View Full Version : Back from the Panama Canal
loosechickens
1-8-12, 2:58pm
Well, the chickens are back....roosting in our RV and getting ready to wander off into the AZ desert for a few months in a week or so.
We did a Princess 14 day cruise (our first cruise), from Los Angeles, down thru the Panama Canal, ending up in Ft. Lauderdale FL, with stops in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Aruba beside the day long transit of the Canal.....WHAT a great trip it was! Then spent a few days in Miami before flying back to where our rig was parked in CA.
We both read historian, David McCullough's Path Between the Seas on the way down to the Canal, while transiting and afterward, which gave us an in depth appreciation for the truly stupendous engineering accomplishment it represents.
Although, our "carbon footprint" for 2011 probably gave us not only a lifetime high, but probably was more than our carbon footprint for the past twenty years.
The fee for the Coral Princess to transit the Canal (a process that takes about 9-10 hours), was $385,000. But the captain said that in case we thought that excessive, we should remember that it actually SAVED more than half a million dollars, because the ship would have burned an additional $800,000 worth of diesel fuel going the long way around South America. Which makes my head spin as I think of how much fuel was spent going the 5,000 miles we DID go.........
When I think that this particular ship makes this trip two times a month for at least half the year, and is only one of a large number of other cruise ships doing the same thing, surely we are doomed in the global warming department.....
SO......feeling guilty for being a part of such waste, but admitting that the trip was wonderful, the food was amazing (every morsel cooked from scratch, and 40 pastry chefs alone on the ship), and we really enjoyed it. My 70th birthday was so painless, since I was having such a great time, that I hardly noticed that I had sailed into my 70s......
Nice to be back......if any of you have the chance to go through the Panama Canal, you won't be disappointed. It really was an experience of a lifetime.
Although as I look at the huge number of threads unread.........will take me quite a while to catch up here on the Simple Living boards.......
Really great to hear from you, LC! I can't get the "40 pastry chefs" out of my mind! (I know you mentioned that just to make all of us sweet-feens jealous)! :)
Most happy to have you back! P.S. Those are amazing dollar and cents figures related to the canal. Incredible.
LC, you might be interested in this:
Finished in 1900, the flow of the Chicago River was permanently reversed, to flow backwards. It was a massive engineering feat for the time. Why I'm bringing this up is that some of the techniques used on the Chicago River reversal were later used on the Panama Canal project.
http://www2.apwa.net/about/awards/toptencentury/chica.htm
As I read this to my dw, we both just said WOW! What a great experience...and I too thought 40 pastry chefs, everything from scratch!
I had no idea it cost so much to move a ship through the passage.
Glad to hear you had a great trip.
Nice to have you back LC! Sounds like a trip of a lifetime. You'll have to tell us about some of the things you saw!
Sounds wonderful and thanks for telling us about it all. A friend of mine was down there when she was about 5 or so with her family doing some major maintenance with her dad being employed as an electrician, I think. She made the trip back to see what had changed in about 50 years and raved about the experience as well.
gimmethesimplelife
1-8-12, 11:44pm
Cool to hear from you! I kid you not, I was debating posting a thread along the lines of Calling Loose Chickens.....Good to see you back here and glad you had some adventures!
loosechickens
1-9-12, 2:25am
One thing at least about the Canal......all the electricity to run everything.......it ALL runs on electricity, the gates, the little locomotives that control the ships in the locks, etc., are powered with renewable energy, a hydroelectric plant at the dam of the Chagres River that supplies not only the water to operate the locks, many millions of gallons per ship, but all the electricity.
About the pastry chefs.....we did the Ultimate Ship Tour (four and a half hours touring everything "backstage" about the cruise ship, from kitchens to laundry to control room, anchor storage, print shop, housekeeping, the bridge, etc.), so spent about an hour in the kitchens and food storage areas.
We watched them making croissants. First they started with the dough, rolled about an inch thick and maybe 18 x 24 inch rectangle. THEN, they took this huge slab of a package of Challenge butter, about an inch thick and maybe 12 x 18, probably about five pounds of butter, and put it down on the dough and folded the edges over the butter. Then it went into this machine that stretched it and folded it, which was done a number of times until all that butter had "become one with" the dough. Then they formed the croissants.....no wonder they tasted so good......
More than 200 crew members work in the kitchens, 40 of them on breads and pastries alone. They provision the ship every two weeks, in Ft. Lauderdale and in Los Angeles, the two ends of the Panama Canal cruise. The grocery list alone runs 65 pages, and all the fruits and vegetables are fresh, nothing canned or frozen. They feed about 2,000 passengers and about 1,000 crew members.
Just seeing all the "behind the scenes" stuff was almost as interesting as transiting the Canal itself. They only do two Ultimate Ship Tours per trip, of a dozen people each, so you have to be one of the first people on board and sign up immediately upon arrival on the ship to be able to do it. It was expensive to do, but they gave each participant a brand new chef's coat and a really nice, heavy terry cloth robe with the Princess logo on it, as well as a portfolio of pictures of the group, taken by the ship's photographer, to document the visit, since we were not allowed to take photographs ourselves. Seeing how this operation, which looks so effortless on the surface, really was an amazing organization of many hundred people working hard behind the scenes was a real highlight of the trip.
(I think they charge so much, $150 per person, for the ship tour because they want to offer it for the people who are seriously interested, but depress the numbers of people who aren't, because it took a lot of time away from work for the heads of the kitchens, housekeeping, officers on the bridge, etc., who showed us around and spent a lot of time answering questions). We spent over 45 minutes with the ship's captain on the bridge, had the whole operation of the ship explained, all the electronics, got to watch a whole bunch of dolphins frolicking in the waves just in front of the ship, with the tour culminating with champagne, canapes and exquisite little pastries with the captain in his private dining room behind the bridge. We started the tour at 8 a.m. and didn't finish until after 12:30 p.m.
Greg44......the fees to transit the Canal are set by a complicated formula involving tonnage, and number of "souls on board" for passenger ships. I was flabbergasted myself at the cost....I had no idea it cost that much, myself.
Neat link, Tradd.......
flowerseverywhere
1-9-12, 2:56am
You know your post makes me think this is what it is all about. You spend years living frugally, pinching pennies, not wasting anything so when times like this come along -life experiences- you can afford to do them. Anyway that is how I view my life.
Great you had such an interesting time. Welcome "home"
loosechickens
1-9-12, 3:15am
exactly, flowerseverywhere.....although we did feel major concerns about all the "wretched excess" of something like a cruise vacation.......
interesting, also......how we financed this trip was, we keep track of every penny of income and expense, and have since 1992, accounting for everything just as if our little family economy was a business keeping records. Because of that, it was easy for us to set up an accounting page, which we called "Windfalls", and on that page, we entered every cent of income that came in that was not part of our ordinary income that comes from investments and my Social Security check. Such things as birthday or Christmas money presents went in there, as did any incidental income, such as the stuff I do for fun on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, rebates, bits and pieces of income from free lance magazine articles, a couple of magazine cover photos for RVing magazines that my sweetie sold, etc.
We started the "Windfalls" account because we were having so much trouble ever spending any money on frivolous things. The habit of saving and investment, and living very frugally had become such an ingrained habit with both of us, that we just weren't able to change gears and recognize that the time that we had saved for, for so many years, had actually arrived, and now we were supposed to enjoy some of the fruits of our labors in our retirement. So we started this little fund specifically to provide money for frivolous expenses.
BUT....even with the windfall account balance continuing to accrue, we seldom spent any of it. Finally, this year, the total was over $6,000, my 70th birthday was coming up, we wanted to do something really special, so we decided to blow pretty much the whole amount (there is still $316 in the account, hahahaha) in an explosion of frivolity.
It was fun. It was really fun. I'm hoping that this experience will help us loosen up a bit and do more frivolous things. Maybe not something that major, but we're both hoping that this "spending experience" will kind of break that logjam we've had of finding it easy to save, but hard to spend, so that we can enjoy some of this money we've accumulated.
It's been interesting, seeing all the emotions that have come up around this spending of money in a frivolous way. It's certainly something that doesn't come easy to us, but after this experience, seeing how much fun we had, maybe the next "splurge" will be easier. But I think it will be awhile....we're ready for some frugality for a bit, I think.
Sounds like an incredible trip. The extra tour sounded really neat, something I would enjoy. Had no idea of the cost to keep those boats moving.
LC - the behind the scenes tour sounds very cool. I have always been interested in the numbers to make things happen.
I have always wanted to take a behind the scenes tour of disneyland - though I don't think they even offer it.
Sounds like a great trip! I was wondering where you were. Welcome home! Thanks for sharing all of the details. It sounds really interesting.
shadowmoss
1-10-12, 7:25pm
This explains the cost effectiveness of the road they are building here in Honduras from coast to coast. The idea is that it is more economical to off-load one one side, truck the stuff to the other side, and load it on different ships. The costs you quoted make me think that it really would be true. Also, I've heard that the canal can extort larg(er) sums from ships that are on a tight schedule (produce that is spoiling while it sits) to circumvent the long lines or make them wait longer, depending on the amount offered to get through the canal on time. Politics is a complicated thing...
Thanks for the additional (and awesome) entries, LC!
loosechickens
1-11-12, 12:53am
"This explains the cost effectiveness of the road they are building here in Honduras from coast to coast. The idea is that it is more economical to off-load one one side, truck the stuff to the other side, and load it on different ships. The costs you quoted make me think that it really would be true. Also, I've heard that the canal can extort larg(er) sums from ships that are on a tight schedule (produce that is spoiling while it sits) to circumvent the long lines or make them wait longer, depending on the amount offered to get through the canal on time. Politics is a complicated thing... " (shadowmoss)
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That's really interesting, shadowmoss.....I wasn't aware of the building of the new road in Honduras for that purpose.
Right now, in Panama, for the biggest ships that can't fit into the locks of the Panama Canal, that's what they do, except they move the containers by rail. The huge container ships offload their cargo on one side, then it is moved by rail on the Panama Canal Railroad, and reloaded on another container ship on the other side. I'd think that moving that freight by rail would be more cost efficient than moving it by highway, but don't really know. Perhaps both are less expensive than transiting the Canal.
They are in the process of building new, much larger locks, alongside the current lock system of the Panama Canal, which are to be finished in 2014, and will be big enough to accomodate the largest ships. The old locks will continue to operate, as well, for the smaller ships, and capacity of the Canal will be greatly increased as to the numbers of ships going through on a yearly basis.
Welcome back LC and thanks for posting all the details of your trip. I've never been on a cruise myself (except for those pesky years at sea in the Coast Guard but I don't think that counts :-)!) but have always been very curious about them as they do seem very luxurious and decadant. I don't think cruising would be for me as there are too many people in too small a space and too expensive for me, but I think it would be a fun way to see alot of places without ever having to actually move from your "hotel"! Of course with 40 pastry chefs onboard I wouldn't actually be able to get out of my stateroom door after awhile and they'd have to cut a hole in the side to get me out and roll me down the gang plank when it was over :-)!
loosechickens
1-11-12, 2:18pm
It really didn't seem crowded, Spartana.......the busiest spot on the ship seemed to be the pool and sundeck areas, but since we're not used to having to don a bathing suit to swim, and don't even lounge and sunbathe when we're home, we spent more of our time either on our balcony, sitting in the espresso bar alongside the atrium, reading and peoplewatching.
There are so many areas on the ship, restaurants, shops, three or four lounges and bars, a library with nice seating area with soft armchairs, several decks with padded lounges, five or six different dining venues (buffet, pizza place, two specialty restaurants, two large dining rooms, etc.) that we almost never felt we were in a crowded place. There were a few times, such as lining up to get off the ship in a port where you had to use a tender ship because the cruise ship had to anchor out in the bay rather than go directly in to a dock, but for the most part, we felt like there was plenty of room, and plenty of out of the way, quiet places to go.
Now for the decadent part.......that was certainly evident. We had to make a pact with ourselves that during the trip, we would NOT comment on "wretched excess", would not comment on the decadence, amounts of jewelry, drinking habits, politics or dress of fellow passengers, because there would have been plenty to comment about, but in general, we just had a very good time, did our own thing and let them do theirs.
I ended up gaining 4.2 pounds between the cruise and some days in Miami, which is one of our favorite cities for eating out......am back on the "calorie bootcamp" plan at the moment to get those unwanted pounds off, but oh, those chocolate eclairs, homemade cookies, croissants and pastries almost seemed worth it......
Oh you're making me hungry! Welcome back. I'm glad y'all had a great time.
I watched a TV show last night about cruise ships (on 20/20, 60 minutes, 48 Hours or something like that) - very interesting. Personally I'd be more afraid of getting one of those ship-wide stomach flus then sinking or getting tossed overboard. Sad to learn how little money the crews make (mostly foriegn from third world countries) and how they rely almost solely on tips. That's one thing I wanted to ask you LC, besides the cost of the cruise and flight, what other expenses did you incur? Did they add on alot of port charges and fuel charges? How much did you spend on tips? I know people who have gone on a cruise that SEEMED inexpensive only to have to spend hundreds more just for port fees and tips as well as the on shore excurisions. My sister worked on a small cruise ship in Alaska one summer and they didn't have all those extra charges because it only had a 100 people or so and didn't have that formal service and could dock right up to a pier.
loosechickens
1-21-12, 3:31pm
It was clear that Princess worries and takes seriously the danger of viruses on the closed system of the ship. Staff was evident always, sanitizing everything from stair handrails, elevator buttons, public restrooms, etc., and as you entered the buffet, for example, there was a dispenser of sanitizer and a steward beside it making sure that everyone used it before they touched food utensils, etc. The tv channel for daily cruise activities had more or less constantly repeating admonitions on hand washing, sanitizing and avoiding passing on any germs.
Insofar as tips, we chose the easier course of doing the optional gratuties program, where each passenger pays $11.50 per day, which is charged to your credit card (you can pay it all at once before the cruise, or have it charged on a daily basis as you go....it's discretionary, you can change the amount, make it more or less, stop it at any time, etc.). Those gratuities are spread around to not only the staff that you come in contact with, but all the unseen people behind the scenes who help make your cruise a wonderful experience. We preferred to do that for that reason, since the staff in close contact with passengers make much more in tips, and we know how hard the behind the scenes people work without that opportunity to form a personal connection with the passengers.
This added about $325 to the cost of the cruise. In addition to this basic gratuity, we did tip some people at the end of the cruise who had been especially helpful, our room steward, the young lady in the public restroom that I used regularly who kept the place absolutely sparkling at every moment despite heavy use, and with a wonderful attitude, taking great pride in doing well, what many would consider a bottom level position, and the several stewards in the little espresso bar where we spent quite a bit of time drinking espresso and tea, reading our Kindles, and watching the passing parade, which added up to about an additional hundred dollars.
There were taxes and other fees above the posted cruise, per person cost, advertised, that were about $300 per person, and we also purchased "cancellation for any reason" cruise insurance because of the precarious health of my 87 year old MIL, because of fears that she might have a medical emergency just before we left for the cruise, making us have to cancel, and that was an additional $150 per person.
This was an expensive cruise. Over Christmas holidays, that is the absolute peak time for cruising, so the cruise was sold out weeks and weeks before the trip, so there weren't opportunities to get bargain, reduced prices.
We also did some shore excursions in the ports, which added some hundreds to the cost of the cruise....we traveled to an organic, fair trade coffee cooperative in Costa Rica, up in the mountains, did a rainforest tour, tram ride, ecology center and bird's eye view from a ten story tower of the Panama Canal in Panama, did a walking tour of the old city in Cartagena, Colombia, and in Aruba one of us did a hiking tour of a national park and the other a tour in a glass bottomed boat to view a WWII shipwreck and fish at the coral reefs, etc. If costs had been an issue, we could have done lots of stuff on our own in the ports without a lot of expense, and many just got off the ship and took a taxi or walked around close to the ship where there were always "shopping experiences", hahahaha......
The cruise itself, with the balcony room, (one of the higher priced ones to get right where we wanted to be on the ship) was about $3,000 per person, and with extra charges, gratuities, gifts we bought to bring home, our several days in Miami, hotel, rental car, and then airfare back to CA, and shuttle from airport to motorhome, we spent close to $8,500.
If we do cruising again, since it won't be for such a special occasion, (our anniversary, my 70th birthday, etc., and over the highest priced holiday period), we'll take advantage of our ability to go on short notice, if we are here in the southwest, proximity to lots of cruise departure locations, etc., to look for bargain, reduced prices on cruises with cancellations, etc., as if we had been willing to do this Panama Canal cruise a less peak time, looked for a cruise that wasn't sold out easily so that bargain prices would be available on the staterooms left unsold just before the cruise, etc., we could probably have cut the cost considerably. It's not unusual to get cruises for half the advertised price, and if you were willing to have an interior stateroom, even this particular cruise would have been far less expensive.
Making the decision to choose the room we had added well over a thousand dollars per person to the cost. But, for going through the Canal, we wanted that vantage point, and since it was a really special occasion (and an opportunity for us to exercise giving up that innate frugality we've imposed on ourselves for so many years), we splurged.
The crew on the Coral Princess was made up of people from 45 countries, and yes, many of them from Third World countries where the pay for a cruise ship job looks like riches. Lots of people from the Philipines, India, Mexico, Central America, the Eastern European countries, Ireland, South Africa, etc. The Americans and Western European staff were pretty much all in higher paying management or staff positions.
Thanks for the info LC. Actually, considering all the stuff you did and all the places you went to, the price wasn't bad for the 2 of you. Probably much less then a week stay at a luxury hotel resort would be and not as many cool places to visit. I just googled the cruise ship my sister worked on and it was actually a VERY small ship of 100 ft and 49 passengers (22 cabins) called the Executive Explorer (now the Alaskan Dream) which did the inside passage. It was very casual - no dressing up, no casinos, clubs, pools and shows - and focused more on the outdoorsy stuff rather than shipboard stuff. They had kayaks and naturalist (the kind that wear clothes ;-)!!) - stuff like that onboard. I always thought that would be a style of cruising I'd like to do - more of a big yacht then a cruise ship. Expensive too but she did say that when they did the re-positioning cruises (from Alaska to the Caribbean in fall and Caribbean to Alaska in spring) that prices were really low - half price or better. That would be a fun trip but probably not alot of port stops except to refuel.
Here's the 2012 prices for the Alaskan Dream - MUCH more expensive compared to what got on your big cruise ship so I think you got a great deal:
Its 42-passenger Alaskan Dream will sail on three new itineraries in 2012: an eight-day trip that focuses on less-explored ports, plus 11- and 13-day trips through the Inside Passage.
The eight-day itinerary travels between Sitka and Ketchikan, stopping at the village of Kake, which claims the world's largest totem pole; Petersburg, known as "Little Norway;" Kasaan, home to the only remaining Haida clan house in Alaska; Thorne Bay, once the largest logging camp in the world; and Misty Fjords. It also visits Hobart Bay, the cruise line's adventure base camp, offering sea kayaking, all-terrain vehicle tours and small boat excursions. Rates begin at $2,269.
The 11-day itinerary also links Ketchikan and Sitka, and includes Juneau; Glacier Bay National Park and Gustavus, a small community at the entrance of the park; Skagway; Haines; and Wrangell. Rates begin at $3,399.
The 13-day Alaska's Glacier Bay and Inside Passage Voyage follows a similar route as the 11-day cruise, but spends additional time exploring. Rates begin at $3,989.
loosechickens
1-22-12, 12:03am
Wow......that is pricey, BUT probably far more in line with the kind of cruise we'd probably like even better. Doing this one "blowout" trip has kind of scratched the itch to loosen up the traces, so at this point, we're just heading off into the desert for a couple of months, not spending much of anything at all, giving the budget a chance to regain its footing......
I think I would love a trip on a small boat like that......we've thought about checking into freighter cruises, which are great for people who are retired and don't have to have a tight schedule, and things like sailboats, etc., but for the moment, think we'll just go back to our simple living life, and not spending money.......watching just how easily chunks of money could be spent kind of scared us a bit, hahahahaha.......
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