Carnival Pride 3-22-09 Panama Canal

We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

This is my first post, hello everyone.


--
tashalmc
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

What will you be doing in Jamaica?

We expect to go Jamaica/Cayman/Cozumel within a couple of month and have
been looking at Island Village right at the port in Jamaica. It looks like
it will be a nice place to hang out for the day.
We are not sure about Cayman. We have been there before, and it's not our
favorite port. Last time we took an island tour and saw the turtle farm,
Hell, and the rum cake place. That was ok, but nothing we would do twice.

--
Mike
www.uCruiser.com




"tashalmc" wrote in message
...

We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

This is my first post, hello everyone.


--
tashalmc
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

In article om,
uCruiser.com wrote:

We expect to go Jamaica/Cayman/Cozumel within a couple of month and
have been looking at Island Village right at the port in Jamaica. It
looks like it will be a nice place to hang out for the day.

Dunns River Falls would be my first suggestion for Jamaica, my second
suggestion would be to get a day pass to Sandals.


We are not sure about Cayman. We have been there before, and it's not our
favorite port. Last time we took an island tour and saw the turtle farm,
Hell, and the rum cake place. That was ok, but nothing we would do twice.

Snorkeling at Stingray City is the top thing to do on Cayman. After
that in my opinion would be hanging out on Seven Mile beach.

--
Charles

"Charles" wrote in message
d...
In article om,
uCruiser.com wrote:

We expect to go Jamaica/Cayman/Cozumel within a couple of month and
have been looking at Island Village right at the port in Jamaica. It
looks like it will be a nice place to hang out for the day.

Dunns River Falls would be my first suggestion for Jamaica, my second
suggestion would be to get a day pass to Sandals.


We are not sure about Cayman. We have been there before, and it's not our
favorite port. Last time we took an island tour and saw the turtle farm,
Hell, and the rum cake place. That was ok, but nothing we would do twice.

Snorkeling at Stingray City is the top thing to do on Cayman. After
that in my opinion would be hanging out on Seven Mile beach.

--
Charles

I prefer snorkeling at Eden Rock to Seven Mile Beach. I wasn't impressed at
all with Seven Mile Beach.

--Tom

In article , Tom K
wrote:

I prefer snorkeling at Eden Rock to Seven Mile Beach. I wasn't impressed at
all with Seven Mile Beach.

It was freezing and pouring rain that day. I don't think you could tell
much about the beach.

--
Charles

On Feb 22, 1:08*pm, tashalmc
wrote:
We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. *Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. *We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. *So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

This is my first post, hello everyone.


Hi, tashalmc,

Sounds like a fun cruise--great itinerary!

We've nver had port stops in Colombia or Costa Rica, so can't help you
there. What did you decide to do in Jamaica? I'm with Charles, if you
are porting at Ocho Rios, I'd definitely vote you consider Dunn River
Falls. If you're at Montego Bay, it's a toss up. We like paying the
reasonable all-inclusive day fee for a clean, fun resort called Sunset
Beach. For Cayman, if you've never done Stingray City, then that's a
must do!

Have fun planning your cruise.

Diana Ball
Austin, TX

tashalmc wrote:
We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

Welcome, tashalmc,

I have not been to Columbia so I can't respond to that port, but I will
second the suggestions of Dunn's River Falls and Stingray City in
Jamaica and Grand Cayman, respectively.

In Costa Rica, we used Oscar Brown, a tour operator, and had a very full
and enjoyable day. Among other things, we went ziplining, visited a
banana plantation and toured the Tortuguero Canals. We felt safe, and
had a great time. http://oscarbrowntours.com/index.html

Charlie Soto is another well-regarded tour operator in Costa Rica. Both
men offer a large menu of tour options, and I don't think you can go
wrong with either.

~ Peri

tashalmc wrote:


We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

This is my first post, hello everyone.

I tried to look up what Carnival had for those ports and the site is
down for Cartagena and Puntarenas (although I got Puntarenas Chile)

Of course it depends on what you like to do - with that caveat:

Costa Rica - I have been once by ship to the Caribbean side and spent
two weeks there by land. The ship excursion that I did not get to
take because they rescheduled it to conflict with another excursion
that I wanted to take more was the zip line. You can also do this in
St. Lucia and some other places. It is an adventure tour, and not a
tour to see animals. This is NOT the same as an aerial tram ride,
which is nice, but you see mostly vegetation and a similar trip is
available for various Caribbean islands. River rafting is another
adventure type tour.

Other than that, I'd want to see something uniquely Costa Rican, and
I'd suggest Sarchi (which is basically a big handicraft village where
I bought lots of gifts for people), or Arenal which is a currently
erupting volcano. The only problem with Arenal is that it is often
covered with clouds. A trip to Monteverde will (IME) be mostly for
bird watching. If you are interested in various animals, then a river
cruise (or similar - not a power boat blasting through the water)
might offer that. That was the tour I picked over the zip line on the
Caribbean coast when the two tours conflicted.

IMO, anything where you are driving long distances should be avoided.
The roads in Costa Rica are terrible. And I see no point in visiting
San Jose unless you are flying in there. San Jose is quite a long
trip by road from the Pacific Coast (or the Caribbean coast either).

Cartagena: I have been to Colombia twice by ship, but not to this
port. My brother-in-law cautioned me strictly against even getting
off the ship in this country because of danger of kidnapping. I
didn't listen to him, and I'm still here but maybe I was just lucky.

We were in Santa Marta and not Cartagena, and we got off the ship and
walked to the tourist information place and asked how much it would be
to get a cab to see specific things that I wanted to see which I
thought would take about an hour, and they gave me a price and went
and got a taxi driver (who spoke almost no English). He drove us
around as I directed (I had a map) and I took pictures and he
delivered us back to the ship in about 45 minutes. The other place we
were was San Andreas Island and here we took a ship sponsored taxi
tour.

I looked at the Princess tours (since I couldn't get the Carnival web
page to come up, and the tours that would appeal to me were the Land
and Sea tours - like the Mangrove Tunnels and City tour. But I like
boats and don't like shopping or mud baths.

As for Grand Cayman - I've done the Stingray City tour and did not
care for it, but if you haven't done that, then it is a must to do. I
liked the Trolley Roger which was inexpensive and I think you could do
that even if you didn't do it as an excursion. I've always thought
that the Atlantis submarines were too expensive for what you got,
especially if you can dive or snorkel. Many people just get a taxi
and go to the beach or something. On our last trip, it was too rough
to get the tenders in to the port, but I would have gone in and just
walked around town if we had been able to visit.

Peri wrote:

tashalmc wrote:
We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

Welcome, tashalmc,

I have not been to Columbia so I can't respond to that port, but I will
second the suggestions of Dunn's River Falls and Stingray City in
Jamaica and Grand Cayman, respectively.

They are not going to be on the Caribbean coast - they are going to be
on the Pacific side. I don't know whether these people operate over
there or not, but I AM sure that they won't do the Tortuguero Canals.

In Costa Rica, we used Oscar Brown, a tour operator, and had a very full
and enjoyable day. Among other things, we went ziplining, visited a
banana plantation and toured the Tortuguero Canals. We felt safe, and
had a great time. http://oscarbrowntours.com/index.html

Charlie Soto is another well-regarded tour operator in Costa Rica. Both
men offer a large menu of tour options, and I don't think you can go
wrong with either.

~ Peri

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
tashalmc wrote:


We are on the Pride to Panama a month from today. Anyone have
suggestions for us, as to what to see. We are going to Columbia, Costa
Rica, Jamica and Grand Caymen. So far we only have one excursion
planned in Jamaica.

This is my first post, hello everyone.

I tried to look up what Carnival had for those ports and the site is
down for Cartagena and Puntarenas (although I got Puntarenas Chile)

(SNIP)

It's good that you are doing some advance homework about your ports and this
group is a good place for hearing of past experiences.

Puntarenas was not much of a stop. There was a 5 hour tour on a bus with no
air-conditioning or taxis to rent. We opted for the taxi and three of us
drove about half an hour to a small fishing village, drove around for a
while and rode back to the ship. The driver spoke no English, but tried
hard to understand and respond to my very few words of Spanish. Actually,
it was kind of fun and very cheap. Costa Ricans don't like Nicaraguans I
learned as he said the word and made sounds like a machine gun, then hid his
head. The translation was pretty clear.

Before going to Cartegena, have a good jeweler teach you about emeralds,
what to look for, prices, sizes, colors, etc. You will have opportunities
to see lots of gems and can get some real deals. Dicker a lot, threaten to
leave, work out little scenes in advance. For instance, one of your group
acts interested in a piece, others look at it and act disinterested. First
person really likes it, others talk it down and start to leave. They will
follow you out to the taxi after having given four or five "best offers".
If you have done your homework, emeralds are cheap.

Our ship paired us with a cab driver before we stepped off the ship in
Cartegena and strongly advised we not leave him nor take any cab outside the
enclosure of the dock. Armed soldiers with drug dogs lined the dock from
ship to land and military was very obvious around town. Our cabby had us
remove Rolex's and expensive jewelry and acted very much like a body guard
for us. In one area, he said the souvenir shops on one side of the street
were safe, but not to cross the street. There were groups of men loitering
across the street and we did not find out why. The cabby's tour was good
and interesting, lasted about two hours and we felt uncomfortably unsafe the
entire time. Personally, I think Cartegena is dangerous and I think it's
unwise for the cruise lines to go there. Must be some big dollars
exchanged. I don't know about kidnapping, but a week after our return home,
a tourist bus in Cartegena was blown up.

I always enjoy Grand Cayman. There's one little store in the center of
everything that has shipwreck coins and treasures which I like to browse.
I've lost the name of our favorite cabby. He is a third generation resident
and drove us around reliving his life and it was fun. There are a few "must
see" things you might enjoy. We enjoyed the submarine as did my 95 year old
aunt.

Enjoy the planning, the cruise, and writing a review to post here and share
everything.

Harry Cooper