Monday February 9
The excitement builds today as we transfer from our hotel in Panama City to our home away from home on the Windsurf today. It’s an exceptional day for Windstar in that two of their ships are in the port of Colon today, the Wind Surf and the Star Pride. So the logistics are extra complicated. But they have things well in hand, with coloured tags and lists and different times for luggage pick up and bus pick up, etc.
The Windstar fleet consists of 3 “Wind Class” ships which have sails to augment the engine power and 4 “Star Class” ships which are engine driven.
I’ve been on two of the Star class ships, the Star Pride (2022 and 2023 Caribbean) and Star Legend (2024 Scotland). The Star Breeze is now in the South Pacific and the brand new Star Seeker which was just launched at the end of 2025 is doing a repositioning and introductory itinerary. Another brand new ship will be added at the end of this year.
Of the Wind Class ships, I’ve been on the Wind Star (2025 Caribbean), the Wind Spirit (2020 South Pacific), which are both 4 masted but this will be first time on the Wind Surf which is a little larger and 5 masted. It is a sister ship to one that is currently owned by Club Med which I’ve seen in a port somewhere along the way.
From what I’ve seen on social media, the Wind Surf has a special place in the hearts of Windstar groupies for some reason, so we’ll see what my thoughts are after this cruise. The Surf is the largest of the fleet with a capacity of 342 passengers in a total of 150 staterooms, a few more than the Icon of the Seas of the Royal Caribbean line which holds a whopping 7,600! (We have only roughly 230 on board for this portion of the cruise).
We, and our luggage, arrived safe and sound at the cruise ship terminal in the busy industrial port of Colon about 1.5 hours after our departure from Panama City and clear across the country, well the narrow part, anyway.
Colon sits at the entrance to the Panama Canal on the Caribbean side and has a population of less than 1000,000. It was founded in 1850 during the construction of the Panama Railway that serviced the demand for transportation between the Pacific and Atlantic during the California Gold Rush.
Fun Fact – U.S. Senator John McCain was born at the U.S. Navy Hospital in the Canal Zone which is now Colon.
Other than its industrial and port activities, I’m not sure there are many redeeming qualities for the port city other than duty-free shopping. It’s pointed out in one of the guide articles I was reading that “the entire city of Colon is a high crime area, travellers should use extreme caution anywhere in Colon”. However, there are others that suggest that as long as you exercise normal caution that there is much culture and natural beauty to explore. We visited a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fort San Lorenza just outside the city last year when we were on our itinerary that started in Costa Rica and ended in Barbados and it was a really interesting site.
Today we drove along a highway that ran parallel to the Panama Canal, and the distance that took us 1.5 hours to drive takes ships all day to navigate through all the locks along the canal. Today I was glad to be driving although a ship is really an interesting way to traverse the isthmus. I still recall sailing under the Bridge of the Atlantic when entering the canal for the first time on board the Star Pride just as the sun was coming up. Breathtaking.
BTW, when I came through Panama Immigration Control, they had the usual signs indicating lines for returning residents, foreign visitors, etc. One I have never seen before was for “Seafarers”. Tells you how big shipping is to the country!
Upon our arrival and after the quick check-in process that took all of 2 minutes, we wandered through the ever-present cruise ship port shopping mall on our way to the ship and were greeted and welcomed on board by the Hotel Manager of the Surf who is from Turkey. (He’s responsible for all room and food service – big job). The crew is always a huge mix of nationalities which makes for interesting chats. We’ve seen three staff members already who were on the Star Pride last year and they amazingly remembered us. One of them joked with me and asked if I wanted my normal Long Island Ice Tea, because I always order just ice tea, and he always responded with, “one Long Island Ice Tea coming up”. What an amazing memory he has!
The next couple of hours were a little crazy busy with picking up snorkel gear, booking dinners at the specialty restaurants, unpacking, attending muster drill, finding my way around the water tight doors that appear when coming in and going out of port, handing in my spa contest form, phew. Ship life is hard! Finally I was able to sit and enjoy an iced tea while listening to the fantastic violin playing of one of the onboard entertainers. He is fabulous and has an amazing repertoire. I’m really going to enjoy listening to him. While all that was going on, we quietly slipped away from our berth in the very large and sheltered Port of Colon, with the pilot boat dropping by to pick up their pilot as we approached the breakwater.
We attended the excursions and shore talk which is the usual meeting place for Clair and I if we’ve been off doing different things. This first day they reviewed all the excursions for the upcoming week and then more specifically the port talk for tomorrow in Bocas del Torro. We have already signed up for excursions for many of our days, but there were some new ones as well. One of the ones he described as horse back riding through the hills of the islands. Clair and I looked at each other and laughed, because this cruise is definitely the white haired set, of which we are both members mind you! And not meant to be unkind, I said to her, “he needs to read the room”.
Dinner was fabulous, as it always is. They had two of my favourite things on the menu, a tomato tart as an appie and key lime pie for dessert. This is apparently one of the special James Beard Foundation cruises featuring a chef from Seattle who will be providing 2 cooking demonstrations this week which I hope to attend if the timing works. James Beard Foundation restaurants are recognized for culinary excellence and all of the Windstar ships are recognized by the Foundation which gives them access to amazing visiting chefs on some cruises.
So yeah, life is going to be rough for the next 19 days. Glad you’re along for the ride.
Oh and P. S. I can’t believe it that I forgot to get a picture of the ship before we boarded today. Oh well, will get one eventually.
Lois' Adventures 