In March we headed south for our first expedition with Lindblad Expeditions. The weather was cold and there was snow on the ground in Reno. After a week aboard the National Geographic Seal Lion in Baja California we were convinced that another Lindblad Expedition was a must.
One of the families on the Baja cruise was a doctor from Colorado and her two children. One was 9 and the other was 14. We were impressed by how much they enjoyed the cruise.
We have a nine year old grand-nephew who would enjoy the educational experience of taking a cruise. So when I returned to Reno I started looking into what would be an appropriate cruise during summer vacation. We had already taken two small ship cruises in Alaska so that did not make much sense to us. We started looking to at Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica and Panama Canal destinations.
Since this would be an "educational" trip the Panama Canal included the history of its construction, mechanical challenges and operating the canal. Costa Rica and the Panama Canal was the itinerary and now the planning.
I asked Lisa, Matthew's mom, if they would be interested in joining us on the cruise. After deliberation of a couple of seconds, she said yes.
I booked the cruise in May 2009 with a departure of early October. We decided to not tell Matthew right away. Coincidentally, Matthew was researching Theodore Roosevelt in the 2nd grade and thus a link to the canal was in effect.
I was on the Lindblad web site getting background information when I noticed that Central America had disappeared. No "dot" on the map, no itinerary, no ships - nothing. I called my travel advisor AdventureSmith Explorations in Tahoe City and found out that because of downturn in business, Lindblad was reevaluating the Central America itinerary. As it turned out they decided to use their own ship the Sea Lion, which would be normally in Mexico, for the Costa Rica & Panama itinerary and start in December.
This gave me a mild panic attack but looking back Lindblad was showing sound business sense by reevaluating their itinerary. I have always felt that Lindblad was a class act and now know they’re good business people are also.
We decided to tell Matthew about the trip on August 15 the anniversary of the opening of the canal in 1914. After a dinner of Costa Rican rice and beans, orange pulled pork with maps we told Matthew about the trip to Costa Rica and Panama that we had planned but as of now had been canceled. We told him maybe we would go to the Galapagos Islands instead.
Later when Costa Rica and Panama was reinstated, we had another dinner together to confirm we were really going but now it would be in December.
Now it was JUST airline reservations, hotel reservations and waiting and anticipating for the upcoming experience.
Costa Rica and Panama Canal > Prolog > Day one