canal transit with no excursions?

[Davechipp74]

i will be doing a full transit east to west. my cruise does not offer any excursions at the canal. do i still get a true canal experience? there seams to be some great excursions offered at the canal just not on my cruise. am i missing out? any thoughts or comments, thank you

[LHT28]

You will only get to experience the canal from the ship

They usually have a commentary on what is going on during the transit & a history of the canal

 

If this is not what you want I would change to a partial transit or one that docks in Colon so you can visit the information centre & do the canal on a small boat

[Cornishpastyman1]

i will be doing a full transit east to west. my cruise does not offer any excursions at the canal. do i still get a true canal experience? there seams to be some great excursions offered at the canal just not on my cruise. am i missing out? any thoughts or comments, thank you

 

Hello Dave

 

I don't think you're missing out at all. Doing a full transit was the main reason why I chose the cruise. and it was one of the best days of my life, so I made these :

 

 

 

As LHT infers, there is a very good case for arguing that you only get the true canal experience from the ship.

 

Whatever you decide, I hope you enjoy the day as much as I did.

Al the best, Tony

[sptrout]

i will be doing a full transit east to west. my cruise does not offer any excursions at the canal. do i still get a true canal experience? there seams to be some great excursions offered at the canal just not on my cruise. am i missing out? any thoughts or comments, thank you

 

I do not think that you will miss out on too much. Our first visit to the Canal was a straight transit (January 2000) and at that time there was not any tour opportunities at all (no place to disembark). Since then we have visited Panama two more times; partial transit and no transit (just docked at the Colon 2000 pier). The full transit was the best by far.

 

I believe the reason for the no tour situation is the on-going construction in the Canal Zone (building the new locks for bigger ships). If I remember correctly from other posters this construction has closed the place where folks used to disembark for either full or partial transits. And Cristobal Pier is no longer available for cruise ships.

 

I think that until the new locks are finished, disembarkation other than at Colon 2000, will be difficult if I have understood all the other posters correctly.

[BillB48]

I also agree that you will not miss out on the Canal experience by not having an excursion while going east to west. Panama has a lot interesting places to visit with lots of history and you will be able to take in the Canal experience without having to cram a day of sightseeing into the mix as well. Full Canal transits that offer tours on the day of transit, means that you will have to give up part of your transit to take the tour. I think this sort of defeats the purpose of a Canal cruise for your first transit For people who have not transited the Canal, I recommend doing the full transit without taking a tour. There are other cruises that offer itineraries that will enable you to take a tour, such as a partial transit or even just a stop in Colon.

 

The main reason they do not offer tours in the direction you are going, is the following: Assuming your tour would start after locking through Gatun Locks as is the case on the partial transits. The ship would complete the transit while you are on your tour, you would miss the lion's share of the Canal transit. The port of Balboa is strictly a container port and smaller than the facilities that are available in Cristobal/Colon, therefore not passenger friendly for getting the touring passenger back to the ship. The only other option would be to retreive the passengers in the Pacific anchorage. This has it's own set of problems, namely, the anchorage can be rough at times making tendering difficult if not dangerous.

 

Hope you enjoy your cruise and transit!!

[Putterdude]

We did a full transit two years ago that didn't stop in the Canal ... we didn't feel we missed anything. This was on the Coral Princess and they has a commentator who was excellent.

[many cruises]

Hello Dave

 

I don't think you're missing out at all. Doing a full transit was the main reason why I chose the cruise. and it was one of the best days of my life, so I made these :

 

 

 

As LHT infers, there is a very good case for arguing that you only get the true canal experience from the ship.

 

Whatever you decide, I hope you enjoy the day as much as I did.

Al the best, Tony

 

Thank you so much for your wonderful videos. We are sailing to the Panama Canal & your informative videos will make everything so much easier to understand and appreciate. :)

[SeaTeach]

i will be doing a full transit east to west. my cruise does not offer any excursions at the canal. do i still get a true canal experience? there seams to be some great excursions offered at the canal just not on my cruise. am i missing out? any thoughts or comments, thank you

I'm also doing the same type cruise in Nov. 2011. My thoughts are: a full transit without an excursion will afford a true canal experience; a second canal cruise with a stop in Panama will be an excuse to do it again, but with a different twist. Any excuse to cruise is a good excuse. :D

 

Whatever you decide is a positive. Enjoy!!

[Francesco]

To Davechipp1974:

 

To appreciate this marvelous project one needs to go through the whole route, to see how the smart locks at both ends operate, the largest man-made Gatun Lake (at the time), and the difficult and troublesome Gaillard Cut or Culebra Cut, carved out of the mountain range.One can see that the Culebra or snake part of the canal is narrow and bends and has a new beautiful bridge carrying the Pan- American Highway to South America,....

 

 

 

 

 

 

The more people go on tours while on Panama transit is the better. You will more likely get the best seat in the ship, that is, in the middle and foreward at a high deck where you can see the whole view.

 

We spent 10 hrs. videoed the passage and condensed it to 8 minutes. Here is the link to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htUhrG9z3E8

 

Enjoy the experience of viewing this great project of mankind.