Itinerary Overview

BOSTON to MIAMI to RIO

March 01 we have an afternoon flight from Boston to Miami where we change planes for an overnight flight to Rio, arriving there about 7:00 AM on March 02.

Holland-America Line's MAASDAM
 

Day	Date	Port	Arrive	Depart
0	02 Mar 2014	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1	03 Mar 2014	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2	04 Mar 2014	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil		05:00 PM
3	05 Mar 2014	Armacao dos Buzios, Brazil	08:00 AM	02:00 PM
4	06 Mar 2014	At Sea
5	07 Mar 2014	Salvador da Bahia, Brazil	08:00 AM	11:59 PM
6	08 Mar 2014	At Sea
7	09 Mar 2014	At Sea
8	10 Mar 2014	Fortaleza, Brazil	08:00 AM	05:00 PM
9	11 Mar 2014	At Sea
10	12 Mar 2014	At Sea
11	13 Mar 2014	Crossing the Equator
11	13 Mar 2014	Cruising the Amazon River CO
12	14 Mar 2014	Santarem, Brazil	08:00 AM	06:00 PM
13	15 Mar 2014	Boca da Valeria, Brazil	08:00 AM	04:00 PM
14	16 Mar 2014	Manaus, Brazil	10:00 AM
15	17 Mar 2014	Manaus, Brazil		04:00 PM
16	18 Mar 2014	Parintins, Brazil	08:00 AM	05:00 PM
17	19 Mar 2014	Alter Do Chao, Brazil	08:00 AM	05:00 PM
18	20 Mar 2014	Cruising the Amazon River
18	20 Mar 2014	Crossing the Equator
19	21 Mar 2014	At Sea
20	22 Mar 2014	At Sea
21	23 Mar 2014	Bridgetown, Barbados	08:00 AM	05:00 PM
22	24 Mar 2014	Roseau, Dominica	08:00 AM	05:00 PM
23	25 Mar 2014	Philipsburg (St. Maarten), AN	08:00 AM	04:00 PM
24	26 Mar 2014	At Sea
25	27 Mar 2014	At Sea

FORT LAUDERDALE

The ship docks in Ft. Lauderdale at 8:00 AM on March 28.  As an addendum to our cruise, we will be joining daughter Elizabeth and her family for three days at Hillsboro Club in Hillsboro Beach, Florida.

[photo found on WWW]

RETURN HOME

March 02: Hello Rio

Yesterday afternoon we flew from Boston to Miami where we changed planes for the overnight flight to Rio de Janeiro.  By the time dinner was served and cleared there remained about five hours of sleep time before arriving in Rio.  This is not to say that we got five hours sleep.  The accommodations were dated and we encountered periodic turbulence, vibrating us awake whenever we dozed off.

We descended into Rio through mostly cloudy skies and a little rain.  We zipped through immigration and customs, only to have our progress towards the ship come to a grinding haul outside customs.  We were told there would be a 90 minute wait before we could board our transfer bus.  We began our visit to Rio killing time in the airport food court.

Once on the bus we made good time into the city until the ship was nearly in sight, at which point we started running into detours around the parade route for Carnaval.  We actually saw MAASDAM at one point just a few blocks away, however, the bus promptly turned in the opposite direction.  We saw an interesting cross-section of the city.  There were multiple venues where people in costume were preparing for another day/night of celebrating.  We passed floats from the previous night’s parade being towed away and floats for tonight’s parade covered in plastic. 

We finally got to the port and the pier where MAASDAM was berthed with three other cruise ships.  After another, this time thankfully brief, period of constipated progress, we boarded MAASDAM where we spent the remainder of the day unpacking and relaxing. 

MARCH 03: Rio de Janeiro – Daytime Exploration

Today we walked around the city in the morning seeing some of the floats awaiting this evening’s street parade. 

- - - - -

On our morning exploration, we left MAASDAM with the destination of seeing the oldest cathedral in Rio.  We had walked only a few blocks when we came upon a side street full of floats.  The floats are so big that upper and side parts were lowered, taken in or detached to move them. 

After we looked at a number of the floats, we reset our course for the cathedral.  Once again we only got a few blocks before our interest was captured by a convoy of floats on the move to the beginning of the parade route.  Many were self-propelled, but some were pushed by gangs of men who appeared to be having fun doing it.

For the third time we headed for the cathedral, this time reaching it only to discover a shabby, uninteresting edifice on the outside that was locked up tighter than a drum. 

Returning to MAASDAM, we came upon another convoy of floats moving to the start of the parade route.

We eventually made it back to the ship in time to get some food and rest before departing for a night of parades at the Sambadome.