Newer to ocean cruising- small boats to Panama Canal & Asia

My family are experienced river cruisers, but I am personally new to ocean cruising. My parents had taken a few Regent Ocean Cruises, and liked them. Now that it's just my Mom and I we're looking into some ocean cruises.

She wants smaller ships- apparently Regent is only around 700 people? Are there other lines with this size? (I'm sorry if this is an obvious question, if there's some sort of cheat sheet on the internet for these things, please point me in that direction!)

We both want to do a cruise through the Panama Canal, as a tribute to my Dad. Ideally, ending up in Peru, where we could meet up with my hubby who wants to hike the Inca Trail. Regent apparently used to do this (per my Dad) but the itineraries I now see are NY-SF, NY-LA, Miami-LA etc.

After that, I'd really like to go back to Asia, but on Regent at least, there seems to be 2-4 days in a row of cruising at least twice on most itineraries. I realize there will be 'at sea' days, but not so many! Is this unrealistic?

Not sure if this is important, but I am under 30, so if there are age restrictions, that would be important!

Thank you!

At 30 you shouldn't have any age restrictions unless you want to sail on Saga (UK based) which is a line for seniors. You need to broaden your horizons beyond Regent. Several suggestions: Go to http://www.cruisetimetables.com and from the Ports of Call list, choose Panama Canal. Then you choose the time you want to go and it will show you who cruises and their itineraries. Go to http://www.cruisedeckplans.com and select the cruise line. It will show you all of the ships, when they were built, and how large they are. Lots of resources out there. EM

Oceania has four ships <700 passengers and two ships <1000. Excellent crew ratio, food and service plus no "nickel/diming.

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I would agree with the Oceania suggestion. Their older ships, which are in great shape and all fairly recently redone, hold under 700 passengers, have better food than Regent (from what I have heard), have great service, and their Panama Canal cruises are quite good -- you can see that we took one a couple of years ago. Also Azamara has some of the same size ships, and I think that Celebrity even has one of the old Renaissance ships.

Thank you! We will look into Oceania and Azamara, which I'd never heard of!

If you want to really go small, you might look into Ponant

https://us.ponant.com/?___from_store=main_b2c_en&___store=b2c_us_en&setCookie=US

They don't appear to do the Panama Canal regularly, but here is Le Boreal in the canal today:

Windstar has their large yachts (former Seabourn ships) doing the canal regularly, although not to South America:

Star breeze in Gatun Locks

Miraflores

Thank you!! I will look into Ponant, and I think my Mom will like Windstar- she lives in a neighborhood with the same name and is loving it! Haha

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