Panama Canal delays???

[hoosier sailor]

Are ships being delayed or diverted going through the Panama Canal due to the backlog and drought? I have seen on different news media that ships have a 10 day plus waiting period to go thru the Canal.

[smokeybandit]

Yes, that's the whole reason RC canceled its season of canal cruises with a Panama home port.

[orville99]

1 hour ago, hoosier sailor said:

Are ships being delayed or diverted going through the Panama Canal due to the backlog and drought? I have seen on different news media that ships have a 10 day plus waiting period to go thru the Canal.

Does not impact cruise ships that are repositioning and have a pre-negotiated date certain transit slot. 

[LeeW]

Cruise ships do pay a big premium for their transits - you see it in the taxes/port fee part of your bill.  And they pay extra for daylight slots.

[BillB48]

Cruise ships have a reservation for a day certain and usually a time frame (daylight transit), which they pay extra.  A ship such as the Radiance would have an extra $50K added for the day certain and an Extra $30K for the daylight transit.  They will not be impacted by the backlog, it is only ships that arrive without reservations that go in the queue.  If you happen to be in that category you can bring extra $$$ and buy your way to the head of the line.  One of the most recent figures was $2.4million for an LNG tanker and that was in addition to the regular toll.

[IndianaRN]

My husband and I have a South America to Miami cruise through the canal booked for Feb. 2024. If I’m reading the replies correctly, there is no jeapordy that the transit would get cancelled, right?  I’m assuming RC cancelled because of the expense. We are usually RC loyalists but they cancelled our Panama Canal cruise another time so we went with NCL this time. RC told us the last time “our ships are not in the right position” but we think they sold the cruise for too little because we had a great deal on a balcony cabin. 

[firefly333]

11 minutes ago, IndianaRN said:

My husband and I have a South America to Miami cruise through the canal booked for Feb. 2024. If I’m reading the replies correctly, there is no jeapordy that the transit would get cancelled, right?  I’m assuming RC cancelled because of the expense. We are usually RC loyalists but they cancelled our Panama Canal cruise another time so we went with NCL this time. RC told us the last time “our ships are not in the right position” but we think they sold the cruise for too little because we had a great deal on a balcony cabin. 

I dont think any that were changed were thru the canal. They were partials. They stopped in colon Panama.i didnt see any full transits cancelled... and the partials were changed rather than cancelled, but they allowed people to cancel when the ports were changed. 

[BillB48]

I don't think that any of the Rhapsody's transits that were cancelled were partials. I looked at a B2B leaving Ft. Amador sailing to two ports in Costa Rica and ending in Colon, that would be a full transit..  From Colon a few stops and then ending in Ft. Lauderdale.  I really think the demand for the Canal transits were soft and so they went to the chopping block.  As you can see in my previous post, just the cost of reservations is not for the feint of heart.  Probably for the reason mentioned, the cost was steep and bookings low.

 

To IndianaRN, I don't believe there is any danger your cruise on NCL is in any danger because of any issues at the Canal.  Go and enjoy!

[IndianaRN]

Thanks!

[PugM0m]

20 hours ago, firefly333 said:

I dont think any that were changed were thru the canal. They were partials. They stopped in colon Panama.i didnt see any full transits cancelled... and the partials were changed rather than cancelled, but they allowed people to cancel when the ports were changed. 

Actually, you are incorrect. My husband and I booked the 2/24/24 full transit to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and it was changed to a Southern Caribbean. Went from 7 night full transit to 6 night.