Panama Canal Cruise 2020 - Day 9 — Captain Father John

On Tuesday night the ship cruised a short distance ( 44 miles ) from Quepos to Herradura. We were at anchor by 10:00 pm. Our excursion group departed the ship at 8:15 am. This was a wet landing. The inflatable boats took us to the beach not the dock. We hop into the shallow water in our water shoes and change into our walking shoes on the beach. Tauck provides chairs and towels to aid in the transition. We walk across the beach into a five star Marriott hotel to get on our tour bus. It is good PR for Marriott to have 140 well traveled tourists walk through their property. There must be some reciprocity because we are staying in Marriott hotels on both sides of the cruise.

Our first stop was a guided tour in the rainforest at the Parque National Carara. It was very hot and very humid. We saw butterflies, small birds, ants and an iguana. I guess we should have been here yesterday or tomorrow to see the monkeys and macaws. We did see a long line of army ants marching across the road. It was a good idea to not stop in the path of army ants.

Our next stop was for lunch at a lovely banquet restaurant on the river. This is also the location for our mangrove cruise. We cruised on the river and saw macaws, crocodiles and many other birds. The river cruise was much cooler with a nice breeze. We did learn that the deciduous trees drop their leaves at the end of the rainy season. This is done to limit the amount of moisture required to sustain the tree during the dry season.

We returned to the ship and had our disembarkation presentation. This is the explanation of what we need to do to get off the ship. One piece of advice is to put one shoe in the room safe so you will not forget to empty out the safe in the morning. Our luggage needs to be in the hallway at 6:30 am. We need to vacate our stateroom by 8:00 am and we disembark the ship with our Tauck guide Marcos at 8:30 am. Our luggage will be delivered to the Marriott San Jose.

Tonight was the farewell dinner with the ship’s crew. The Captain thanked his staff and the guests for a great cruise. This was the last east to west Panama Canal cruise for the Le Dumont d’Urville. Tomorrow a new group of Tauck tourists will board the ship to cruise west to east. Then this ship will cross the Atlantic and spend the summer cruising the Baltics. The Captain is 36 years old. I asked him what were his career plans. Did he want to command a larger cruise ship? He said he is already at the top of his profession and commanding a larger cruise ship would not be a promotion. Perhaps he will start his own cruise ship company.

In the early morning we will cruise a short distance ( 28 miles) from Herradura to Puerto Caldera. We will have a dry landing in the morning. No wet shoes. There are still two more days in Costa Rica after we get off the ship. Tomorrow we will tour an oxcart factory. Who knew they still built ox carts? Then we will visit a gold museum before checking into our hotel in San Jose.

The total distance for our seven day cruise was 996 statute miles. The ship cruises at 12.2 knots. The total passenger capacity is 184. We cruised with 140 passengers. We will miss our small ship.

Priscilla’s last sundowner photo of the cruise.

The macaws are really big in the rainforest.

The farewell from Captain Florian Richard