I have no
delusions that any of this will be great writing or terribly interesting, but
it will help me keep our travels straight and friends and family can know where
we are and what we are up to. So, please be kind and ignore typos,
misspellings, and any ignorant statements I’m sure I will make.
The Panama Decision
As a bit of
background we had talked for years of retiring early while we were still
healthy enough to enjoy our lives. We also had dreamed of retiring out of the
country for various reasons. Some of the reasons were cost of living, slower
pace to daily life and warmer weather. We currently live in Florida (Orlando
area) and have pretty good weather, but it does get “cold” here and we are in
the hurricane belt.
After a few
exploration trips to various areas of Panama we found one that feels like it
could be “home”. We plan on renting short/long term until we are sure that we
really do like the area.
We won’t be
returning to Panama until next June since on January 27th we embark
on a nearly 4 month journey on a World Cruise on the Pacific Princess.
Starting Our Nomadic Lifestyle
So, we put
our large house on the market and began the daunting task of going through our
things to either keep or sell. I had a large elephant collection which I had
been slowly selling on eBay. We had decided to take very little with us to
Panama other than some personal things and a few high-end kitchen items that
may be harder to replace. I collect Christmas ornaments from our travels and
other trinkets so those are coming with us. After the house sold in November, we had an
estate sale company come in and organize and price the remnants of our old life.
We had already gathered bags and boxes of thing that went to Goodwill. We
rented a storage unit to store the few boxes that we will have shipped to
Panama. Then, separated out things we
will take on the world cruise and what would come with us to the hotel.
Officially “Homeless”
With our
house and most belongings sold, we moved into a Residence Inn by Marriott in
the Lake Mary area since we have a couple of months before the world cruise. We
sold my car and will sell the other one just before leaving for the world
cruise. To complicate matters we booked a 7 day Caribbean cruise on Celebrity
Reflection in early December and had the pleasure to be joined by my 81 year
old dad who visited from Iowa. We picked him up at the Miami airport. We
switched from the Lake Mary hotel to one down there for 2 nights before the
cruise.
After the
cruise we drove back to Lake Mary where we stayed until Dec 27 and then drove
south to Port St. Lucie Residence Inn where we are staying until we leave on
the world cruise.
Celebrity Reflection Cruise 12/8/13 to 12/15/13
We spent the
day before the cruise in the Everglades. We had beautiful weather and good
wildlife sightings on the ranger walk that we took. Visited a gator farm and
took an airboat ride.
Next day we drove to the port for the cruise. The ship was beautiful. It was an easy ship to navigate even
though it was 3,000 plus passengers. Had some of the best food we have had on a
cruise ship in a long time. Spent sea days lounging in the sun and played bingo
a few times. Dad won a game! He got around $150.00 so that was great!
We were supposed to arrive in San Juan at 3:00, but it
had been rescheduled for 5:00 so we really had no time to see the sites before
it got dark. We have been several times, but wanted dad to see them. We grabbed
a taxi that gave us a nice overview of the old town and the new area and then
he left us at the Cristobal Fort. We walked around a bit more in the old town
and then just went back to the ship for dinner and the evening entertainment
even though the ship was in port until 11:00 that night. (Dad was pretty worn
out) His legs were so stiff he could hardly walk.
Next day we went to St. Martin where we had a snorkel
trip set up that was on a Tiki hut platform. A boat took us out to this
platform with a small restaurant and some lounge chairs etc. Dad stayed on the
platform and we snorkeled. Wasn't great snorkeling there, but we enjoyed it. We
could have stayed there all day, but we wanted dad to see the island so the
boat took us back to the ship and we grabbed lunch and then went out to grab a
taxi to tour the Dutch and French sides of the Island. Beautiful island. We had
visited this island once before and we had much better weather then. It was
just a bit cloudy & rainy on this trip as the day went on.
The next port was St. Kitts where we had a tour
scheduled with a private driver that gave us a nice panoramic tour of the town.
Highly recommend Rose & Jim’s Taxi. We toured with Rose and she is a
delight. Went to a batik shop where they showed us how they make the batik prints
on the cloths and toured the beautiful gardens of the Romney Manor. Then we
went back to the ship to grab lunch and catch our catamaran sail boat trip. Dad
loved that the most. Nice sailing and we had a great snorkel. Saw lots of interesting
fish and there were a ton of squid in beautiful blues and greens. Even saw an
octopus and a turtle. Then, we had a nice sail back with homemade banana bread
and cocktails or soft drinks.
We had 2 more sea days to relax and enjoy the ship.
The entertainment was all pretty good. They did 3 production shows. One of the
nights there was a horrible comedy/juggler guy who was truly BAD. Couldn't
juggle and wasn't funny. The whole ship was buzzing about that one.
After arriving back in Miami we drove back to the same
hotel in Lake Mary. Dad stayed until the day after my birthday. We ate lots of
shrimp and crab while dad was here.
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