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Panama Canal on Jade in February


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My husband and I are taking a Panama Canal Cruise (Miami - Miami) in early February. I can't figure out, from NCL's website, what happens on the day we go through the canal. Do we need to book an excursion to get the full "Canal Experience", or do we see enough of it if we stay on the ship? If we really should do an excursion, does anyone have a suggestion?

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It looks like you are on a partial transit of the Canal. There are excursions offered for that, since you turn around and return the way you came in.. Go to My NCL page for your reservation and select the day of the transit. There should be several options under Gatun Lake/ Panama Canal. Some of them look interesting!

We are doing a full transit on the Star in April and the entire day is taken up with the triansit, so no excursions are listed for the transit for our cruise.

Enjoy the Jade. We had a wonderful time cruising her around Great Britain this past May. Let us know your opinions on this cruise!

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We took a very similar cruise on the Pearl a few yrs ago. You will enter the locks that lead to lake Gatun, and from there (Gatun) you can either stay on the ship, or take an excursion. The ship will then dock at Colon later in the day to pick up those that took an excursion.

 

We enjoyed the partial transit just as much as the full transit. Enjoy! :D

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That's usually a "partial" transit...you go thru 3 sets of locks into Lake Gatun....that's where excursions get off the ship. There is really no need to do excursions on a partial.....stay on the ship, and more than 1/2 of the passengers will leave, which means a relatively empty ship! It's a great day, and all of the stuff you missed coming INTO the lake (because of the crowds) will be all yours to enjoy on the trip OUT of the lake! Win-win situation!

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Staying on ship for the return trip through Gatun Locks is interesting, however you are only seeing about 8 miles of a 50 mile Canal and twice no less! The excursion that takes you through Gaillard Cut and the two Pacific locks has so many more visual treats than just the round trip at Gatun Locks. You will have come a long way, see as much as you can!

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We took the excursion that goes all the way through the canal earlier this year. Do it.

You get on a smaller boat and really get to experience the canal.

Be advised, though, that you first get on a bus that takes you to the smaller boat. It's about a one hour ride and you actually board about half way through the canal. But the smaller boat for the rest of the way is so worth it.

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Cool Cruiser my husband and I may be on your same cruise. We are going to be on the Jade Panama Canal cruise leaving Miami on Superbowl Sunday. Thanks everyone for the responses to the excursion question. We had thought for sure we were staying on the ship but now are thinking we need to check out the excursion that would take us through the canal to the Pacific. Any further advice on this would be appreciated.

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Cool Cruiser my husband and I may be on your same cruise. We are going to be on the Jade Panama Canal cruise leaving Miami on Superbowl Sunday. Thanks everyone for the responses to the excursion question. We had thought for sure we were staying on the ship but now are thinking we need to check out the excursion that would take us through the canal to the Pacific. Any further advice on this would be appreciated.

 

We just disembarked Jade from the same Panama Canal cruise. There are 2 excursions that will take you to the pacific locks-- one by land, the other by ferry. The land one is advertised as a raiload trip to the welcome center and view of Mira Flores locks and we opted for that one. It is a 6 hour with a one hour stop at the locks and a drive through Panama City with another 15minutes stop for a picture opportunity in Panama City. The last hour is on the train returning back to port. The second excursion takes you through the locks by ferry to the pacific ocean and back by bus.

 

The train ride excursion was ok, but I would not do it again. Our friends that did the ferry excursion loved it but had to wait for two hours for tankers to go through the locks. At either case, the return of Jade into Colon port will be delayed since there is always traffic to go through the Gatun locks to dock at Colon. Colon doesn't have anything except for a few places to eat and drink.

 

 

We loved the Jade and its crew and staff. Whatever you decide to do, you will have a great time!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Was just on the Dec 7th - 18th Panama Canal cruise. I was originally just going to stay on the ship, but glad I didn't and booked a last minute excursion that morning. Going through the locks to get into the Gatun Lake there really isn't much to see. People will cram into all the forward facing viewing spots, so you better be early or have a balcony if you want to actually see closely what's going on below. While it's exciting at first to see, it does get old quickly. After you get into the lake they anchored the ship and started to let the life boats down to setup the tendering to shore for those that have an excursion. My wife stayed on the ship and the last minute excursion I booked was the Shaping of Panama tour. We had an excellent tourguide "Alex" and the highlights were we drove over the new locks, saw wild sloths, drove to the Pacific side, saw old Panama City, stopped for shopping at a Yacht Club area that had several shops and eateries, had 45 min of free time to walk around Panama City and shop/eat etc before driving back to Colon to meet the ship. Folks I talked to that took the train and ferry didn't get to do any shopping, other than the port at Colon. I also heard the Indian Village excursion was a great one too. My wife on the other hand that stayed on the ship said she wished had gotten off the ship too (ha!). By the way our next port in Costa Rica was canceled due to weather and we were on the ship for another 2 days (3 for those stayed on the ship). So keep that in mind too. Enjoy your trip though, we did!

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We were also on the Jade same cruise as nednrom (hi !) : I had been quite ill before leaving the U.K. for this cruise so decided I wasn’t well enough to do a long excursion, Angus decided he couldn’t leave, we stayed on board and found it very interesting. The ship was late into Colon so my concern about how I would cope with a long excursion was justified. If we had been up to it, by all accounts we would have liked the ferry trip excursion. Overall it was a great cruise ! We found the canal really interesting, and will be thinking of options to do a full transit next time.

 

 

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We did a very similar trip on Carnival and for once was super thankful to be on a ship tour. We were delayed by over an hour and 1/2 due to traffic in the Canal and again road traffic and if we had gone on a private tour as we normally do we would have been standing on the dock looking for an alternative!

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We did a very similar trip on Carnival and for once was super thankful to be on a ship tour. We were delayed by over an hour and 1/2 due to traffic in the Canal and again road traffic and if we had gone on a private tour as we normally do we would have been standing on the dock looking for an alternative!

I believe the ship's tour is the only one you can take....there are no private tours available. AFAIK, they only let the people who have booked the ship's tour off the boat in Gatun Lake, and there are no tours, ship's tour or otherwise, in Colon.

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  • 6 months later...
Staying on ship for the return trip through Gatun Locks is interesting, however you are only seeing about 8 miles of a 50 mile Canal and twice no less! The excursion that takes you through Gaillard Cut and the two Pacific locks has so many more visual treats than just the round trip at Gatun Locks. You will have come a long way, see as much as you can!

Bill, is that the 7 hours excursion on the ferry boat?

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Was just on the Dec 7th - 18th Panama Canal cruise. I was originally just going to stay on the ship, but glad I didn't and booked a last minute excursion that morning. Going through the locks to get into the Gatun Lake there really isn't much to see. People will cram into all the forward facing viewing spots, so you better be early or have a balcony if you want to actually see closely what's going on below. While it's exciting at first to see, it does get old quickly. After you get into the lake they anchored the ship and started to let the life boats down to setup the tendering to shore for those that have an excursion. My wife stayed on the ship and the last minute excursion I booked was the Shaping of Panama tour. We had an excellent tourguide "Alex" and the highlights were we drove over the new locks, saw wild sloths, drove to the Pacific side, saw old Panama City, stopped for shopping at a Yacht Club area that had several shops and eateries, had 45 min of free time to walk around Panama City and shop/eat etc before driving back to Colon to meet the ship. Folks I talked to that took the train and ferry didn't get to do any shopping, other than the port at Colon. I also heard the Indian Village excursion was a great one too. My wife on the other hand that stayed on the ship said she wished had gotten off the ship too (ha!). By the way our next port in Costa Rica was canceled due to weather and we were on the ship for another 2 days (3 for those stayed on the ship). So keep that in mind too. Enjoy your trip though, we did!

How much driving did your tour involve? Id hate to be on a bus or in a van for hours. Thanks

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The excursion that takes the small boat through the canal requires about an hour of driving to get to the small boat and then an hour after you get off the small boat to get back to Colon and the ship.

The full excursion takes most of the day, so 7 hours is about correct. Look at the description to make sure it goes all the way through the canal.

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