Panama Canal Cruise January 2001       We left San Diego on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas and headed first for Cabo San Lucas where we took the whale watching trip and got to see lots of migrating whales.  It was awesome.  After Cabo we docked in Puntarenas, Costa Rico where we toured the countryside and visited a coffee plantation.  The Panama Canal lives up to all its press.  It is a magnificent engineering feat, and going through those locks was fascinating.  Following the canal passage we stopped in Cartagena, Colombia, then Oranjestad, Aruba before returning to Miami.  We traveled these fourteen days with eight friends and had a great time on shipboard and on land.