princess wont let us off at this port? HeLp

So all week Ive been trying to plan a shore excursion with a private tour company. But the company said there arent allowed to offer princess any tours because the ship with only let those who are going with princess shore excursions off at Panama? What in the heck is that about?

SOoo I called princess they have no policy so says the new lady. I had here double check. Then I told the tour company. They sent me this...

We love to show you Panama and the Emberas Indians, but we affraid the

Princess call center have not idea about the policy of Princess, 3 years ago

the vice-president of shore excursión sent instructions to all shorex

manager to no allow their passengers get off the cruise to take any private

tour in Gatun Lake. We miss his email but in the past we sent to our clients

the email of him to write diretly to ask the reason about it. / He argue

Policy of the Canal Authorities but is not true, in fact the others

cruiseline allow their passengers get off the cruise to take our tours.

We are almost sure is Stephen Nelsen the boss of Graham Davis

http://www.f-cca.com/profiles/princess-cruises/stephen-nielsen.html

Graham Davis, Shore Manager

http://www.f-cca.com/profiles/graham-davis.html

If you like to know more please get in touch with them directly,

Can someone help me out here? Anyone know something more?

Sounds like you may be on a partial transit where the ship locks through Gatun Locks and then returns to Cristobal/Colon. Only passengers who have booked ship's tours are allowed off the ship in Gatun Lake. Doesn't matter what line you are on, Princess, HAL, RCI or Celebrity, they ALL operate this way. The area in which you would disembark is remote and near the town of Gatun which much of the town is being demolished for the new locks. I suspect Canal authorities limit access to area for various reasons. The ship could not let you off here unless they were 100% certain that you had a tour, since this area is not filled with shops and taxis ready to wisk you away. If for some reason your tour did not show up there could be difficulty in getting you back to the ship. Usually only ships that dock in Colon for the day offer passengers the option of booking tours on their own. Panama is really one place you are better off with ship's tours. Often times your travel to the destination of the tour is considerable with the tours returning just before the ship sails. It's much better to be on a ship's tour and you won't be looking at your watch.

Thanks. That kinda clears it up. Still weird that the princess call center doesn't know about this and says I can book with another tour company there.

And the tour company has offered other tours to different cruise lines that are doing partial transits just princess won't allow it.

Thanks. That kinda clears it up. Still weird that the princess call center doesn't know about this and says I can book with another tour company there.

 

And the tour company has offered other tours to different cruise lines that are doing partial transits just princess won't allow it.

Before our cruise to Panama, I actually called RCCL several times, called Panama Canal Authority, Panama Consulate in US, and 2-3 private tour operators including myfriendmario. There is a lot of confusion around who is preventing you from getting down but both the Panama Canal Authority and the Panama Consulate advised me strongly to not try this and go with the ship's tour. We ended up just staying on the ship.

The only way I see this MIGHT work is as follows: Get a private tour operator to commit to picking you up from Gatun lake, take a copy of their letter or email with you to the ship. Show that letter to the ship's Guest Relations and tell them that if the operator is NOT at Gatun lake, you will return by the next tender right back to the ship and not loiter around. Maybe they will allow.

But having said this, even I'd not try this myself if my heart was set on a particular tour. Unfortunately you will have to fork out the moolah for the cruise line's arrranged tour.

Thanks. That kinda clears it up. Still weird that the princess call center doesn't know about this and says I can book with another tour company there.

 

And the tour company has offered other tours to different cruise lines that are doing partial transits just princess won't allow it.

Since at most stops around the world passengers are allowed to book private excursions the customer service center gave you the generic answer instead of the specific one for Gatun Lake excursions. Not a good thing, but unfortuantely it happens all too often that the customer service people give the generic answer to questions that work most of the time, but not for all questions.:(

As far as the tour company you were working with, I will assume that at some point they have been able to give tours to some cruiseline passengers but as BillB48 stated it is not just Princess that currently has this rule but also HAL RCI and Celebrity that do the partial transit cruises so for what ever reason I can not guess, the tour companies information to you is a bit misleading making it sound as if ALL other cruiselines currently allow private excursions from Gatun Lake which is not the case.

Once we got over the disappointment of not being able to explore the possiblity of a private excursion from Gatun Lake on our partial transit cruise we decided on the Embera Indian Village excursion with Princess and we did enjoyed it. While it lacked the personal touches of a private excursion the experience was still worth taking to explore more of Panama than we would have ever seen had we stayed on the ship.

As folks who much prefer to book directly with tour vendors when we cruise we can understand why the cruise lines have this policy for partial transit at Gatun Locks.

You're going to come through the locks into the lake.....the ship will drop anchor....let down it's tender dock....send passengers ashore to the so-called 'Gatun Lake Yacht Club'. This is just a transfer point to take ship passengers and hook them up with the tours they have purchased on board. There is now no way for its passengers to get back to the ship....unless they are taking any number of ship purchased tours that will return its passengers to the ship at Colon at a given time.

While we agree it is a pain in the butt to have to do it this way....we do understand the need for it.

If you don't want to get off the ship at Gatun Lake then be sure that you get off at the Colon/Cristobol pier and visit the so called 'flea market' housed in the freight shed on the pier. In our opinion this market of indigenous artisans is the best in the Caribbean. (If you are sensitive to partial female public nudity be advised that the the Embera Indians only cover themselves from the waist down.)

The Panama Canal....whether a full or partial transit is one of the most amazing places we have cruised to. We have never met anyone who could be anything but amazed by this experience....especially if they have done a little research on the construction of the canal in advance.