PUERTO LIMON, COSTA RICA – LESSONS RELEARNED

When we pulled into port this morning, we had a neighbor “close up and personal” (eighty feet across the pier) – Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas. Actually, we had two Royal Caribbeans neighbors, the Explorer of the Seas was one pier over. The Captain told us the night before he was “negotiating” with another Captain so both ships could be docked by 7 AM. Puerto Limon can’t accommodate two ships coming in at the same time. We didn’t know it would be a Royal Caribbean ship.

Today we “relearned” lessons we already knew – in hot, humid climates, go ashore early and take water! That’s what we had planned to do! We went to breakfast as soon as the Dining Room opened at 7:30 AM and we were back in our room by 8:30 AM ready to go ashore. But it started to rain so we began working on the Blog for 1/7. Hope you enjoyed it!

There was a lot to share, and it was almost Noon when we finally were ready to go ashore. No longer the cool part of the day, it was 78 degrees and humid. We also didn’t take our water bottles since we didn’t expect to be out that long. It wasn’t long before we were sorry for those decisions, but we “soldiered on”!

To get to the street, you had to pass through a very crowded shopping area (the picture really doesn’t show how crowded it was)! John (who hates crowds) considered it like passing through the first Ring of Dante’s Inferno! Some people like that kind of shopping and love to barter. We couldn’t get out fast enough!

Once we made it outside, things improved tremendously! We had a short walk to Parque Vargas, a tranquil city park with towering palms and tropical blooms. There is a pretty colonnade band stand with sea views. Supposedly you can see sloths in the trees but, we think it may be an urban myth – we didn’t see any. We walked down to the seawall where John took photos.

We moved on to the Cathedral Sagrado Corazon De Jesus, about .8-mile walk. Most of the time we were on wide, pedestrian tiled walkways. Although there were no traffic lights at the intersections, the drivers were unfailingly gracious and stopped to let us cross. One girl on a moped, held out her arm to stop the traffic behind her. Hitting a Senior Citizen Tourist would not be good for business, and the locals seemed very geared to support the tourist trade.

The Cathedral was worth the hike. The Cathedral was originally built in 1892 and was the first Catholic Church in the city. It was destroyed by a hurricane and rebuilt in the modern style in 2010. The original bells were restored and used in the bell tower. There is an impressive altar and beautiful stain glass windows. The afternoon sunlight shining through the windows was magical but unfortunately it doesn’t show up well in the photo. The Christmas Creche was still in place (there were Christmas decorations still visible throughout the city).

“Yes, we have no bananas!”, but they did. On our way back to the ship, we passed street vendor selling bananas.

After a hot walk back to the ship, we went directly up to the Crow’s Nest for a refreshing Gin and Tonic! The hot weather does lend itself to a cool G & T over crystal ice and topped with a fresh slice of lime. I’m not generally a “drinker” but I may be before this cruise is over! The policy for the drink package is “all or nothing” and we both had to buy the Drink Package, not just John. After much calculation, we decided it was the way to go. It also covers non-alcoholic drinks, soda, smoothies and coffee but evidently not water in a screw top bottle!

“Funny” experience buying bottled water on the drink plan. We now know, water in a soda can with pull ring top is on the plan, the screw on and off lid are not. I ordered a 12 pack of water in aluminum bottles with screw off tops before the cruise. Once we opened the carton delivered to our cabin, the canned water was in cans with a pull tab, not the screw off bottles. Not convenient for a drink of water at two in the morning. We returned the pull top cans. John likes to have water bedside at night and screw top bottle seemed the way to go. Later we discovered the ship still had the aluminum screw top bottles available at the bar. We bought one for the room but had to paid $5.95 for one with the screw top bottle we wanted since it wasn’t included in the Drink Package. We found it amusing that we could get 15 alcoholic drinks a day a piece at up to $11 each but couldn’t get a screw top bottle of water without paying extra! It would appear “they are running a profit deal.” That is a line from a Steve Martin movie – one of John’s favorite sayings.

The only money we spent in Puerto Limon was a donation at the church. Guess we are not doing much to help the local businesses. However, many returned to the ship with shopping bags filled with local treasures. It’s a long cruise and this is only stop two – their suitcases are going to be pretty full by the time we get back to Ft. Lauderdale.