Day 11 of this 12-day Panama Canal cruise finds us at our final port stop, George Town, Grand Cayman. If you’ve been here before, or if you’ve followed along with my cruise reports over the years, you already know this is a tender port. There’s no dock for the ship…
Day 10 aboard Rotterdam and it’s another sea day. And when you’re on a sea day on a cruise ship, especially one like Holland America, the honest truth is there isn’t always a whole lot to report on because a lot of people spend the day doing exactly what sea…
After an incredible day yesterday transiting part of the Panama Canal and soaking in one of the most fascinating engineering marvels in the world, today brings us somewhere that feels like the complete opposite end of the travel spectrum: Puerto Limón, Costa Rica. Now when many people think of Costa…
Princess Cruises has quietly bumped up the service charge on onboard extras from 18% to 20%, which means passengers will now pay a little more for things like drinks, specialty dining, private group functions, and other optional purchases not included in the cruise fare. And no, this is not the…
Carnival Cruise Line is expanding a new dining option called Express Dining, giving guests a way to get through a multi-course dinner in the ship’s main dining room in under an hour. The program is already live on 15 ships and Carnival says it plans to have it available across…
Day nine aboard Holland America’s Rotterdam finally brought the moment many people booked this cruise for in the first place: our partial transit of the Panama Canal. If you’ve never experienced the canal before, it’s one of those things that’s hard to fully appreciate until you actually see it happen.…
Day seven aboard Holland America’s Rotterdam and we’re inching closer to the highlight of this cruise: our partial transit of the Panama Canal tomorrow. But before we get to Panama, today brought us to Cartagena, Colombia, where Rotterdam docked right at 7:00 a.m. Plenty of guests were up bright and…
Day six aboard Holland America’s Rotterdam brought us another sea day as we continue making our way toward our next port of call, Cartagena, Colombia, where we’ll spend a few hours exploring the city on Saturday. Sea days are always a good opportunity to talk about topics that come up…
Day five aboard Holland America’s Rotterdam brought us to Willemstad, Curaçao, the capital of this Caribbean island that happens to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. If you’ve cruised the southern Caribbean before, you’ve probably heard the term ABC islands, which refers to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Those…
Day four was another sea day on Holland America’s Rotterdam as we continue heading south toward our next port of call, Willemstad, Curaçao, where we’re scheduled to arrive at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday. After Curaçao we deeper into the Caribbean before reaching what many people, myself included, consider the highlight…
