Panama Canal Tour

[saldino]

Hello!

Has anyone taken the following Panama Canal Tour through Celebrity?

 

Panama Canal Tour (CO26) After a 1-hour narrated drive to Balboa, the ferry will travel through the Miraflores Locks, along Miraflores Lake, through the Pedro Miguel Locks and through the Gaylard Cut. Your canal experience concludes at the pier in Gamboa for a 1 hour bus ride back to the ship. Lunch buffet included. Special note: Tour duration may vary as unexpected delays in crossing the canal may occur, based on advise by local canal authorities that is beyond our control.

 

My question is how accessible are the bus and ferry? Are there steps, how many? What type of seating on the bus and ferry?

 

Thanks!

[wallie5446]

We are going in Nov and just found this from Feb 7th this month;

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1986031

[BillB48]

The following thread may provide you with some insight... particularly post #4.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=41800563#post41800563

[jmk22]

We recently returned from the Celebrity Equinox and we took the Panama Canal Tour (CO26). The tour was very interesting but I will relate our experience with it and hopefully it will answer some of yur questions.

The tour was scheduled to leave at 8:30. The night before, there was a message in our stateroom that the Panama Canal Authority advised that we would not be able to enter the canal until the afternoon so our tour was delayed in leaving until 10:30. That part was fine as we at least had advance notice and were able to sleep in later if we wanted to.

The tour buses are typical nice tour buses. There are 4 or 5 steps to climb up. I did not see any handicap ramp or wheelchair facility if that was a concern. The bus ride was about an hour or so. You drive to Gamboa where you then transfer to a Ferry. Once we arrived at Gamboa, the ferry was not there, so we waited about another hour before boarding. There was no actual place to wait and everyone seemed to need to use the bathroom at that time. Fortunately, there was a school or park facility that had restrooms that we could go into and use. This was a Saturday however, so I'm not sure if we could have done that on a weekday.

Once we finally got on the ferry, there were close to 300 people boarding so seat selection was first come first served. There were a few steps to get on the ferry and the ferry was three decks. You boarded on the 2nd and there were some seats on that deck but most of that deck is the big open room in the middle where lunch is served. Most of the seats were on the third or top deck and many were under cover, but not enclosed.

The bathrooms were down on the 1st deck. The steps to each of these decks were many and somewhat steep.

Once we were underway, the guide explained that we had a specific time to enter the canal locks as we had to wait for a containership that we would be going through with. We traveled along the Chagres River to the Galliard Cut and the Pedro Miguel Locks. The going was very slow and many times we stopped just waiting for other ships and for our time.

The lunch was acceptable, chicken skewers, grilled vegertables, small ham & cheese sandwiches, fruit & cookies. Water and soft drinks were available throughout the day and were included. Beer was available for a fee.

Once we were able to enter the locks, we then had to wait for the containership to enter before the back gates could be closed. This took 45 minutes to an hour just sitting there with little going on. It is interesting to watch the mules, the motorized engines, use their ropes to pull and guide the ship into the locks, but it's hard to watch for 45 minutes. Once the gates are closed, it takes about 20-30 minutes or so for the water to fill or go out depending on the lock before you can exit and then go to next lock which is the Miraflores lock. Here you go through the exact same procedure.

We finally exited the lock about 5:30 and were told tht we still had about 90 minutes before we reached the end of our tour where the buses were waiting. We got to the buses about 7PM and the ride back to the ship took about and hour and 15 minutes. It was after 8:00 when we returned. The ship was originally scheduled to depart at 6:00. Fortunately it was a ships scheduled tour so the departure was delayed. I usually do not book ship tours, but try to find local tours instead. This was one time I was glad to be on the ship tour.

Based on all the above, these would be some of my personal suggestions.

1. Going through one of the locks, we saw a large tour of people in the visitor center or some observation platform on land that probably saw everything about the locks that we did. I don't know what tour it was, but it may be something to look into. If I were to go again, I definitely would.

2. If you decide to take the CO26 tour, be prepared for a lot of down time. Bring reading material, puzzles etc because it is lengthy and although I enjoyed going through the locks, that is a very small part of the trip. Remember, once you are there, you are stuck. If you are on a cruise ship going through the canal, at least you have all the ships facilities available so this is not a big problem.

3. Bring extra food with you. They only serve the lunch and I heard, but I'm not positive, that they did run out of food. They do sell snacks on board and beer. As I mentioned earlier, water and fruit drinks were provided.

I hope these suggestions will be informative to you and answer some of your questions. It was not one of our most pleasurable trips but I'm glad we got a chance to see the canal and learn it's history. I think if we had been better prepared for the day, it would have been a better experience.

[Richard in Panama]

Many people do not realize that the tourist business and passenger ships/trains are not the primary business of the Canal or Panama Railway. Folks sometimes get upset if the excursion train has to sit for 20 or 30 minutes and wait for a train full of containers that have to get to the other side of the Isthmus before their ship gets there. They were offloaded on one side, taken by rail to the other, because they obstructed the view required for the ship to pass through the Canal.

 

Actually the passenger transit segment, ships carrying over 50 passengers which would include giant cruise ships as well as the ferry you were on, accounts for only 8.9 percent of Canal revenue. In 2013 there were 206 passenger ship transits carrying 225,367 passengers, out of over 14,000 transits. Everything is designed to maximize revenue and get the most ships through the Canal in the shortest possible time, which often means the Canal ferry is waiting for a larger, more profitable ship, to share the lock.

 

 

Bill, can you contact me? Thanks!

 

 

Regards, Richard

[saldino]

Thanks for all the great info!

[BillB48]

Many people do not realize that the tourist business and passenger ships/trains are not the primary business of the Canal or Panama Railway. Folks sometimes get upset if the excursion train has to sit for 20 or 30 minutes and wait for a train full of containers that have to get to the other side of the Isthmus before their ship gets there. They were offloaded on one side, taken by rail to the other, because they obstructed the view required for the ship to pass through the Canal.

 

Actually the passenger transit segment, ships carrying over 50 passengers which would include giant cruise ships as well as the ferry you were on, accounts for only 8.9 percent of Canal revenue. In 2013 there were 206 passenger ship transits carrying 225,367 passengers, out of over 14,000 transits. Everything is designed to maximize revenue and get the most ships through the Canal in the shortest possible time, which often means the Canal ferry is waiting for a larger, more profitable ship, to share the lock.

 

 

Bill, can you contact me? Thanks!

 

 

Regards, Richard

 

Richard... I'm on a cruise at the moment but will be home tomorrow and my freebee minutes are all but gone. If you want to send your addy to pmlwest at mindspring dot com, that will be fine.