South America Here We Come!

We leave on Wednesday and we are almost all packed!

We have had some changes to the itinerary. We are skipping our second day in Buenos Aires “due to congestion in the port”. A couple of days ago we found out the Island Princess is a “sick ship” with some cases of Noro virus and many with the flu. So, they are doing the “super cleaning" of the ship and the terminal and we can’t arrive at the port until 2:00 when the terminal opens. Then, each deck has a boarding time as that deck is finished. Our time is like 2:30 or 3:00. 

So, we will just go with the flow and hope for the best that we don’t catch anything. 

The Island Princess is the sister ship to the Coral Princess which we have been on twice. The difference is they modified the Island to have more staterooms, so it's laid out a little tighter and a few things have been moved to different parts of the ship. We are keeping an open mind, but the reviews of the changes are not positive. The Island now holds 2,220 passengers. (the Coral holds 1,970) We have always loved the Bayou Café (great steaks and interesting appetizers and sides with a New Orleans flair) so we are looking forward to going there to see if it's as good as we remember.

Here is a map of our cruise:

Here is our itinerary for South America:

24-Jan	Wed	Ft. Lauderdale
25-Jan	Thu	Sea Day
26-Jan	Fri	Sea Day
27-Jan	Sat	St. Maarten
28-Jan	Sun	Martinique
29-Jan	Mon	St. Vincent & the Grenadines
30-Jan	Tue	Grenada
31-Jan	Wed	Trinidad and Tobago
1-Feb	Thu	Sea Day
2-Feb	Fri	Devil's Island (Isle Royale), French Guiana
3-Feb	Sat	Sea Day
4-Feb	Sun	Sea Day
5-Feb	Mon	Fortaleza, Brazil
6-Feb	Tue	Sea Day
7-Feb	Wed	Sea Day
8-Feb	Thu	Sea Day
9-Feb	Fri	Ilhabela, Brazil
10-Feb	Sat	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
11-Feb	Sun	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
12-Feb	Mon	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
13-Feb	Tue	Sea Day
14-Feb	Wed	Sea Day
15-Feb	Thu	Montevideo, Uruguay
16-Feb	Fri	Buenos Aires, Argentina
17-Feb	Sat	Buenos Aires, Argentina (now a Sea Day)
18-Feb	Sun	Sea Day
19-Feb	Mon	Puerto Madryn, Argentina
20-Feb	Tue	Sea Day
21-Feb	Wed	Falkland Islands (Stanley)
22-Feb	Thu	Cape Horn (Scenic Cruising)
23-Feb	Fri	Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego), Argentina
24-Feb	Sat	Sea Day
25-Feb	Sun	Punta Arenas, Chile
26-Feb	Mon	Amalia Glacier, Chile (Scenic Cruising)
27-Feb	Tue	Sea Day
28-Feb	Wed	Puerto Montt, Chile
1-Mar	Thu	Chacabuco, Chile
2-Mar	Fri	Sea Day
3-Mar	Sat	Sea Day
4-Mar	Sun	Santiago (Valparaiso), Chile
5-Mar	Mon	La Serena (Coquimbo), Chile
6-Mar	Tue	Sea Day
7-Mar	Wed	Sea Day
8-Mar	Thu	Pisco (San Martin), Peru - transport to Lima airport to Puno
9-Mar	Fri	Lima (Callao), Peru - tour floating islands of Uros on Lake Titicaca
10-Mar	Sat	Lima (Callao), Peru - return to Lima and rejoin ship
11-Mar	Sun	Sea Day
12-Mar	Mon	Salaverry, Peru
13-Mar	Tue	Sea Day
14-Mar	Wed	Guayaquil, Ecuador
15-Mar	Thu	Manta, Ecuador
16-Mar	Fri	Sea Day
17-Mar	Sat	Puntarenas, Costa Rica
18-Mar	Sun	Sea Day
19-Mar	Mon	Panama Canal (Scenic Cruising) Panama
20-Mar	Tue	Cartagena, Colombia
21-Mar	Wed	Sea Day
22-Mar	Thu	Aruba
23-Mar	Fri	Sea Day
24-Mar	Sat	Sea Day
25-Mar	Sun	Ft. Lauderdale

We are doing one over-land trip off the ship. We will tour Pisco and then will be driven to Lima where we fly to stay 2 nights in Puno where we will tour the floating Islands of Uros. We have seen about everything in Lima and we didn't get to Lake Titicaca on our trip to Peru last time, so we are using that time to visit there this time.

As usual, while we are on the cruise I will keep up the blog on sea days as I have time. Photos are too cumbersome to add to the blog, so they will be separate in my Web Albums. Upon our return home as I have time I will add the photos to the blog. It’s more port intensive than our world cruises. (31 port days in 60 days vs around 40 in 111 days)

The highlight of this itinerary is 3 days in Rio at Carnival!!! Whoo Hoo!!!

Hope you enjoy following our adventures.....