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I added pictures from our 2007 Cruise to Alaska and I have started adding pictures from our 2007 Panama Cruise. There are a lot of pictures of the Panama Cruise so I’m slowly editing them and adding the cruise in sections. When you visit the photo gallery on the lookylou.com website you will see the links activated as the sections are completed. Maybe by the end of January I might have the whole Panama Cruise done.

The first part of the Panama Trip was via AMTRAK train from Seattle Washington to Fort Lauderdale. It took 4 days to get there with stops in Chicago and Washington where we had to change trains. We booked a sleeping unit so we had our own shower and washroom, plus the room had two bunk beds. Better than trying to sleep in a reclining chair, but not much better. Pretty noisy on the train and they blow whistles in the night from time to time when they are approaching uncontrolled crossings. The food was terrible.

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale about 11PM on Thursday evening, 6 hours behind schedule although the train engineer seemed to be risking our lives to make up for lost time. We had to stop a few times, mainly because the AMTRAK train has to use other rail lines to travel on so the regular freight trains get priority, along with some of the commuter trains in Virginia and other states in the south.

We spent Friday exploring parts of Fort Lauderdale by taking a water taxi inland to a shopping area, then back to the hotel in the evening. Next day we boarded our cruise ship, the Celebrity “Summit”, around 11AM right after we had to check out of our hotel. Fortunately we did not have to wait until the official 2 PM boarding time to get on board. Our sailing time was 6 PM and the boat left on time.

Peter