mahdnc

Even though you are looking back at the Panama Canal, the aft balcony views were very awesome and more relaxing. Here we are watching the doors close at the Miraflores Locks. The Miraflores Visitor Center is the tall building on the right (where the IMAX theater is located). Because it was late in the day (~5:30pm), there were not too many visitors watching us. In fact, there were not too many passengers watching either! Main (Early) Seating at the MDR was at 5:30pm which meant that you would be eating when Summit passed through the Miraflores Locks. Fortunately for us, we had a 7pm dining reservation at the Tuscan Grille.

I never noticed this before, but many of the freighters we saw yesterday at the canal had nice names--names that you might give to your sailboat or yacht. There was Cool Explorer: Followed by Nirvana Explorer: Crystal Sunrise went through the new locks: Here is Clearocean Music: And then Pacific Jade:

Here are some more random photos taken from Gatun Locks during our canal crossing yesterday. Here is another photo of the passengers line up at the heliport rail. The rain did not seem to dampen our enthusiasm. The crowds seemed to be the largest at the beginning of the day (Gatun Locks). By the time we got to the last set of locks (Miraflores), the crowd had thinned out considerably Gatun Locks' set of 3 locks in each direction was easily my favorite. It was the busiest set of locks when we went through it (luck of the draw). Gatun Locks had the largest elevation gain in the shortest distance so seeing these large freighters elevated above you was absolutely amazing. A view of Gatun Locks from our aft balcony after we sailed through it.

Oh, I almost forgot. Here is a time lapse video taken when we crossed the Pacific side locks: link

And finally, some photos taken at the Miraflores Locks. In the next photo, you can see two small boats sharing the lock in the left of the photo with a big freighter.

Just as there are 3 locks to get up from the Atlantic Ocean up to Gatun Lake, there are 3 locks to take Summit back down to the level of the Pacific Ocean. However the 3 lock chambers are distributed between two named locks--the Pedro Miguel Lock (a single lock) and the Miraflores Lock (which has two locks). Miraflores Lake, a little manmade lake, lay in between Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. I decided to watch the sailing through these locks from our aft balcony cabin. Here are some photos: The ship in the next photo is heading to the new Cocoli Locks. The narrater said that the ship was short enough to go through the old locks, but it was 15 feet too wide. A view off the starboard side from our balcony: These two small boats shared a the same lock chamber with a large freighter. They were headed in the same direction as Summit was (towards the Pacific) but they were west side locks while we were in the east side lock (both sets are the old locks). Here is the freighter (black hull), entering the lock with the two small boats in front of it (not visible in the photo): Here is a spy photograph of passenger(s) and butler on the balcony of a Celebrity Suite:

After Summit cleared the Gatun Locks, she would sail through Gatun Lake and onto the Pacific side locks. My wife and I headed to the MDR for lunch during that time. The MDR was pretty crowded although we were seated by a window. Here was the lunch menu: I ordered the Chef's Recommendations again. After we finished lunch we took a quick look outside in the port side public deck on Deck 4 before we went back to our cabin. The canal had narrowed considerably while we were at lunch.

Here are a couple more photos before we entered the Gatun Locks. This photo shows what is left of one of the ill-fated French attempts to dig the canal: This yellow tug boat was positioning itself behind Summit as we approached the Gatun Locks:

Here is a link to a time lapse video I took from the back of our balcony was we crossed the Gatun Locks: link I took the time lapse with my iPhone on a tripod. A backpack of filled water bottles hung off the bottom of the center pole to provide weight for the tripod to prevent it from blowing over.

Here is a photo that I took from our balcony before I headed ot the helipad: The myriad of activities at the Gatun Locks was absolutely mesmerizing and sometime helped me to ignore the lousy weather (but not the bugs, there was nothing that was going to make me forget about those things).

It rained most of the day when we crossed the canal. It was at its worst in the morning when we were at Gatun Locks and I was at the helipad. The crew handed out umbrellas which was good for those standing under them, not so good for those of us trying to look over them. There was a fifteen minute period where the rain fall was pretty hard. You couldn't get a good photo and I wondered what I was doing there. What was worse were these flying insects that looked like small ants when they landed on you (and stayed on you and they collected on you). There was a point when we were exiting the Gatun Locks that we were all heavily covered by these insects. Gross. As we were entering the Gatun Locks, we could see a container ship being escorted to the entrance to the new Agua Clara locks.

There was a lot of waving at passing ships. But most of the time, we kept our attention at the locks ahead of us. Sometimes it was hard to take a photo from the back row.

Gatun Locks Gatun Locks are on the Atlantic side and it consists of 3 consecutive locks to step us up to the level of Gatun Lake. To me, it was the most impressive view of the Panama Canal locks that we the entire day because: 1. There were 3 ships (not including us) in the locks when we arrived. So it was a hotbed of activity. 2. You could see huge ships at 3 different heights at the same time--with Summit being at the lowest level.

The helipad was open to all passengers during the entire canal crossing. The helipad is accessed on Deck 5 by going to the Celebrity Theatre. Signs directed you along the way. When I got out there, the railings were 3-5 people deep. It was difficult to find a spot to stand with an reasonably obstructed view. We were approaching our first set of locks of the day and there was a lot of excitement in the humid air. Looking back towards the bridge, you can clearly see that the outdoor Retreat area (highest deck visible in the photo below) had a nice elevated view of the locks without the crowds. It might have been the best seat in the house. If I were Celebrity, I would have driven that point home by hanging a large banner beneath the Retreat area in full view of the heliport passengers with the words, "This is the Retreat area--you could have been here" or something like that.

Sorry I haven't posted today as it was a real looong day! To me, the crossing started when we sailed under the Atlantic Bridge at about 7am and it ended at 6:30 pm when we passed the Bridge of Americas. So it was almost a 12 hour day. Before we went to bed the night before the crossing, I set my alarm at 7am and I filled out the room service breakfast card to be delivered at 7:30 am (no way we were we going to waste any time at the dining room for breakfast). When we woke up at 7am, the Panama Canal narrator came over the ship's public address system to announce that we were about to sail under the Atlantic Bridge as we lined up to go to the Gatun Locks. I hadn't fully decided about my viewing/photography spots for the canal crossing, but when I woke up, I was thinking about just staying in our aft cabin and watching the crossing from the comfort of our balcony. I turned on the stateroom television and turned to Channel 1 to hear the narration in our cabin. Channel 1 is the navigation channel and it cyclically shows a couple different navigation maps and an video image from the bridge of the ship's bow and horizon. When I saw the bridge camera view, I could see the the Gatun Locks and a crowd of passengers at the helipad. Upon seeing that, I immediately abandoned the idea of staying in the cabin and I decided to head out to the bow (Marcia stayed behind in the cabin/balcony because she is not as crazy about having to get the best view of the canal).

It's good to hear from you, Mary. As you know we did the full transit across the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There were no issues as far as water levels go. Now that Panama has entered the rainy season, it appears they are out of the woods as long as they get the expected rainfall over the coming months.

We have done several Christmas/New Years sailings including this past Dec. Specialty dining will not be bookable until about 90 days before sailing. When pricing does come out you will find that the prices are very high (with a special menu) for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. For the other evenings, the pricing is slightly above normal.

I am sorry that happened to you. Really bad luck. April weather is very unpredictable. General history says that Texas is best and Maine is worst. The actual weather turned out to be the exact opposite: Maine had the best conditions and much of Texas was fighting clouds with varying degrees of success. When we arrived at our viewing spot in Vienna, IL, it was extremely foggy. It took the whole morning for the fog to burn off and skies to clear. We still had very thin cirrus clouds to contend with when totality arrived but fortunately it was inconsequential.

A couple more photos of Summit docked at Colon:

This is what was issued in our Celebrity Today (for tomorrow):

After we left the Agua Clara Visitor Center, our bus crossed over the Atlantic Bridge so we could see the Atlantic side locks from a distance (the bus ended up making a U-turn after crossing the bridge to re-cross it again which allowed passengers on the other side of the bus to see it as well. The weather was raining at the time and so our view was compromised during the bridge crossings. For the second part of the tour, the bus took us to the Miraflores Visitor Center. This center was built in 2004. To me, it seemed to be better than the Agua Clara Visitor Center. It seemed to have a lot more covered viewing areas. There was a Morgan Freeman narrated IMAX documentary (approx 20 minutes long) where you could buy popcorn, soda, hot dogs, etc like you were at a movie theater. And yes, the theater was air conditioned. The movie is a 3D requiring special glasses to wear. I thought the 3D effects were pretty good. The theater is very large. When we arrived a few minutes after the start of the movie, we had difficulty in finding empty seats, but eventually we were directed towards the front where there were a couple of rows that were not occupied. I am not sure what you have to do to get on this tour that allowed you past the fence line and onto the locks themselves. The tour guide had a Panama Canal Authority shirt on.

Here is blizzard of photos and some words on the Celebrity shore excursion that we took today. The excursion was Destination Highlight: Expansion of the Panama Canal "The Present and The Future". I purchased the excursion through the Cruise Planner for $176 for the two of us back on Aug 30--during a Flash Sale. We were instructed to bring our passports but it was never examined by anyone. I believe that there were 3 motor coach buses devoted to this specific tour. The buses were fairly standard--clean, well air conditioned with 2 seats on either side of the aisle and an open shelf overhead for storage. We were permitted to leave personal items on the bus as we got on and off the bus a couple times. From a viewing standpoint, one side of the bus did not have a distinct advantage over the other side. The bus was staffed with a driver and an English speaking guide. We were instructed to meet at the Celebrity Theatre at 10:15 am. By 10:30 am we were led off the ship to board our buses. The buses took us back to the pier by 5:15 pm. It was longer than I expected it to be--or to put it more accurately, it was longer than what I led my wife to believe. There was a small box lunch served consisting of a ham sandwich on a french roll and a corn muffin. Cold bottled water was also handed out. The bus ride itself was comfortable. The roads were in excellent condition and did not wind around. The tour consisted of two parts--visting the Agua Clara Visitor Center and then the Miraflores Visitor Center. First, the bus drove from the pier in Colon to the new Agua Clara Visitor Center which has a nice view of the new (larger) locks located on the Atlantic side of the canal. When we arrived, a large red freighter was being escorted into the locks from the Gatun Lake side. However there were so passengers visiting the center (several bus loads from Summit) that I found it difficult to find a good unobstructed viewing area. @julieawill was telling me that she and her husband did not have a problem so perhaps I didn't look hard enough at all the viewing venues that were available. The doors to the new larger locks consist of double sliding doors: I found the crowd of people to be a bit of a problem. The small gift shop had a long line to check out at the single cashier station and we skipped the 10 minute film because of the long line: We were strongly encouraged to use the restroom before we left the visitor center because of the very long bus ride to the second part of the tour.

Tonight’s dinner menu at the MDR along with photos of the pasta primavera and the braised beef short rib: One of the kitchen’s chefs made an appearance at the dining room: My wife and I had Cherries Jubilee for dessert.

While patiently waiting for our number to be called, we met the person who fell yesterday during our independent shore excursion. Fractured wrist….

We are docked at Colon under cloudy skies. We arrived around 9am and were cleared at 9:25am. We are at the Celebrity Theatre in Deck 4 waiting for our group number (27) to be called. You are required to bring your passport with you ashore.