Panama Canal question

[quincychic]

I am looking at PC cruises for early 2023. I just saw ‘partial transit’. What does that mean? I envisioned passing through the entire canal-locks and all. Think I’m going to have another of my fantasies crushed.

Am taking my family6 adults and 2 small children. I welcome tips and advice.

 

[desherry]

12 minutes ago, quincychic said:

I am looking at PC cruises for early 2023. I just saw ‘partial transit’. What does that mean? I envisioned passing through the entire canal-locks and all. Think I’m going to have another of my fantasies crushed.

Am taking my family6 adults and 2 small children. I welcome tips and advice.

 

A partial transit goes to Gatun Lake and turns around, returning to the ocean that the trip originated on. The most popular ones travel from a Caribbean port through the first set of locks on the Atlantic side and then return.

You can also do a full transit usually from Florida to California or the reverse.

When booking, a smaller ship will use the old, original locks, but the big ships from NCL and Princess use the new locks. The old locks are more interesting to observe, but to each there own preference.

Also, read the book "Between the Seas" to understand the challenges faced by the canal builders.

[Turtles06]

 

22 minutes ago, quincychic said:

I envisioned passing through the entire canal-locks and all. Think I’m going to have another of my fantasies crushed.

 

No need to have your fantasies crushed.  Just book a cruise that includes a full transit of the Canal.  Why do something that isn't what you want? 

 

If for some reason you are "stuck" doing a partial transit, you may well be able to take a ship--sponsored shore excursion on a ferry through the locks that you have not gone through.  But it will still not be "the entire Canal." 

[quillwercruisers]

Not sure which cruise line you like to use, but NCL has PC cruises that start in Panama City and does a full transit and the makes a few other stops and then ends in Colon.  We are booked on one for Mar 2023 that begins Panama City does a full transit and then to the ABC's and ends in Colon.  This way I get to mark of 2 of my bucket list items.  Can't wait.  Good luck.

[Turtles06]

27 minutes ago, quillwercruisers said:

Not sure which cruise line you like to use, but NCL has PC cruises that start in Panama City and does a full transit and the makes a few other stops and then ends in Colon.  We are booked on one for Mar 2023 that begins Panama City does a full transit and then to the ABC's and ends in Colon.

 

Well, since the OP is from Boston, they might even be interested in the full transit that NCL is doing in Jan. 2023 from New York to Panama City (Fuerte Amador); it can be combined with the return trip from Panama City to NY, for a nice B2B (which a number of us are booked on).  The B2B gives you two full transits, one in each direction.  🙂 

[quincychic]

Thank you for all the replies and explanations. Will look into more cruises now and the shore excursions to see more of the locks. I appreciate your input.

[Oakman58]

I would suggest you book a full transit cruise on a ship that goes through the original locks.  The new large ships go through the new locks and, while interesting, the old locks are better.

[shipgeeks]

During a partial transit, the ship typically spends a number of hours inside the Canal, mainly to allow passengers to do tours.  We stay onboard, and enjoy watching some of the enormous cargo ships lock through.

I do agree with many of the above, however, that a full transit would probably interest you more. A number of the cruiselines do several a year, either as a back and forth, or repositioning.  Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America and others might be worth looking into.

[StevenUS]

On 6/12/2022 at 2:26 PM, Oakman58 said:

I would suggest you book a full transit cruise on a ship that goes through the original locks.  The new large ships go through the new locks and, while interesting, the old locks are better.

I have been looking into a PC cruise for early 2023, but going solo the historic locks are expensive more so then the new locks.

[Essiesmom]

Since the fee structure makes it more expensive for ships to use the new locks, it must be that there is more demand for passage through the old locks, so the cruise lines can charge more.  EM

[BillB48]

I came to the same basic conclusion as you did EM.  So having an excuse to look at some Canal itineraries, I looked at three cruise lines and their fares.  I tried comparing partials with partial and full transits of approximately the same number of days.  Also I just looked at itineraries, not the number of times that itinerary was offered.  Some of the itineraries were a once a season as shifting to or from Alaska and many of the itineraries were offered several times during the Canal "season."  With all that in mind here is my completely unscientific, highly opinionated conclusion.😄

 

The cruise line I found that had the biggest difference in fares was Princess.  A full transit of the original locks on the Island Princess was $1200.  While the fare on ships using the new locks came in at right around $1000.  There were many more full transits available on the ships that needed to use the new locks and only one full transit on a ship using the original locks.  Perhaps a little supply and demand coming into play??

 

I also looked at NCL and Carnival.  On these two lines there was less of a difference between cruises that used the original locks and those that needed to transit the new locks.  The only trend I could easily spot was the original locks tended to run a little more, nothing huge, usually less than a $100pp.

 

It used to be fairly simple to determine what the toll would be for any given ship at either of the locks.  The original locks was $138 per passenger berth and $148 per passenger berth at the new locks.  Now that they have returned to calculating the toll based on Panama Canal Tons it is less straight forward.  In any event the price per PC Ton is higher at the new locks.

 

One other thing that crossed my mind, is perhaps StevenUS is looking at fares on ships that have cabins for singles.  I now some of the larger, newer ships that would use the new locks do have some single cabins that are not burdened with the dreaded single supplement.  Maybe that is skewing fares higher at the original locks for him?? 

[Turtles06]

22 minutes ago, BillB48 said:

One other thing that crossed my mind, is perhaps StevenUS is looking at fares on ships that have cabins for singles.  I now some of the larger, newer ships that would use the new locks do have some single cabins that are not burdened with the dreaded single supplement.  Maybe that is skewing fares higher at the original locks for him?? 

 

That's an excellent thought.  No question that many of the big, new builds have solo cabins; the older (and usually smaller) ships do not.  That's certainly true of NCL. 

[mcmarya]

I think that the fee for canal passage is baked into the taxes and fees part that is added on to the cruise fare.  Looking up cruises on Princess, the partial transit ones have taxes and fees of $350.  Full transit cruises through the old locks have a charge of $385.  For a full transit through the new locks, the taxes and fees charge is $450.  There is not a lot of difference in charge for the full vs. partial transit through the old locks since the partial transit ship goes through 3 locks one way and the same 3 locks the other way so the same number of locks to pass through as the full transit.

 

If you look at cruises of a similar length that do not included the Panama Canal, the taxes and fees charge is much less.  Also, if the Panama Canal authority increases the fee, chances are that increase will be passed along to cruisers (taxes and fees are not guaranteed to stay the same).

 

Hope that makes sense.

[BillB48]

Yup, made perfect sense🙂.  As you pointed out, the actual tolls for the transit are extracted from the taxes and fees portion.  On Canal cruises the taxes and fees being as much as they are wind up being a chunk of the overall cruise price.  I'm sure that comes as no surprise to any Canal cruisers!  I think the biggest driver of the basic fare is whatever the cruise line believes what they can charge based on the time of year,  demand and other such considerations.  Basic fare prices can be all over the map,  I was also looking at Celebrity (which wasn't included in my not so all encompassing survey) and they were $2800pp for an 11 day partial!!  For that price I would expect to take Capt. McCue's cat home for a visit.

[Surfguyxxx]

I've done 2 partials already but doing my first full through in October from LA to Tampa.  Incredibly excited.  13 nighter on Serenade OTS.

[mcmarya]

Yes, so many people have a dream of doing the canal that high prices can be charged.  It is a marvelous experience though, but a very long day.  I've done 9 full, 1 partial transits but got up at 5 am for every one of them.  My husband grew up in the Canal Zone and which helped to give him the opportunity of being a guest speaker on these cruises, mostly on HAL.  Covid ended that gig, unfortunately.

[BillB48]

3 hours ago, mcmarya said:

My husband grew up in the Canal Zone

 

It's a small world after all!  I grew up there also, went to school in the Zone and worked for the Canal.  I had given the bridge commentary as well as a Canal lecture on a couple of cruises just before that "ill" wind blew in.

[BillB48]

3 hours ago, Surfguyxxx said:

I've done 2 partials already but doing my first full through in October from LA to Tampa.  Incredibly excited.  13 nighter on Serenade OTS.

 

The partial transits are great cruises and I highly recommend them, but a full transit is the best.  Enjoy!

[mcmarya]

My husband graduated from Balboa HS in 1964.  You are probably younger than that.

 

[BillB48]

Ha! I wish!!  BHS '62. 

[mcmarya]

Zonians really stick together. 

[Essiesmom]

I had a nursing school classmate who went to high school in the Canal Zone.  her dad was a minister, but I don’t think he was military.  If she graduated there, she also would have been class of ‘62.  Last name was Hine.  EM

[BillB48]

Found her!  It appears from the list of school activities listed in the '62 yearbook, she spent the entire 4 years and graduated Balboa High School.  Can't say I recall her, while BHS wasn't a huge school, it was a good size.  Our graduating class was just under 300 students.

 

The student population of the BHS and Cristobal High Schools (Atlantic side) came from several groups.  The largest would have been the children of Canal employees, closely followed by the dependent children of the military.  The Canal Zone Schools also accepted the children of contractors that primarily provided additional support to the Canal.  Minister's families would have been included in this group.  To round it all out there was a significant number of Panamanian families that did not have any direct connection to the Canal were able to send their children to schools in the Canal Zone.

 

A pretty diverse group of students passed through Canal Zone schools.

[BillB48]

10 hours ago, mcmarya said:

Zonians really stick together. 

 

We have to... they don't make them anymore!😉  They just concluded a Panama Canal reunion this past weekend in Orlando.  There were around 2000 in attendance.  Some of the usual suspects at the pool.

 

[Essiesmom]

Janet was above average height, blonde, average looks.  She had a brother, I think younger… she played piano.  EM