You knew it couldn't last....

Us staying home that is.  No, back when we were on the Atlantic cruise in April (on the Viking Sea), we went to talk with the cruise salesperson that Viking wisely puts on every ship.  They told us that Viking was going to kill off a cruise we were hoping to go on someday.  The cruise in question, they use one whole ship for it, goes from Miami through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles - then it returns exactly the same way.  The main downfall is that it is 22 days.  But we are masochists so that didn't scare us.  The only downside was that the last two cruises were this fall.  It would leave Miami on November 22 (this year aka the US Thanksgiving Day) arriving in LA on December 13 then leaving LA on the evening of the 13th and sailing back to Miami by some time in January.  Hmmm... yep, we fell for it.

So we get home from Washington on October 4 and leave for Miami on November 21.  Well, we got our clothes washed but that was about it!  Sorry, I'm whining.  It was actually six weeks of semi-normal time and in an extremely good time of the year.  It's warm but not too warm and just generally nice.  The problem was that it really wasn't enough time to get all organized.  However, flying on the Thanksgiving holiday is always a stupid idea.  Flying anytime around the holiday is pretty lame but the weather gods were good to the US this year and there weren't tons of delayed flights, etc. 

So we hop on this ship, the Viking Star.  Viking built four ships from the same plan:  the Star, the Sea, the Sky and the Sun.  We were told that there are internal changes that make the later ships better than the first but from the passenger point of view they are identical.  It is so identical that we asked for, and received, the same table we'd had in the restaurant on the Sea!  The art work on the walls is different but that's about it!  What was different was where we were headed.

First we'd hit two ports in Cuba then one in Colombia.  After that we would do the canal then work our way up the Pacific coast:  Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico.  Then, just for a change of pace, we'd stop in San Diego before finally landing in Los Angeles.  I must admit it was quite a trip.  It was different from what we'd expected but still good.  We've been home less than a week and I still don't have all the photos downloaded!  That should tell you something about my state of mind.

I'll write more after I have some photos to share.  Thanks for stopping by!  AND Happy Holidays if I'm that slow!