Panama Canal Excursions

[releck97]

Let me just start with this...The new search feature is quite frustrating! OK, I got that out of my system.

My wife and I will be taking our first Panama Canal partial on the Island in December. As I perused the excursions, I became confused on when they start, particularly the kayak tour. Do we do the first half of the transit first and then begin the tour?...or, if we take the tour, do we miss the transit onboard the ship? Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!

[MickeyandLV]

When we did the partial a few years ago, everyone went through the locks.  Then those that were taking an excursion were tendered off.  Then the ship went back through the locks. We met the ship later at the port.

[releck97]

Interestingly enough, Princess lists the following: "Disembarkation in Gatun Lake is restricted to passengers who have booked the following tours only: PC1-100, PC1-110, PC1-115, PC1-120, PC1-125, PC1-170, PC1-175, PC1-210, PC1-350, PC1-385, PC1-605, PC1-610, PC1-615."  The kayak tour we wish to take is the only one not listed above: PC1-880.

[jennybenny]

1 hour ago, releck97 said:

Interestingly enough, Princess lists the following: "Disembarkation in Gatun Lake is restricted to passengers who have booked the following tours only: PC1-100, PC1-110, PC1-115, PC1-120, PC1-125, PC1-170, PC1-175, PC1-210, PC1-350, PC1-385, PC1-605, PC1-610, PC1-615."  The kayak tour we wish to take is the only one not listed above: PC1-880.

Have you tried contacting Princess to see what they say? 

[donswife]

We just did the partial on the Caribbean Princess, and no one got off until we went through the locks into Gantun Lake.  The excursion tickets had numbers on them, and we were called to the theater and led to the tenders in groups. It started quickly, so be ready early! 

[caribill]

Not every possible excursion is offered on every cruise. So it appears that the excursion you want is not available on your sailing.

 

If you are on the December 20 cruise, then Panama Canal day is on Christmas day and some vendors may choose not to work that day.

[skynight]

11 hours ago, releck97 said:

Let me just start with this...The new search feature is quite frustrating! OK, I got that out of my system.

My wife and I will be taking our first Panama Canal partial on the Island in December. As I perused the excursions, I became confused on when they start, particularly the kayak tour. Do we do the first half of the transit first and then begin the tour?...or, if we take the tour, do we miss the transit onboard the ship? Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!

The day before you will receive a time schedule for transiting the locks. Basically the ship is in the channel approaching the locks before 6am. By 9am you will have cleared all three locks and will be in Gatun Lake. All passengers on tours will then meet in the designated location shown on the tour ticket, and will be tendered to a small dock. Only those on Princess tours are permitted to go ashore. While you are off the ship on tour the ship exits the lake back through the locks and docks at Colon. Those on tours are returned to the Colon docks to re-board the ship.

I noticed that for the Dec. 20th cruise, if that is your voyage, you will be in Panama on Christmas day. There could be some adjustments to the tours. 

[releck97]

7 hours ago, jennybenny said:

Have you tried contacting Princess to see what they say? 

We just got off the Regal yesterday. Will do that today. Now, trusting their answer...not sure I'd be 100% comfortable with that. Thanks.

[releck97]

6 hours ago, caribill said:

Not every possible excursion is offered on every cruise. So it appears that the excursion you want is not available on your sailing.

 

If you are on the December 20 cruise, then Panama Canal day is on Christmas day and some vendors may choose not to work that day.

Oh, it's available and it's not Christmas day.

[releck97]

7 hours ago, donswife said:

We just did the partial on the Caribbean Princess, and no one got off until we went through the locks into Gantun Lake.  The excursion tickets had numbers on them, and we were called to the theater and led to the tenders in groups. It started quickly, so be ready early! 

Thanks! I have a feeling that it is simply an omission typo.

[dreaminofcruisin]

Be sure and be someplace on Panama Canal day that you can hear announcements. We were up and on an outside front deck at 5:45 AM as we had heard from announcements the night before that we would start transiting the canal at 6:45 AM. After going through the first locks, we went to the back of the ship and watched the gates closed. We were supposed to meet our excursion (ferry through the canal) at 8:45. Thinking we had plenty of time, we went and got breakfast in Horizon Court. Fortunately, we heard an announcement about 8 that they moved our meeting time UP to 8:15 AM! A bit of a race to finish breakfast, get back to our cabin and grab our stuff and get to our meeting place. So do listen for announcements that day....as anything can happen... 😉

[ckcruise123]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:52 PM, releck97 said:

Let me just start with this...The new search feature is quite frustrating! OK, I got that out of my system.

My wife and I will be taking our first Panama Canal partial on the Island in December. As I perused the excursions, I became confused on when they start, particularly the kayak tour. Do we do the first half of the transit first and then begin the tour?...or, if we take the tour, do we miss the transit onboard the ship? Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!

Hi! We are on the Dec 30 Island Princess sailing and we are thinking of taking the same tour, the kayak one, but I am also confused on the order. I see that the canal transit is from 06:00 to 15:30, but what part of this is canal trasit and when is the excursion?  Did you call them and get any insight?

 

Appreciate it!

[Potstech]

The entire operation will take that long. It will take about 3 hours to enter the locks and go to the lake.  Then the ship will wait in the lake until it can return back thru the locks starting at about 12:00 or so.  While in the lake ship sponsored excursions will leave to proceed and then meet the ship after it has transitted back thru the locks.  So yes it will take from around 6:30 am until about 3:30 pm to complete the evolution.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Potstech

[satxdiver]

Some years ago on the Island we did the partial PC and took the train to Panama City.  It was great but the train filled up months before the cruise so if you want to do it, reserve early.  The ship entered the set of three locks early around 6 AM.  They had ship photography people on the shore and took pictures of pax on their balcony as the ship made its way through the three locks.   We were encouraged to made signs our of poster board to display on our balcony.  After the ship entered Gatun Lake, it went to the port side and started letting pax who had ship excursions leave the ship in the tenders to an old dock where busses were waiting.  In our case to take us to the train terminal.  While we were gone the ship returned through the locks and we met it on the other side where on return to the train terminal the busses took us to the ship.