Panama Canal Trip Report: Day 6 Cartagena Part 1

Day 6 Part 1:  Cartagena, Colombia

 If you would like to start this trip report from the beginning, click here.

Note: I do not feel right posting pictures of fellow cruisers who have not given me permission to use them on the blog, so I will blur out the faces of people in the background of my photos. I’m sorry if it looks funny, but I want to respect their privacy.

Also, anytime you see red text, it is a link to either product information or another one of my blog posts that gives more detailed information about that topic.

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You can see this day’s Navigator by clicking here: Daily Navigator Day 6

I took so many pictures this day that I am going to split it up into 2 posts.  I am going to be honest and tell you that I didn’t have high hopes for our day in Cartagena, Colombia, but it ended up being one of the most fun days of the cruise!

First, about our plans (or lack thereof).  None of the DCL excursions appealed to us.  Most were sightseeing in nature which my kids would have found very boring.  Not that I am against making my kids be bored, but I don’t want to pay for that privilege when I can do it for free.  In addition, I had heard that the heat and humidity in Cartagena were bad, and I don’t like sweating.  I had read about an area within walking distance of the ship with some shopping and animals to look at, so the plan was to get off the ship for a short while and see what was there.

All ashore today was 6:30 am, which is WAY too early for us on vacation.  The reason it was so early is because all aboard was at 2:45 pm in order for us to be at the Panama Canal early the next morning for our scheduled crossing.  I guess they wanted to give people enough time to go into the city and take tours.

I woke up about 7:45 am and looked out the window to this:

This was pretty much what I had expected as I had read that Cartagena was more of a commercial/industrial port than a cruise port.

We watched the morning show while everyone got up and dressed.  We went to Cabanas for breakfast about 8:30 and when we got there, I realized that the other side of the ship had a much better view.  I went to the outside seating area to take some pictures.

We were docked next to the Regent Seven Seas Mariner.  I looked up this ship when I got home and learned that it was on a 29 night sailing from Miami to Vancouver.  It is actually still on this same sailing as I write this.  Today it is in Ketchikan, Alaska.

The skyline of Cartagena was beautiful.

A Norwegian ship was sailing in.

It looked like one of the buildings had been damaged on one side.  I thought it may have been from a fire, but the adjacent side looks fine.  I really wonder what happened.

The Norwegian ship was getting closer.

It ended up docking right next to us, in between us and the Regent ship.

 

I walked around to the other side and took some pictures of the industrial area.

The girls were in a particularly silly mood at breakfast this morning.

While we were eating, a whole bunch of people stopped by to say hi.  First it was Captain Puckett, the former Panama Canal pilot who was giving presentations onboard.  He asked us what our plans were for the day.  We explained to him that we didn’t have an excursion planned, but had heard that there was an area right near the ship to walk around and shop.  He knew all about it and was kind enough to share all of the details with us.  He explained that there was a free bus which would take us from the ship to the shopping area.  He said that there were a lot of animals on display, mostly birds.  He also said to be sure and go through the gift shop and check out the area behind it as that is where most of the animals are.  It was so nice of him to strike up a conversation with us and give us the scoop.

Next Pierre, the hotel director onboard, stopped to say hi.  Actually, he said “Bonjour” since he is from France.  He was very visible on this sailing, always wandering around the ship checking on his areas.  He seems to be very good at his job and on top of things.

We also saw our head server Englebert and our main server Levy, both who stopped by to chat for a few minutes.  Levy was going to have a few hours off later so we talked about what he would be doing off the ship.

Finally, a blog reader named Tami whom I had met at karaoke earlier in the cruise walked by and said hi.  She said that their plans for the day were basically the same as ours.

We finished breakfast and headed straight off the ship.  Just outside of Cabanas we stopped in front of the elevators to discuss the best way to disembark.  We were trying to remember what the announcement said about which gangways were open on which levels.  The CM standing at the Cabanas entrance overheard us and told us the best way to get off the ship.  She said to go down to level 2, then walk all the way to the front of the ship, then take the forward stairs down to level 1.  This would put us right at the bus stop.  She was so helpful!

We followed her instructions and on the way we passed Santa’s room:

Let me digress for a minute and tell you about the Santas on our sailing.  There were 2 Santa impersonators onboard.  As in, that is their actual job.  One was from Canada (and even had business cards to pass out) and the other was from San Diego.  I only saw the one from Canada a few times, but I saw the one from San Diego all the time.  He ended up being in the talent show with our daughter and I had a nice log chat with him at rehearsal.  I’ll give you more details on that later, but about this point in the cruise I started taking pictures of him when I would see him around, mostly because he had awesome shirts.  I wish I had started photographing him at the beginning of the cruise.

Soon we were disembarking the ship.  There were some local entertainers outside although they appeared to be taking a break:

Just as Captain Puckett had told us, there was a bus waiting right outside the forward gangway.  We walked right on and after just a couple of minutes pulled away from the ship and drove….wait for it….about 800 feet.  Yes, I pulled it up on Google Maps and measured it.  I was surprised that they provided buses for such a short distance, but I wasn’t complaining.  Perhaps it has something to do with this port being so industrial and not wanting a lot of pedestrians?

Here is the inside of the bus:

After about a 1 minute bus ride we got off the bus right at the cruise terminal.  I took this picture as we got off:

Here you can see just how close to the ship we are:

Here is the entrance:

I was immediately impressed with how lush, shady and clean it was.  Also, it wasn’t even very hot.  Granted, we have spent most of our lives in Texas and are used to 95+ (even 100+) temperatures and high humidity, so we probably have a different definition of hot than most people.  The Navigator said the high today was forecast for 82 degrees.  That’s a comfortable spring or fall day to us!

We stopped at the entrance to take some pictures:

I took one more picture of the ship before we went in:

This was the pathway to the shops, restaurant, and animal exhibits:

The first area we came to housed some flamingos and peacocks:

We then approached an area with a restaurant and coffee shop.  This appeared to be the outdoor seating for the restaurant:

I think this was a snack bar:

We quickly noticed that there were lots of tropical birds in the trees above our heads.  I think this is a peacock:

Next we went into the gift shop.  It was huge and a gift shop junkie’s paradise!  We spent quite a while walking around and looking at everything.

I ended up buying 2 souvenirs.  I collect magnets from our travels so I picked one out for Cartagena:

I also collect Santas so I chose this Colombian Santa.  I love that he is holding a cup of coffee, and my husband loves that he is carrying a machete:

After we got our fill of the gift shop we went out the back door to explore the area that Captain Puckett had told us about.  There were so many beautiful birds!  This was the view leaving the shop:

This guy was sitting right outside the door.  He seemed pretty friendly and didn’t mind posing for pictures.

There was a red squirrel that my girls found fascinating:

Some of the birds were walking around on the ground:

There was a mango slushie stand and I wanted one but no one was at it.  There was also a little snack bar.

Now that I think about it, I think the girl sitting at the snack bar was supposed to be at the slushie stand because I think she sold me one later.

There was also an enclosed area that you could enter and see more birds:

This guy was kind of creepy:

Next we wandered over to an area where there were lots of peacocks.

I never realized that peacocks could fly high enough to get up onto these trees.  It was way up there!

Here is a white peacock about to get run over by a car.  It survived.

A few minutes later my girls spotted something that made their day – actually, their week, month, year……you get the picture.  Monkeys!!!

These little monkeys were the cutest things ever!  They were following people around, I assume wanting food.  This monkey was following a man:

Here, a monkey starting chasing my 10 year old and for a few seconds she thought it was funny, then she started getting a little bit freaked out.  Here she is telling it to stop.  It didn’t really listen.

I don’t know if it was advisable to feed the monkeys or not (we didn’t have any food anyway), but I told my girls they could pick leaves up off the ground and give them to the monkeys.  They seemed only slightly interested.

They could have stayed and played with those monkeys forever, but it was time to move on.  This area where they played with the monkeys was really pretty.  Here is an overall view:

We went back to the bird area and there was someone at the slushie stand, so I bought one for $3.  It was amazing!

We decided to sit and rest for a minute and these birds were right next to the table.

As soon as my husband sat down in the chair, they started attacking his feet.  The girls thought it was hilarious!

Nearby there was an aquarium so we went to check it out.  Apparently there was a poisonous frog in it but we couldn’t find it.

Honestly, the aquarium seemed sort of neglected and I began to wonder if the frog was still inside of it, so I quickly shuffled the girls along.

By this time we had seen pretty much everything there was to see outside, so we went back inside the shop.  One of the girls had to use the bathroom, so I took her while the others went to buy an iced coffee.  I’m so glad we ended up using the bathrooms because in the hallway just next to them was a wall full of plaques from cruise ships who had visited this port.  If we hadn’t gone to the bathroom, we never would have seen them.

I found 2 for the inaugural visit of the Magic in 2008:

And the one for the inaugural visit of the Wonder in 2012:

After the bathroom visit we met up with the others who now had a Colombian iced coffee from the Juan Valdez Cafe ($3):

It was really good!

By this time we were all ready to head back to the ship so we made the short walk back to the bus stop.  I took this picture on the way:

We thought this peacock crossing sign was hilarious.  We never could decide what the second animal was.

After another 1 minute bus ride, we were back at the ship.  I took some more pictures of the port area:

We ended up spending about 1 1/2 hours off the ship and had a great time.  The heat wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Up next:  Day 6 Cartagena Part 2

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