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Transportation Post Cruise (11/26/19 Depart)


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We will be sailing from St. Maarten on 11/23/19 and disembarking on 12/7/19 in Colon, Panama. Our post cruise hotel and flight will be out of Panama City.  We are having problems getting transportation from Colon to Panama City. 

According to Windstar their only post cruise excursion drops you at the airport and not hotel. It is very expensive and has some activities that we aren't interested in. Has anyone had experience with disembarking in Colon? (I tried to set up a Roll Call on this sailing with no luck.)

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Our cruise started in Colon, Panama so we had a similar issue but in the other direction. Based on a recommendation by sb44, we contacted  Vincent Scott (phone is +50766547771 email vscott03@gmail.com) about transportation from Panama City to Colon. He picked us up from our hotel and drove us to Portobello to see the customs house (the Caribbean end of the route that the Spanish used for moving gold from the Pacific to the Caribbean through Panama), fortifications and church. There was some time left before we needed to be on the ship we took the car ferry to see the land side of the Gatun dam than back on the car ferry to Colon 2000 to board the ship.  Vincent was excellent.

 

You probably could do something similar in reverse. He also does other tours so if there is something that interests you particularly such as visiting the canal visitor center, you could ask about that. For Sb44, he picked them up in Colon and did a tour of Panama City before dropping them at their hotel. 

 

Windstar doesn't show it as an excursion on their website, but they usually have a transfer to the hotel they use in Panama City (just a ride there, no site seeing stops on the way). It's mainly for people who have booked the pre- or post-cruise hotel through them but others can take it too. I called Windstar to get the price and confirm which hotel it was running from. The price for the transfer for 2 people was a bit less than what we paid Vincent, but it didn't include any touring and we would have had to pay for a taxi from the Windstar hotel to our hotel. 

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I am surprised to hear that Windstar is not selling you a transfer to their hotel in Panama City. Have you called their sales desk and made certain the transfer does not exist? (I got very good information about our Panama Canal cruise from the sales reps.) Perhaps you are not staying at the Bristol Panama, but if you are, we found their affiliated ground transport company to be excellent, and I would not hesitate to recommend that the hotel concierge book you a pickup in Colon.

 

Colon is a very unattractive place. I would make certain to have reliable transportation from that cruise port to Panama City. (The trip is on a very modern and safe highway. But the city of Colon is a dump.)

 

There is not reason to compare two different countries, but I was surprised to be told (about the Puerto Caldera, CR end of our cruise) that Windstar was not permitted to take anyone to the SJR airport who did NOT have a flight scheduled there! They did offer us a Windstar bus to their Marriott (?) downtown. We hired a private company for our Puerto Caldera pickup.

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2 hours ago, Southern Girl 1963 said:

We will be sailing from St. Maarten on 11/23/19 and disembarking on 12/7/19 in Colon, Panama. Our post cruise hotel and flight will be out of Panama City.  We are having problems getting transportation from Colon to Panama City. 

According to Windstar their only post cruise excursion drops you at the airport and not hotel. It is very expensive and has some activities that we aren't interested in. Has anyone had experience with disembarking in Colon? (I tried to set up a Roll Call on this sailing with no luck.)

We also used Vincent (see New Cruiser's post) from Colon. We did a day tour with him since the Hilton had a 3:00 p.m. check in time. If you want transportation only Google "My Friend Mario". We have used them as a car service only to either hotel or airport. Windstar will have a shuttle to the Bristol but if you're not staying there then you would have to get a cab from there to your hotel.

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