October 8th 2018 partial

Hi everyone, we booked a partial transit cruise, Caribbean Princess from Ft Lauderdale for next year. Can anyone tell me what a partial transit entails, how far do you transit before you turn around? Can you get off and look around or do you just do a U turn and go back? Thanks in advance

A little reading on the board will find tons of info, in many threads.

Most "partials" go in to Gatun Lake via the Gatun Locks in the morning. Go to a point near a marina, where only cruise line excursion pax can tender ashore for their excursion. Then the ship goes back out the Gatun Locks and docks at Colon, picking up the excursion pax later in the afternoon.

The partial transits from Florida really don't transit a great deal of the Canal, only about 8 miles worth. It does give you the opportunity to experience locking through the locks on the Atlantic side of the Canal. Once you reach the Gatun Lake Anchorage those passengers selecting shore excursions will tender off the ship for their tour. As Bruce indicated while you are on your excursion the ship will lock back down for the short sail to Colon where you will rejoin the ship. There are a lot of great tours that will allow you to see some of Panama. One of the more popular shore excursions is the excursion that takes you through the original locks on the Pacific side and through Gaillard Cut on a smaller vessel. However when you combine your transit through the Atlantic Locks in the AM and the Pacific Locks on your excursion, you get to a large part of the Canal. It is also a great experience to see the Canal operations from the smaller vessel.

Oh, one other thing, since you will be on the Caribbean Princess you will be locking through the new expansion locks, Agua Clara as she is too large for Gatun Locks. If you take the tour I referenced above you will have a great opportunity to experience the new locks as well as the legacy locks. It's a great cruise... I've done several partial and I think it would be great to experience the new locks.

We did the partial transit on the Island Princess and enjoyed it immensely. My wife took tons of pictures for her website. You may be going to some of the same ports of call that we visited on our cruise. If you have time, you may want to take a look at her website at the link below which includes our shore excursions. It may give you an idea of what to expect.

Partial Panama Cruise on the Island Princess

Have a great cruise!