Monday, January 20, 2025

December 25, 2024 – Transit of the Panama Canal – Overcast – 77F

Another up and down night – I had to use earplugs because the ship is really moving and that’s causing a creaking in all the walls. On top of that my right hip is starting to become an issue again. I am working to get treatment when I get back.

I got up to the Café as Onward was passing under the “Atlantic Bridge”, the third and newest of the bridges in the Canal (finished in 2019).  










I tested out the new Cottage Cheese/Sour Cream system. It took some explaining but they did find the sour cream and the cottage cheese, which came in a huge Daisy Brand container (low fat to boot).  The pancake griddle was not working this morning so I had all that on a waffle. The waffle today was not rock hard so that worked out.  The coffee was good and the view was good.  Got some nice shots of the Gatun Locks and then Onward exiting the locks into Gatun Lake.














Meanwhile, Ellen was enjoying room service (egg white omelet with spinach).

I went up the Living Room to get another view of the transit.  Ellen came up later.  I did some work on tomorrow’s talk to make it more easily understood. 

The weather for the transit was perfect – no rain, low humidity – Chuck narrated the transit but the narration was much less detailed than Bill Fall or the fellow last year from the Canal Authority.  Not an issue for me since I knew all the sights along the way.  We watched the transit from many venues – a lot of it was seen from loungers on Deck 5.  There were plenty of available loungers and when we went inside, there were seats in the Living Room.

It takes a while to sail through Gatun Lake and Ellen had the perfect seat.

We checked out the menu for the Dining Room and, even though it had only been a few days, the Pad Thai dish I liked was back on the menu.  We got a nice window table in the back of the room.  When we looked over the menu at our table, it was totally different. It turned out that the menu posted was the wrong one and there was nothing for us on the correct version. 

The Patio was holding the “Patio Barbecue” at lunch – we went up there and in addition to the smoke, there was nothing for us to eat. I had some tuna salad from the buffet and some kind of Asian noodles from the hot section along with a Stella.  We ate inside because it was starting to get a little warm and stuffy outside. 

I headed back out on Deck 5 - surprisingly, it was pretty uncrowded out there.  I got a nice lounger and checked out the scenery.

We passed through the narrowest part of the Canal, the Culebra Cut

and then through the final locks on the Pacific Side, the Pedro Miguel Locks 

where I got the required iconic railing shot.  Ellen's hair was not flying in the wind but you have to work with what you have.

 We passed under the Centennial Bridge.

Azamara Onward then entered Miraflores Lake.  At around 5 PM, the ship exited the Miraflores Locks, 

passed under the Bridge of the Americas and into the Pacific Ocean.  






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I got a nice shot of Panama City in the distance.   

All very smooth and pretty much on schedule.

Today is the first candle of Chanukah so, at 5:30 PM,  we went to the Cabaret Lounge where Rabbi Gans had worked with the ship to set up a beautiful table. There was an electric menorah, latkes (sort of) and really good jelly donuts.  Sadly, no Manischewitz or Mogen David Wine.  The service was very nice and there was a pretty good turnout and Rabbi Gans brought some additional holiday related information to the service.  We sang some songs.  It was very nice.

























Tonight in the Discoveries Dining Room, the ship was holding its festive Christmas Dinner.  While there were items on the menu for us, the place was slammed and we got there late so we couldn’t get a table that didn’t share.  We went up to the buffet and they had a gnocchi dish that looked good.  I noticed something wrong right away when it was fusilli instead of gnocchi.  It also had some stuff in there that looked suspicious – took a small bite and I thought it might be Beyond Meat but it turned out to be real meat.  The item was mislabeled.  Oy.

I also tried the pan fried Halibut which was OK.

We went to the Cabaret Lounge to see guitarist Emilio Valle.  We saw him the last time we were on Onward and we lasted two songs – tonight we only made it into the first song before the volume was too much.

We went to The Den and caught the set from Bob Styles.  No Christmas songs tonight – just the classics. 

We hit the room about 9:30 PM.

The ride is smooth – no creaking tonight as we head up the coast of Central America.

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