Stacy-b

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Day 5 Dailies. Panama Canal Day.

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Sailing under the Bridge of the Americas.

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I believe the 1.3 million is not what the Bliss paid... the 1.3 figure is just about identical to what the container ship CMA CGM Theodore Roosevelt paid when she went through the Canal about 6 months ago. The TR set the record for being the largest ship to have transited the Canal and has a capacity for more than 14,000 TEU containers. She is physically somewhat larger than the Bliss at 1200'x158', so I am doubtful that they would have paid the same toll.

 

 

 

Tolls at the Canal are calculated on the capacity of the vessel and not necessarily how much it is carrying. Now there are allowances made in the tolls charged if the vessel is in ballast, ie. no commercial cargo whatsoever, but it is still based on the capacity of the ship. In the case of the Bliss the capacity is determined on the total number of passenger berths, not the total number of passengers. So all the unoccupied berths in cabins that have the 3rd and 4th berth are included in the total pushing figure to over the 4000 mark. The 4000 figure is accurate enough to get a good idea of what she paid. The toll for passenger ships using the new locks is $148/per passenger berth when carrying any revenue passengers and $119/ppb when not carrying any revenue passengers.

 

 

 

4000x148= 592,000

 

35000 Reservation fee for a specific date

 

30000 Daylight transit guarantee

 

17000 Tug services

 

6000 Line handlers

 

 

 

That figure comes out to $680,000, but that is largely dependent on the passenger berth count at 4000... I think it could be possible to round that up to somewhere in the area of 4500 depending on just how many more berths are available above double occupancy. The Canal in some of their press releases have put the figure at 5000, don't know how accurate that is. Those figures above are the key figures, but there are some minor charges that could be added into the total depending on whether the service was actually used. One extra for instance is if the Canal provided a person to give commentary for the transit, which is $470 the last I checked.

Jovo, the Hotel Director, told me that our bill for crossing was 1.3 million. I also heard someone say that the crew counts, too.

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This was fun, but no useful for us!! [emoji3]

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Day 4 Dailies!

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Day 3 Dailies!

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Day 2 dailies. Sorry! Thought I posted them!!

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Gatun Lake. We were so close to land, similar to the inside passage in Alaska. There was a crocodile on shore and one point. Heard it over the speaker but didn’t see it.

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We started at about 7:00 in the morning. We were through the first locks by 10:30 am. Then we cleaned up, ate, etc., until 2:00 when we got to the 2nd locks. We were in Gatun Lake between locks, which was incredibly beautiful! The second set of locks took longer than expected. It was 7:45 before we went under the Bridge of America’s (in the dark). We sat for a long time waiting in the gates. We were talking afterward about how surprised we were that we just sat and watched all day! It was fascinating.

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Stacy, thanks for posting the menus. If you happen to go to Pincho Tapa's could you please pose their menu, can't seem to find it in a search. Thanks, Judy

There isn’t a restaurant on the ship with that name? Food Republic or Los Lobos?

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Creme brûlée

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Profiteroles! So so so good!!!

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Filet

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Scallops

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Le Bistro menu!!

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Some would call it a commercial resource that the country, whose territory the canal crosses, rightly benefits from. If ships do not want to pay, they can go around Cape Horn....a longer route in distance and time, and likely a more dangerous route, especially if during the southern winter.

So, the manpower and resources to get us through today was astounding. I think it costs quite a bit. I don’t think the profit margin is huge.

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Stacy, was that small white ship also at the locks with you the Regent Seven Seas Explorer? I bet she really looked tiny next to eh Bliss, I had seen the pic of the HAL Amsterdam and the Bliss was almost triple the size.

It is a Regent...not sure which one.

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That looks like a rough life!!!

It is!![emoji3][emoji3] Today didn’t suck!!

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Finally getting closer!!

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$800,000 plus 62.5% service charge. :D

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More like $148 per person, I heard!!

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Thanks for your pictures and review, can't wait for the Haven in December. Which cabin # are you in?

17712

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Just a bit of interesting information - it costs NCL $800,000 to transit the canal (this was reported on Regent's Navigator that transited the "old" canal before the Bliss entered the "new" canal.

Nope. They have told us several times today that it costs NCL 1.3 million to cross. Crazy.

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Panama City in the background!

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Whew! Cleared another bridge!!

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