Georgia vs TCU vs Panama Canal

I'm not sure what I'm more excited about....yes, I am.....the Panama Canal is AMAZING! But I want to give an honorable mention to fact that, as I write this, we're on the Lido Deck at the huge "movie under the stars" screen watching the game, with a great drink and even pizza. Why is this noteworthy? Because when you take a hiatus from your "typical" life to experience this "111 day exception", having something familiar keeps the home sickness at bay (yes, I have pangs of homesickness occasionally). If we were home, this is what we'd be doing....well, minus tropical breeze, minus the big screen, minus the 75 degree weather and minus the floating all-inclusive resort.

The big news of the day was doing the full-transit of the Panama canal. It is an engineering marvel!!!!! The history is fascinating, the politics are amazing, the efficiency and precision of it is mind boggling. In the ports of call detail, I'll provide some of those details but suffice it to say, they (the Panama canal authority) earned every penny of the $366,000 our cruise ship paid to go thru the old, more historic locks. Yup, that's not a typo. The old and new locks are equally as fascinating and at the end of the day, it's personal preference. The island princess is classified as Panamax meaning the largest a vessel can be to transit the old locks.

There are 3 sets of locks in total. Beginning, middle and end. We had the first rain of the cruise when going thru the middle set, so no pics of that. The beginning set you go up about 80+ft. Exiting is about the same amount down depending on the pacific tide.

In summary on the Panama canal, add it to your bucket list and check out the ports of call tab for pics and stats.

The remainder of the day included an hour on the elliptical, 5.4 miles at 15 resistance, a light breakfast and lunch, 2 hrs of work, a VERY short stint in the casino where I gave back some of my winnings and a great dinner. Venturing out as promised, my main dish was scallops and chorizo over a creamy cous cous, where the oily red juices from the chorizo created a beautiful patchwork of deliciousness, which I transferred to an Asian salad. It was my favorite meal so far. Menu posted below.

We met a nice couple from Arizona at the first set of locks and a couple from Kansas watching the game. The latter I'd met before and so were starting to become a small community.

Lastly, I met the wife of the General Manager of the entire boat. I think that makes him #2 in charge on the ship. I shared some concerns I had about new programs being offered effective 2/20/23 and how that will apply to those of us already aboard. I'm hoping to get clarity tomorrow or Wednesday.

At 2am, we fall back an hour as we head west. Hasta manana.

Note to self: deleted and restored a draft of this post, which reset # of views from 37 to 0. Don't do that again 😒