Wednesday, January 22, 2025

December 27, 2024 – Puntarenas, Costa Rica – Mostly Sunny – 86F

I don’t what’s worse – forward and backward time changes – the prevailing wisdom that you gain an hour of sleep is bogus – what you gain is getting up an hour earlier in the morning before anything opens up and then having to wait to go get breakfast.  For me, the process started at 3:30 AM and continued – between little cat naps – until the ship docked. Then the mysterious "docking bangs" started and there was no sleep after that. 

Azamara Onward is docked at the very long pier leading to the town on the sliver of land - Puntarenas (I think the name means "sandy point").  The large body of water is the Bay of Nicoya. It is a beautiful day in Costa Rica.

The Windows Café opened at 6:45 AM this morning because all of the excursions started at 7:45 AM and last most of the day.  The early start is due to the fact that each tour has a very long drive to get to the actual location.  When I got up there at 6:45 AM, the placed was full – I couldn’t find an empty seat in the main area and was lucky to notice the table in the back near the entrance to the Patio.  I lucked out and got the window seat.  I fetched my sour cream and cottage cheese – now contained in two large tubs under the yoghurt selections.  I had those along with pancakes and a spoonful of scrambled eggs.  The coffee, which I get myself (diluted half with hot water in a Go Cup – Café Americano) was good and hot.

We are alongside the Coral Princess, the sister ship to our old bud, the Island Princess. The Coral Princess is currently Princess Cruises' smallest ship (2000 Pax) since it no longer uses the Pacific Princess type ships (ships that are essentially identical to Azamara ships). 

At 10:30 AM, we disembarked and took the very bumpy train/trolley to the security gate.  

Before the trolley got rolling, I took a picture of the village across the Bay.









We have not been here for a while and we wanted to see what they had done to this little strip of Costa Rica.  The first thing I noticed was the new vendor market across the street - Avenida 4 - from the Tourist Information Center.  Note: You have to be careful crossing the streets - the drivers are OK but the curbs and sidewalks are in need of repair and pose a tripping hazard. 

The vendors used to line the walkway adjacent to the beach (now there are virtually none).  Instead, there are many more stalls – caps are now $10 (my last "Pura Vida" cap was $5 - now long gone).  There is so much stuff offered by the vendors - I can't imagine what they will eventually do with the unsold goods.  There are still bars along the beach walkway "Paseo de los Turistas"- but they are pretty run down - there are facilities there but I wouldn't use them.

Our primary mission was to get free Wi-Fi so that Ellen could download some more books from the library.  The Tourist Office had both A/C and free Wi-Fi so we stayed there for a bit. The facilities in the building were also relatively clean and acceptable.  Ellen was able to get some books despite the process being more complicated than it should have been.

From there, we walked along the beach walkway. We found a fellow Azamara passenger and talk to her for a while – she was 88 and was walking without a cane. I did get a nice picture of both cruise ships through the trees from the beach.

When it got too warm, we went through the security gate – they actually check both Sea Pass Card and ID (just like San Juan does) and sat and waited for the trolley to head back to the ship. After about a half hour, with the trolley just sitting there outside the gate, we decided to walk back to the ship. Also, passengers started to gather in pretty good numbers waiting for the trolley - many of them used canes and walkers.  I did not feel we should take seats from those folks.  It’s a long pier – Ellen counted of about 700 steps – and it has no shade. Ellen sprinted ahead of me and we met up in the ship. 

We had lunch on the hot, but tolerable, Sunset Veranda. Today’s beer was Grolsch – always good – along with grilled Tuna wrap, onion rings, and a small salad. They had some pasta with salmon on the hot bar that was good, as well.

We spent the afternoon on loungers on Deck 5 overlooking the Gulf of Nicoya (a better view than the Coral Princess).  When it got too warm, we went to the Living Room.  We stayed for a bit of trivia and enjoying a Strawberry Daiquiri and a Dirty Banana Daiquiri (chocolate syrup enhanced).  BTW, Trivia happens every day at 4 PM - in port or at sea - big crowd or no crowd.  

We went to the room to rest up before dinner – opted not to go to the Chanukah Candle Lighting tonight.  Just too tired.

There is a special dinner on Deck 9 – The Destination Immersion DinnerCentral America, a special offering featuring locally sourced ingredients.  We didn’t see that working out for us so we checked out the Dining Room Menu.  It turned out to be Taste of England in the Dining Room.  We both ordered Fish and Chips and shared a potato and leak appetizer. The appetizer was good – an upscale knish – and the fish and chips were hot and tasty.  Ellen’s fish had a funny square shape and funny look.  It turned out to be fried tofu and chips. Ellen had told the waitress she was allergic to shellfish; that was entered into the room profile so the kitchen will not serve her that and instead conjured up something from the veggie menu. In this case, tofu.  She explained the difference between shellfish and fish-fish so maybe that won’t happen again.  FYI - Fried Tofu and Chips is not really the same as Fish and Chips.

I did capture some nice sunset pictures while the ship was still docked.
















Tonight’s entertainment is drawn from the ship's own talent as has generally been the case on this voyage. Tina the Musical Director and keyboardist along with the Azamara Orchestra will be presenting “Bourbon Street and More” in the Cabaret Lounge. All about New Orleans Jazz.  It sounded OK, and Tina is very good, but we opted for the quiet confines of the Mosaic Cafe for coffee and goodies.

We watched the shops open at around 8 PM so we knew the ship had departed.

We headed to the room early – the time change had done us in.

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