Panama Cruise Questions and cabin questions too

By the way, each lock does not raise the ship the same amount. I was given the actually figures on my first cruise though the Panama Canal in 2008, but I didn't keep the information.

Thanks for the summary.

In Gatun, the first two locks raise 27.5 feet, the third lock raises 30 feet. Repeats in order on the other side, Pedro Miguel is 30 feet, Miraflores are 27.5 feet each.

I assume some flexibility on the 30 foot changes based on the depth of Gatun Lake but who knows.

At the risk of straying off topic from the OP, let me offer this. Calculating precisely how much each chamber raises a ship might be a little misleading and often times the figures given out during your transit or visit to the locks are really just nominal figures well suited for public consumption. The Gatun Locks are perhaps the easiest to visualize since what you are doing is taking a ship from sea level and raising it to the level of Gatun Lake. Just about any description of the process will have the Lake at the 85’. The ship will be raised from sea level to the 85' of Gatun Lake, so just dividing the 3 equal chambers into the 85 will give a little over 28' average lift for each chamber. That is pretty close to what happens. In any public presentation they won't go into the details that come into play such as the height of the tide and the actual level of Gatun Lake. In a previous post I noted that the level of Gatun Lake can vary from 89' to 77' above sea level. And we have not even mentioned the height of the tide, on the Atlantic side it is usually no more than a foot and normally is not a factor, but it can be.

It is on the Pacific side where you can get a wider variations in the feet lifted per chamber. This is due to the three chambers or "steps" are split between two lock complexes and the level of Miraflores Lake (54' above sea level). The 21' tide at the Pacific side can cause some rather puzzling figures in how much the ship is actually being lifted in any single chamber. For example during one of the higher high tides a ship may only have lifted a total of 37' to reach the level of Miraflores Lake (54' above sea level) as a result of the height of the tide. Then if you add the 31' at Pedro Miguel to get to the nominal level of 85' for Gatun Lake, the ship will only have been lifted 68' to get to the level of Gatun Lake. It will then be lowered from the 85' to sea level in the three 28’ steps when it passes through Gatun Locks.

This is why I think it is probably easier not to focus on the lift in any one chamber as this all really ends up being operational minutia that winds up being a distinction without a real difference. All in all it is just the lift from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake and back down, depending on the time of year and tide. Today the Gatun Lake is at 86.4'.

Hopefully this doesn't muddy the Canal waters too much:D.