We started the day by walking through the Minneapolis Skyway system. I love sky bridges. To have an entire downtown area connected by them is a small fantasy. We happened to be walking around right around lunchtime. We saw swarms of Target employees heading to or from the local restaurants. Hungry, but discouraged by the crowds, we decided to try to find food at our next destination.

We went to the famous Mall of America (the largest mall in the United States). Again, we took the light rail from downtown. After wandering around the mall for a while and taking pictures with the giant Lego statues and roller coasters, we sat down for lunch at the food court. (In retrospect, we probably should have eaten lunch in downtown.) Aside from the amusement park and the giant Lego statues, the Mall of America is just like any typical American mall, except larger.

We went back to downtown to eat dinner at Restaurant Alma, which served an excellent 3-course dinner for ~$55/person. Valerie was excited that Restaurant Alma is a James Beard Award semifinalist.

In this episode of Valerie and Bryon Travel the World, Valerie and Bryon are going to drive an RV from Iowa to Alaska (accompanied by Valerie’s parents). We are going to pick up a brand new RV from the Winnebago factory in Forest City, IA and drop it off in Anchorage, AK about 18 days later. If this sounds appealing to you, you can sign up for next year’s Spring Adventure Package from Great Alaskan Holidays.

We flew from San Francisco to Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Belinda dropped us off at the Caltrain station.  We always leave lots of extra time for this transit since some terrible transit accident always seems to happen on this route.  Last time, a Caltrain fatality caused us to be delayed in transit by more than an hour.  This time, there was a Bart fatality.  It didn’t cause much delay, but maybe we should reconsider flying SFO if we can fly through SJC.

We arrived in Minneapolis around 18:30 and took the Blue line light rail into downtown for $1.75 each (including bus transfer). We hopped on a bus that took us to the Hyatt Regency, which Valerie booked on Priceline for the bargain rate of $60/night + tax. After setting in, we went out to Eatery 112, where we ate very tasty foie gras meatballs.

After the airboat ride, Valerie got to hold a baby alligator named Snappy. Valerie said that its skin was surprisingly soft. We took the bus to MIA and ate a quick meal at The Counter in the airport before hanging out in the American Airlines lounge for several hours before the flight. (Valerie was able to show her American Express card to get us in for free! Yay FlyerTalk!) Five and a half hours after boarding, we landed at SFO and Belinda kindly picked us up from the airport.

For the first time in our cruising history, we booked a airport transfer shore excursion through the cruise company: an airboat ride through the everglades followed by a ride to Miami International Airport. Unfortunately, due to the government shutdown, the airboat portion of the tour was cancelled on Wednesday night, so we cancelled our tour tickets. A few hours later, the government reopened and the airboat ride was back on, so we rebooked the tour. I’m glad we were out of the country for most of this government shutdown nonsense.

Valerie saw on TripAdvisor that the #1 rated attraction in Cartagena was the Segway tour. I’ve wanted to take a Segway tour for quite a while, but the exorbitant cost had consistently driven me away. Luckily, like most things in Colombia, the Segway tour cost much less than than state-side tours (although still expensive in Colombian terms). Our guide Jairo took us on a 1.5 hour personal tour of the old city. It was a little scary at times riding the Segway along the cracking city walls and potholed streets, but it allowed us to see the old city in much less time with much less walking. However, rushing though the streets on a Segway, you miss some of the character of the old city. Vendors are less likely to approach you and cars are less likely to hit you (although they still honk their horns).

After the tour, we headed to a local restaurant that Jairo recommended called La Mulata. We ate a typical, tasty, and inexpensive Cartagenan meal including fruit juice. After lunch, we visited some of the nearby souvenir shops and looked at Colombian emeralds, trinkets, and coffee (but not buying any) before heading back to the ship.

We woke up at 5:30am to get a good seat in the front of the ship for the transit through the Panama Canal. By the time we got the the Spinnaker Lounge on deck 13 forward, there were about 30 people there and most of the prime real estate was taken. We shuffled around some chairs and stayed and watched for about 5 hours before getting hungry and heading to the buffet. We also took some time to view the transit from other areas of the ship. Deck 8 forward offered an outside view of the bow, but was quite crowded the view wasn’t great unless you stood right next to the rail. Moderno restaurant and deck 7 both had a nice, relatively uncrowded view of the port and starboard sides of the ship. Since the ship only had about 1 foot of clearance on each side as it passed through the locks, the side decks provided a great view of the machinery, people, and buildings in the canal area. For the last lock, we went downstairs to deck 6, which was below the level of the surrounding ground. The view from below ground was quite interesting since most videos down show close-ups of the lock gates and walls.

Today was mostly recovering from the action packed day in Costa Rica. Our tour yesterday included a “typical” Costa Rican meal at a fancy resort on the hill. I’m not sure it was typical, but it was probably the best food that we ate all trip. The meal was served on a balcony overlooking a beautiful valley leading toward the ocean. It was probably the most beautiful venue that I’ve ever had the pleasure of dining.

We talked to some other passengers about their tours and many people remarked on the focus on “typical”: typical Costa Rican town, typical Costa Rican food, typical Costa Rican church, etc. Strangely, things in Mexico were not marketed as “typical”, so I wonder if this is a Costa Rica thing.

Today is our only stop in Costa Rica. Because of an air show in Puntarenas, our ship was diverted to the nearby commercial port of Puerto Caldera. This was unfortunate because we had already booked an excursion with an outside vendor (not via the cruise company). More unfortunately, the captain told us about the detour after we left Huatulco, so we needed to sign up for the ship’s expensive Internet in order to notify the tour company. Even more unfortunately, the tour company could not enter the port and security would not let us walk out of the port and no taxis were willing take us out. (Later we learned that the taxis are only allowed to enter the port a limited number of times per day and didn’t want to waste an entrance on us.) Luckily, a group of Chinese tourists graciously allowed us to share their taxi to the main entrance of the port. As far as we (and port security) could tell, this was the only cab that was willing to drive to the port entrance.

About an hour and a half after disembarking the ship, we boarded our tour guide Alberto’s van outside the port entrance. He drove us to the zipline area run by Vista Los Suenos that includes 12 exhilarating ziplines through the beautiful Costa Rican forests. The staff was very professional and helpful. Afterward, we quickly walked across the “Crocodile” bridge in the rain. Next, we visited a monkey mountain that sadly had no monkeys at the time we visited, but it was entertaining to watch Alberto and the owners try to summon monkeys down the hill for about 20 minutes.

Today was a relaxing day at sea. We neglected to attend most of the cruise events and instead slept a lot. Eventually, I walked up to the gym and worked out for about half an hour.

Puerto Chiapas is a commercial port in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The cruise staff suggested that since Puerto Chiapas is a commercial port that it contained little of touristic interest. They were correct. Luckily, the government of Mexico put up a nice set of giant traditional-looking huts containing a souvenir shop, pool, and bar within the cruise port right next to the cruise ship. We walked though the souvenir ship and then went to the bar, bought a beer, margarita, and guacamole. We heard from some other passengers that there was a $10 round trip shuttle to the nearby fishing village, but we neglected to take the shuttle and instead re-boarded the ship.