Since this is leisure I thought it would go here.
My mother is looking for a Panama Canal Cruise in Oct for my father’s 75th birthday (I know waiting to the last minute) The problem is she lives on the east coast and doesn’t want to have to fly back from CA (Flying to CA is also out of the question)
I need a cruise that leaves from the east coast and returns to the east coast going through the canal.
A transcanal cruise departing from and returning to the East coast? That’s pretty tough. I’ve never seen any pop up on the various cruise websites, but that’s not to say they don’t exist. Most of the cruises that depart from and return to the East coast typically go into the Canal for a spell, the ngo back out. Full canal transits? Dunno about that.
I’m assuming you’ve already checked out sites like Orbitz. I have one (Panama Canal full transit) penciled in for next year, and I never saw one like you describe in my research–but I’m no expert, so don’t let that dissuade you. If you do find one, pleast post back.
My wife and I took a cruise on Royal Caribbean that may do the trick. The cruise departed from and returned to Miami with stops at Aruba, Panama. Costa Rica and Grand Cayman. At the canal, the ship went through the three Atlantic locks into Lake Gatun, sailed around a little bit, then went back through the Atlantic locks. There were shore excursions while we were there that included a train trip to the Culebra Cut toward the Pacific side.
While this cruise didn’t allow us to go all the way through the canal, it did allow us to see how it works, traverse about a third of it, and fly home from where we started.
We took a trip last December with Cruise West; it’s a little different than your plan, it starts in Costa Rica and winds up in Panama City, so it involves flights to San Jose and from Panama City. Are you saying that flights are not possible? In that case, I guess this is no help.
For anyone who’s willing to fly, the Cruise West trip was fantastic. It’s a small boat, around 150 people.
One minor problem: most cruise ships go through the Canal late at night, after all the commercial ships. The locks are well lit, so you can watch that part, but unless you’re very lucky, you won’t see much when you’re going through the lakes. The entire transit takes about eight hours. Going through from the Pacific to the Atlantic (actually travelling northwest-ish because the isthmus twist), we went through two locks during daylight/dusk, which was very cool.
Our trip through the three locks on the Atlantic side appeared to have been timed to take place at sunrise. It was dark as we slowly approached the canal entrance, the sun rose while we were in the locks, and it was full daylight as we cruised Lake Gatun. It was an altogether awesome experience. One benefit of the non-transiting trip we took was that our ship stopped for shore excursions, so we were able to do a tour of the locks, which was pretty cool.
Last year, we took Princess out of Ft. Lauderdale on a 10 day cruise to the Panama Canal. It arrived at the Gatun Locks just at daybreak, and sailed as far as Gatun Lake, then turned around. We got off at Gatun Lake for an excursion in the jungle thereabouts, and they took us back to the port on the Caribbean side, where we re-boarded the ship.
Sounds like just what you need. The full itinerary: Ft Lauderdale, Aruba, Cartagena (Colombia), Panama Canal, Limon (Costa Rica), Montego Bay (Jamaica), Ft Lauderdale.
jsc1953 that does sound perfect. I’ll pass that on to my mother. She isn’t comfortable in airlines for long flights (uses a walker) and is trying to keep flying time to a minimum.