"Grand Tour" with Carnival

[want2gomore]

I've seen bits and pieces in other posts regarding the Grand Tour (Embera Indians and Gatun Locks - $145.00) with Carnival. Could someone who has been on this excursion tell me if you actually get to get out of the boat to see the Embera Indians? Carnival's description says that you "proceed near the banks of the Gatun Lake to see the Embera Indians". To me this doesn't sound as if you get out... you just float by?

[sounder]

The Grand Tour is like this:

You leave the port via motor coach. I will give you the itinerary as we did it (two weeks ago) - we did the early tour, the later tour just did it in a different order. You drive for maybe a half an hour, and go to a resort/hotel. You have time for a pee break, and then go and get into small boats that hold about 20 ppl. each. You then proceed along the banks, looking for various wildlife (we saw sloths, iguana, other tour saw monkeys). This lasted around a half an hour, I'd say. They pull right up so you can get pictures of whatever you find & they turn the boat so both sides see everything. You go to the Indian Village & YES, you get out of the boat. I think we spent around an hour there? There are tables of items to buy (I bought my son a flute-thing there for $10 and saw the same thing later for $5). Some stuff is hand crafted by them though, and I didn't see the same things again. You have a presentation by the chief, and they dance for you. You have time to look around the village a bit & then back in the boats. You go straight back to the resort (no looking along shore), and have a bit of time there to buy a refreshment and shop if you like. We then proceeded to the Gatun Locks, where you can observe how the locks work and have a brief presentation about them. We were there for 45 minutes. I kind of found this part boring, but hard to go to Panama without seeing the locks, right? We were back in port with plenty of time to look around the shops and get back on the ship and relax.

[want2gomore]

Sounder: Thanks for the info. I finally found someone in Customer Service for Carnival that could tell me that we went to the village and got out of the boat. Before your post, I had already booked this excursion...so I'm happy to hear from you and for your itinerary. Like you we couldn't see going all the way to Panama and saying we didn't see the canal, but we didn't want to spend 7 hours there. Maybe on a return visit we'll take a cruise that goes through the canal.

 

So I know not to buy any flutes, right? What did you see there that wasn't in the port to buy?

[sounder]

They made a lot of bead-work art (masks, plates, etc.) and had these little carvings, made from a seed of a local tree (I think?). They talk about it during the presentation. They were kind of neat. You can sort of tell what is hand made & what looks a bit more "manufactured". Some of them are sitting there working on carvings or bead work too, so you can tell. Have fun!

[want2gomore]

Sounder: Thanks for the advice. I can't wait:D

[Attack Dog]

I'm reviving this thread to ask how the roads are when your traveling to the boat? I have someone in my party who gets motion sickness when going over bad roads. If they aren't too bad she may be able to tuff it out for a half an hour.