Our World Cruise

  This past week has been interesting and fun. We started the week in Panama City with a Jungle Excursion by boat on Gatun Lake. WOW it was so much fun going around the islands in the lake looking for wildlife. We saw LOTS of wildlife from monkeys to birds and even a lizard. Jeff's pictures turned out so well. In just under over an hour he took 200+ photos. We then started our 6 day sea voyage to Santiago, Chile which we will arrive at on February 1.  While at sea we crossed the Equator at 3 am Thursday morning. The ship celebrated our crossing at noon on Friday with the Shellback ceremony for first time crossers. There were 8 officers who were polliwogs who had to endure the ceremony. It was so much fun. The passengers were the jury and each officer was charged with derilection of some stupid offense by King Neptune. We then declared each of them guilty. At that point the mermaids smeared them with whipping cream and the had to dive into the pool. After the trial ended. They all h

 It is hard to believe that we have been away four weeks. It is a very wonderful voyage so far. Even though we have had to revisit 3 ports we were able to book different tours. Tomorrow we are revisiting Costa Rica and are doing a Jungle Boat and Crocodile tour. It is to be 91 degrees and sunny so sunscreen, insect repellent and shade hats on the list.  This past week has been mostly at sea. We started the week in Cabo San Lucas, a port we had previously visited. This time we took the whale watching tour. WOW they were sure putting on a show. There were approximately 10 whales and we saw every form of surfacing they take. It is mating season so the guys were showing off. Also caught sight of sea lions on the pier as well as a Señor Frog bar that is hard to miss. No we did NOT go in! We then visited Puerto Vallarta where we had not stopped previously. We selected the Sierra Madre Hike and bus tour. We had a 50+ minute hike into the mountains where we learned about the flora of the area.

 We landed in Los Angeles last Sunday evening. At that time we were informed we could only leave the Viking Star on a cruise sanctioned excursion. That was fine but I, and a fellow passenger, had dentist appointments via the port officer. That was ok, but we had to meet federal zero passenger inspection before we could leave the port. Luckily, I brought our paperwork for the dentist with me when we left the ship for reentry back on board as continuing passengers. We were able to get through Customs and found our transfer to the dentist. Only problem was that the dentist could do nothing for our broken teeth. We both would need crowns so now we are carefully watching what we do for the next 4 months. UGH.  Major highway over the San Pedro Port as seen from our ship Cargo ships in port USS Iowa docked in port and tours available. Since we had no Viking approved tour we could not walk down to see it.  Many of these rules are LA Port Officer regulations as well as Viking regulations due to