Sandy and Jim WC 24-25

  Sunday, January 5 We arrive in LA which is the busiest port in the US by container volume and the 10 th busiest worldwide when combined with Long Beach.   The sunrise and clouds coming into the port were spectacular. A busy morning planning meeting of the Viking Sky chefs as close to 500 passengers who began this cruise in Ft. Lauderdale disembark in LA and 500 additional World Cruise passengers board the ship. Sandy has scheduled a bus tour of Malibu and the J. Paul Getty Villa Museum which opened in 1974 and embodies Getty’s love for classical art and architecture.  Jim, on the other hand, took a shuttle to Long Beach and watched the Washington Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys football game at Hooters before playing pickleball at a nearby pickleball court!!!!! Highlights from the Getty Villa Tour Mummy Forensics – Computed tomography scanning - a noninvasive imaging process – was performed on this mummy of Herakleides which allowed conservators and doctors to see in...

  Jan 4 A sea day for us and the seas have been very calm – so, perhaps a tour of our ship is in order!   Very early moon over the ocean as we sail along to LA!!!!   Can’t begin the day without a beautiful cup of cappuccino!!!   These birds called Brown Boobies fly along with the ship for miles and miles hoping for special treats!!!   Our tour is led by the Hotel GM Ronald Schweighardt from Austria.  Viking Sky has a passenger capacity of 930 with 465 crew members – 401 of those crew members report to Ronald.  We begin below deck where the all-night elves have taken down all the Christmas decorations and packed them up for storage in LA.   These magnificent cooks and chefs working in the galley prepare the most amazing meals and snacks several times a day!!!!  We’re “trying” to watch our waistlines!!!  During this past week, a very artistic brunch was served on the pool deck.  Various staff members were assembling the Viking Gift ba...

  JANUARY 2, 2025 CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO   Beautiful sunrise on the sailing to Cabo located at the tip of the Baja Peninsula.    An icon of Cabo – the famed El Arco, is a natural rock formation that creates an arch over these beautiful azure waters.  Sport fishing for Marlin is a favorite for those taking cruise excursions.  Jim and Joe Buckovic were hoping to fish for the BIG one this morning but the boat captain already had a full party.  There were four cruise ships in port at the same time – the Costa, Azamara, Carnival and our Viking ship.    Since Cabo has no deep water pier, all the ships must anchor in the harbor, and passengers ride in tenders to reach the shore. Plenty of tourists about but Jim and I stayed on board and thoroughly enjoyed our own space everywhere on the ship for taking spectacular yacht photos!!!!  A good day for a massage too!!!! According to a person in the "know", this yacht is owned by a billionaire m...

  NEW YEARS EVE ON THE VIKING SKY – 12/31/2024   At 7AM we cruisers can Walk-a-Mile with the Officers and get our steps in while enjoying the sea breeze with four laps around the jogging track.   BUT we opted out and slept in!!!!!   Enjoyed a relaxing day at the pool with our books and had a lovely dinner with our shipmates and Villages neighbor buddies, Joe and Julie.   Then a special show of fabulous magic was presented by Nick Paul, a TV and Magic Castle headliner.   We all rang in the New Year with a New Year’s Eve Celebration and Dancing Under the Stars with the Viking Band as they played lively tunes from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s to current.   The ship was decorated so beautifully so tried to capture as many photos as we could !!!!!   A fun time was had by all as the champagne flowed!!!!!

 December 28 Today, a Saturday, we arrive early in the morning in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and were greeted by a very colorful trio of dancers!!!!      Early in the 1800’s, this port prospered with the work of coffee barons as oxcarts delivered satchels of beans to the docks from the mountains.  So our excursion today is entitled “A Walk in the Clouds”.  Well, we thought our tour included an aerial tram and hanging bridges through the wildlife refuge, the Monteverde Cloud Forest – Moderate Walking!!!  However, that tour was sold out so we ended up on a Demanding Walk with step-ups and downs, stairs and inclines and four suspended bridges that rise up to 126 feet above the ground with Julie Wheeler and Joe Buckovic!!! This refuge was filled with mammals, beautiful birds and butterflies, leaf carrying insects and plant species, especially the world’s largest number of orchids.   One of our hikers got a little too close to this eye-lash viper (abo...

  December 26 It’s the Day After Christmas and we are entering the 48-mile long Panama Canal – a true engineering marvel with a vast series of locks that lifts and lowers each ship 85 feet from sea level.  We began our journey at 7:30am entering the Gatun Locks.  Ships are tethered at the bow and stern to electric locomotives that keep it from hitting the sides of the narrow locks.   From there, we sailed through Gatun Lake to the Pedro   Miguel Locks and finally out through the Miraflores Locks.   It took 8 hours to get through all the locks and enter the Pacific Ocean.   The Chart Tracker map shows us in Gatun Lake.   Also, you can   see there are two individual channels. In one photo, you can see that our channel is full while the neighboring channel remains empty.  Panama’s capital, Panama City, is lined with modern glass skyscrapers that are reminiscent of Miami.

 Christmas Day Today’s adventure was a 6-hour tour of Colon, which was founded in 1850 by Americans and is Panama’s “second city” after Panama City. It lies near the Panama Canal’s Atlantic entrance.  Our motor coach then traveled through the Panamanian Rain Forest to the Chagres National Park and the Embera Indian Village.  In order to get to the Village, 39 of us had to climb into traditional dugout canoes and up the Chagres River where we were welcomed by the Chief and treated to some very colorful ceremonial dancing.  This tribe lives much as they did in pre-Columbian times in round huts on stilts.  We shared a typical lunch of fried fish and plantains.  The Embera wear little clothing but paint elaborate patterns on their bodies using the black dye of the jagua plant.  These people rely heavily on the tourist industry for their income. We completed the day with a special Christmas dinner at the Chef’s Table with Julie Wheeler and Joe Buckovic, fea...