Princess excursions in Gatun Lake

[blue_water]

Coral Princess in January, and for the day we are in Gatun Lake we're considering the following Princess excursions and would appreciate any feedback on these or other excursions.

 

1) Rainforest & Gatun Lake excursion (PCI-105) that goes to the Melia Panama Canal Resort with a 1.5 hr cruise through the islands in the lake.

Is the boat a ferry or other type boat?

Includes 1 hr observing the Gatun locks, since we will have already gone through the locks I'm wondering if this part would be boring to my wife...

 

2) Monkey & Wildlife Nature cruise (PCI-110), 60 min bus ride to boat landing and then a cruise along some islands. This one says it's also a 1.5 hr cruise but in a high-speed boat, anyone do this excursion?

 

Thanks to everyone for any feedback on these excursions!

[Viesczy]

Not an answer to your question (sorry) but a funny story as we just were on the Caribbean Princess in Panama.

 

Folks took the lock tour and boat in front of them got caught in the lock! The tour was stuck (no pun) behind the stuck ship for hours. We were like an hour late leaving and the folks that were stuck missed lunch.

[LeeW]

If you check the details on these excursions you will find that they leave the ship in Gatun Lake, do the excursion, and then meet the ship after it transits back to the Caribbean in Colon.

 

Best excursion is the one that takes a small boat through the rest of the locks (although you do have some long bus rides before and after that boat). This assumes that you are in Panama primarily to see the Canal.

[blue_water]

Yes we've researched all of the excursions available and are looking at these two specifically. You can take only Princess excursions from Gatun lake, we are booking private tours in Cartegena and Limon. But any feedback from folks who have taken these excursions would be great.

 

I do see that the Rainforest & Gatun Lake excursion (PCI-105) now uses a catamaran and no longer a high-speed boat. 20 min ride to the Melia Resort to meet the boat. So anyone who took this earlier may have been on the powerboat.

 

The Monkey & Wildlife Nature cruise (PCI-110) says it's also a 1.5 hr cruise but in a high-speed boat. Long 60 min bus ride to the boat landing.

Just trying to compare the experience between these two options, thanks for any help...

[blue_water]

Meant to add that I appreciate the other excursion recommendation (PC1-615), that is recommended by many and looks like a great option! I would like to take that one, but I'm now focusing on these 2 because I found that my wife isn't excited about seeing the rest of the canal (this vist at least) and is more interested in these 2 options. It's her 60th birthdaay and she's wanted to take this cruise for some time. Thanks for the feedback!

[stevenr597]

We are currently scheduled to take the MS Coral Princess during July- Panama Canal. We have booked the boat tour with the locks for this trip. We had previously done this cruise on the Coral Princess when it first came out and also took the same sightseeing tour. It was the best tour of the cruise. Will highly recommend.

 

P.S. We also had the room breakfast as we passed through the canal-fantastic.

[cb at sea]

Unless you just want to get off the ship, there is no real need for an excursion there...the partial transit IS an excursion in itself!

[kitkat343]

Overall, this was a wonderful cruise and we really loved it. I did a ton of research since this was my son's first cruise, and the thought of taking a two year old on vacation was terrifying. Everything worked out great except for the excursion from Gatun. A detailed review is in my signature line and might help you with your overall planning.

 

We took the wildlife cruise 3 years ago, and back then they were still doing the catamaran. Unfortunately, our wildlife cruise saw very little wildlife and wasn't very interesting, although this may have just been an unlucky day for wildlife. The second part of the tour was much better, as it is interesting to see the ships going through the locks at Gatun. The bigger problem was the total lack of communication from Princess ahead of time about this tour - you should be aware of the fact that you will not be able to reboard the Coral or Island Princess until the Panama authorities clear you to do so. We deliberately booked a shorter tour to accommodate our son's nap schedule, and wound up with a screaming, tired child in the port waiting for two hours until we were allowed to board (note: there are several restaurants and a supermarket so if you don't have a kid you will be fine with the delay). There is no way to determine ahead of time exactly when the Panamanian officials will allow boarding, so you might want to consider booking a longer tour.

 

The reviews on the full transit excursions were mixed - some people really loved this experience, and others felt they had seen enough after going through one lock. The tour I really wanted to do was a private tour to the Embera Indians. Some reviews of the Princess tours to Embera villages were mixed, and one reviewer explained that when the water levels are low they can't get you by boat to the real Embera village, and take you to a fake one that was built closer to Gatun (I don't know if this is actually true but would explain why some people were disappointed).

 

Overall, this was a wonderful cruise and I hope you wife has a great time on her birthday!

Edited June 23, 2016 by kitkat343

[Essiesmom]

We are currently scheduled to take the MS Coral Princess during July- Panama Canal. We have booked the boat tour with the locks for this trip. We had previously done this cruise on the Coral Princess when it first came out and also took the same sightseeing tour. It was the best tour of the cruise. Will highly recommend.

 

P.S. We also had the room breakfast as we passed through the canal-fantastic.

 

Really? Coral Princess does Alaska in July... Sea Princess is doing a full transit July 28 on her World Cruise...EM

[jg21]

We did the Monkey/wildlife island cruise 2 years ago. It was a motorboat, and if you go, try not to sit in the rear. We got placed there and the noise from the outboard motor was almost unbearable. Once we got to the monkey islands, the boat would stop and small marshmallows were offered to get the monkeys to come right down to the boat. We also slowly motored around the islands and saw several howler monkeys in the trees. The boat's skipper would shut off the motor as we drifted, then he would start it up with a roar and quickly shut it down, which caused the howlers to make quite a racket. It was pretty impressive. One of the highlights for me was cruising down the lake to the islands and passing the huge ships transiting the lake. Sure makes you feel small!

[OCruisers]

If you don't do some sort of excursion or another, it rather boring sitting around in the lake waiting to go back through locks. ;)

[CRUISEFAN0001]

If you don't do some sort of excursion or another, it rather boring sitting around in the lake waiting to go back through locks. ;)

We were thinking the very same thing!

 

Kinda like when we went to Rome last year - but instead of the great exploration excursion of many sites we experienced...

 

...instead looking at it from the city border and saying "hey look - I think I see the Coliseum over in that direction". :eek::D