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On February 5, 2010 we departed for Fort Lauderdale, Fl for a cruise aboard the Island Princess destined for the Panama Canal. On the way, we stopped at Cape Kennedy, Florida and toured NASA's launch facilities.
Where the space shuttle Endeavor was sitting on the launch pad. Unfortunately, we were unable to get closer than three miles from the launch platform. The Endeavor blasted off, early the next morning, headed for the International Space Station. We departed Fort Lauderdale on February 8 aboard Princess Cruise Lines ship, Island Princess with a capacity of 1,950 passengers, headed towards Aruba; Cartagena, Columbia; Panama Canal; Cristobal, Panama; Limon, Costa Rica; St George, Grand Cayman Island and back to Fort Lauderdale.
The Island Princess, 964 ft in length, capacity: 1,970 passengers; crew: 900
Our first port of call was the island of Aruba.
Surprisingly Aruba is a very arid island receiving only about 20" of rainfall
per year, with beautiful beaches and emerald water. Notice the emerald water.
Our next port of call was Cartagena Columbia...remember 'Romancing the Stone'
starring Michael Douglas? We were surprised to see how big and modern Cartagena is.
Next stop, the Panama Canal. We arrived at Gatun Locks early in the
morning.
Billie and the Granddaughters watching us pass through the locks. You can view more details about the Canal on Wikipedia.
This is a picture along side the ship. You can see how close the ship
is to
We stopped in Cristobol, Panama where we saw a local group perform
In Limon, Costa Rica we walked over a mile along a narrow trail, across a
900'
And finally we visited St George, on Grand Cayman Island.
Where we mailed post cards from Hell!
A jagged rock outcrop has been named 'Hell'. You can see it behind us. We then traveled along the coast of Cuba on our return to Fort Lauderdale. In summary, we really enjoyed this trip, especially since we were able If you ever think about making this trip, we highly recommend you travel
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