruises she was doing good. Once she was on the horse, we were off again for another gallop. We did not eat at the island, we went back and joined DW and friends for lunch on board. We relaxed in the afternoon on board. That night we met our friends in the Pinnacle bar for drinks before dinner. That ended up being our gathering spot before dinner. Great waiters. After the first night we never had to tell them what we wanted (unless we decided to change). After dinner we decided to hit the casino. This ended up being a daily call (unless we were in port at night). This was I think the first time I really did well in the casino on a ship. Usually I play once and lose and then avoid it from that point forward. This time I won every night, and at the end of the cruise when I cashed out my cruise card it was a tidy sum. Didn't pay for the cruise, but did take care of a good portion. We don't hit the shows too much when we cruise. With this being our 36th cruise, there is not too much to show us in a cruise. I did hear from other people that the Steel Drum band and the Magician were very good. Read more