mahdnc

I purchased the Specialty Dining Trio through our Cruise Planner on May 24th last year for $222 for two people including the gratuity charge. The "trio" is 2 dinners + 1 lunch. Anytime you buy a dining package in advance, you cannot schedule the meals until you get on board. We were given only one date that was available for lunch at the Tuscan Grille--and that was for yesterday (Fri Apr 26, Sea Day #3 of 8). The restaurant was pretty busy for lunch. Here is the menu and a coupe of food photos: Here is the crab parfait: and the mushroom cappucino. After enduring the flying ant-like insects that swarmed me at the ship's heli-pad at Gatun Lock on the day before, I inspected this soup very closely before eating it: I had the buttered poached lobster black truffle emulsion for the main course: Limoncello cheesecake for dessert. This cheesecake looks like it is topped with melted cheese in the photograph--I assure you that it was not:

I think you will be looking at a non-Celebrity cruise sailing then. I know several years before COVID, Celebrity did offer that type of Florida to South America itinerary. I haven't seen it for a while--heck Celebrity isn't even doing South America this year. As you know, Celebrity now positions its fleet so it stays on the same ocean year round for most of its ships. Some ships do the Caribbean/Bermuda in the winter and then Europe in the summer. Other ships do Alaska in the summer and then Australia/Asia in the winter. And (as you know) Summit is the only one doing the full transit as she moves between Alaska (summer) and Caribbean (winter). But that means that Celebrity does the full Panama Canal only twice a year. The funny thing is that Celebrity used to do the Panama Canal a lot when the fleet was smaller. Here is a link to an old eight page Jan 1998- Apr 1999 Itinerary Guide that I got during a cruise aboard Mercury. Looking at it now several things stand out to me: 1. Celebrity only had 5 ships--none of them are currently sailing for Celebrity anymore. 2. However there were 30 full Panama Canal sailings scheduled during that 16 month period. 3. Some of her Alaska sailings included Glacier Bay. 4. The back cover lists Celebrity's advertising resume' which includes "Award-winning cuisine by master chef Michel Roux. Fresh food, always prepared from scratch." Those were the days! I hope you find a Panama Canal itinerary that suits you in the near future.

Here is a time lapse video of our sail away from Miami (link). I had trouble getting this 24 second video to upload until recently which is why I am posting it now.

We got our first bag of laundry back (18 pieces) yesterday afternoon after we sent it out on the evening of Apr 23. Our stateroom attendant, Gede, said that it was done the evening on the day before but we had the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. So 48-64 hr turnaround time depending on how you look at it. We got chocolates on the first night of the cruise but nothing afterward. I asked our stateroom attendant what the current practice is. He said chocolates are available upon request. So we made the request on the spot--and I asked for backpay in chocolates for the nights missed as well. And since I was in the requesting mode, I asked for all the chocolates to be milk chocolate and not the dark ones.

For some reason, our itinerary was adjusted many months ago to have us dock at Puntarenas (Costa Rica) at 5:30 am. At 7:30 am there was an announcement that the ship has been cleared by immigration. We are heading to breakfast now.

That's ok. In Post #260, I posted several photos of the many mules that we saw during the crossing. The Beyond the Podium speaker said that they cost a couple million dollars each (I cannot remember the exact figure). It was interesting to watch them work and they are part of the charm of the old locks. The new locks do not have them. The ship positioning is managed completely by tugboats which accompany the ship into the locks.

Yeah, I think the Cruise Critic website works now on my Chrome browser. I have received error messages on a couple of different days during this cruise indicating that the CC website/server is down. Thank you for posting screenshots of Summit crossing the canal as I wanted to do that, too, but simply didn't have time. When I was up at the bow, I was able to get a weak Wi-Fi signal and quickly took one screenshot and iMessaged it to my parents to remind them to look at the canal webcam to watch us.

Here is a final set of photos from our day at the Panama Canal. If you are a hard core Panama Canal enthusiast, there really is no dead time during the 12 hour crossing that you can break away and not miss something. I ordered room service for breakfast and paid the room service charge to get a hot breakfast because I didn't want us to miss the start of things. That was a good decision looking back on it. In my mind I figured I could take get lunch at the MDR while we were cruising Gatun Lake. However we ended up sailing through some of the Culebra Cut while we were eating. Knowing that, I would have done something different like get room service again or run up to the Oceanview Cafe and grab something to take back to the cabin. And as I mentioned in another post, our MDR dinner early seating time was at 5:30 pm and we were still going through the Miraflores Locks at the time. When we got back to the cabin after lunch, we were sailing through the last parts of the Culebra Cut on our approach to the Pedro Miguel Locks under the watchful eye of a tugboat trailing behind us. Sailing through the cut is interesting not just from a history perspective, but also because it is unusual to be on a cruise ship and see the shore so close to either side for an extended period df time. A forward view from the helipad (or Retreat area) or the view from an aft balcony (or Sunset Bar) really gives you that river cruise view effect. Thankfully we got back to our cabin in time to watch Summit sail under the second of three bridges along the canal route--the Centennial Bridge. Roll call member @julieawill and her husband happen to book the Ultra Deluxe Veranda cabin next to ours and you can see both of them in the above photo. We later invited them to our balcony so they could get a starboard side view of the canal because the other set of locks were on the starboard side of Summit when she crossed the Pacific side locks. When Summit crossed the Atlantic side locks, the other set of locks were on the port side of the ship. I presume that this is all random and nothing you can plan the cruise by. Summit's crew required access to the Penthouse Suite's balcony when we arrived at the Pedro Miguel Locks to help get the ship connected to the mules (photo below). I guess that is what the external stairs that pop up on the Penthouse Suite deck are for--so that the crew do not have to trudge through the Penthouse Suite itself when they have to do this type of work. Watching the crossing of the Panama Canal from the Penthouse Suite balcony must be nice. The Penthouse Suite on the port side of the ship in the photo below had friends over to watch Summit cruise through the Pacific side locks. Most canal enthusiasts are well aware that the Panama Canal does not use pumps to fill and empty the locks. The large amounts of water are moved by gravity. To facilitate the movement of water by gravity, there are a number of huge culverts (pipes) on floor of each lock. Below is a photo where you can the surface of the water in the lock being disturbed during the filling of the lock. Even though I have seen it with my own eyes, the large scale of this man-made canal and the ships that pass through it are hard to fathom and certainly are not reflected in any photo. Below is a photo taken from the bow of the last set of Gatun Locks that brought us up to Gatun Lake's level. You can see the two cables on the left side of the photo that connect Summit to one of the mules. Walkways are installed on many (but not all) of the doors of the locks that permit personnel to walk across when the doors are closed.

For the past 12 hours or so, I have been unable to get on the Cruise Critic website. First I thought it was a connection problem on Summit. Then I thought it was a problem with the website. This morning I tried a different web browser (used Safari instead of Chrome) and that seems to have solved the problem. I have some catching up to do on this thread. Sorry.

We may do just that. It's funny though--since November we have been on cruise vacations that have taken us to Ecuador (Nov Xpedition), Vietnam (Dec Solstice), Ethiopia (Dec Solstice flight home), Columbia (Apr Summit) and they all claim to have the best coffee!

I told my wife the same thing. It's just that she happens to be going into the Pacific.

A few random photos of the famous "mules" whose main purpose is to keep the transiting ships centered in the lock and away from the side walls. In some of the photos you can see a pair of thin steel cables coming from the mules and are attached to Summit.

What are "trugs"? Tugs?

Thank you both for the compliment and the information!

The luxury yacht that was one of the three ships to share the same lock at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks was very nice looking. She is named H2O. My Marine Traffic app says that she is Marshall Islands flagged and built in 2023. Perhaps she is headed back to the Marshall Islands--a trip considerably longer than the Capt Andy's catamaran which probably was heading to Kauai. She had two covered jet-skis sitting at the bow. I think two small white rectangles mounted on top of the canopy are Starlink dishes. Very nice. Her anchors were beautiful shiny chrome. I am not sure how you maintain that look in the long run after it's been used a lot.

The Capt Andy's catamaran had its business URL on it, so I emailed some of the photos I took of her to them.

Yesterday when we crossed the Bridge of the Americas (bridge on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal), it was getting dark with nightfall approaching. Built in 1962, the bridge was originally known as the Thatcher Ferry Bridge. The bridge was named after the Thatcher Ferry which operated at that location and the ferry was named after Maurice Thatcher who was associated with the Canal Zone commission. The people of Panama later changed it to its present day name. The "low" height of this bridge prevents some ships from sailing through the Panama Canal even though they might fit through the new locks such as the Oasis class ships. The catamaran sailing under the Bridge of the Americas in the above photo belongs to Capt Andy's according to the signage on the boat. A quick look at their website shows that Capt Andy's operates tours at the famous Na Pali coastline of Kauai. I guess that is where she is heading! She was one of the two small boats that shared the same lock with the large freighter going through the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks. The photo below shows all three ships together at Miraflores in the left most lock. The catamaran is the front-most boat with the thin long white mast.

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. When I walked back to our aft cabin from the helipad just after crossing all three Gatun Locks which was around noon-ish, I was surprised how many passengers were in the interior public areas going about their business like it was a normal cruise day (reading their tablet, doing a puzzle, etc).

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: