Panama Canal & Locks Transit By Boat 7 Hour excursion

[Suzyq52]

First time on a partial transit through the Panama Canal. I would appreciate reviews on this excursion, including pics if you have any 😎. How would this excursion compare to just staying on the ship as you go through the locks? Thank you very much! 

[NavyVeteran]

We enjoyed this excursion several years ago.

 

Advantages of the excursion:

• You make a full transit of the Canal. the ship goes through the Atlantic locks and the excursion small boat goes through the Pacific locks. If you stay on the ship, you go through the same locks twice.
• The locks look different from the small boat than from the large ship, so you get a different perspective.
• The small boat will probably go through the historic locks. If you're on a large ship (not a Panamax one), then the ship will go through the new locks, and you won't see the historic locks. In my opinion, the historic locks are much more interesting.

Advantages of staying on the ship:

• You have a great view of the locks going back. You can watch from anywhere with no crowds, since so many people are off the ship.
• You can relax on the ship. When the excursion gets to the dock at the end, you may have to wait for the ship to get there. It's not a great place to wait - few amenities and not much to see.

Summary: If you want the full transit of the Canal, then you need to take the excursion. If you're looking to relax, stay on the ship.

 

Another recommendation: Make sure you read The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough before your trip. That is the book describing the building of the historic locks of the Panama Canal. Reading that book will give you a much better appreciation of the Canal.

 

[voljeep]

If it's the same partial transit out of FLL/PE (10) days, that we took years ago on the ISLAND Princess...

 

You go thru some? locks on the ship and anchor in Gatun Lake - if you DON'T take the excursion, you'll hang out on the ship, then go back thru the same locks to the Atlantic side again.

 

If you DO take the excursion we took, you will tender to the shore from the lake, catch a bus - then the bus will take you to the excursion boar.  then the excursion boat will continue toward the Pacific ocean thru the remaining locks.  At the end of that, you will reboard a bus for a long ride back and meet your Ship waiting for you where you entered the locks that morning, where you will reboard.  It's a long day, but you get to see the whole canal.  Now our excursion was thru the "OLD LOCKS", before the new locks were completed.  No Pics, but we enjoyed it.  Again, a long day

[AtlantaCruiser72]

Currently Island and Coral Princess are the only two Princess ships capable of transiting the historical locks. All other ships will transit the new locks. This is regardless of whether the ship itself is doing a partial or full canal transit. 
 

If doing the partial transit on Princess you have a unique opportunity to experience the new locks from the ship in the morning then do the ferry boat excursion through the historic locks that afternoon. Really the best of both worlds and you get to experience the full canal in one day. 
 

[13cheermom]

So our recent experience in booking this excursion was an epic fail, lol.  It is a pricey excursion however read many good reviews and recommendations prior to our cruise.  Literally around 4pm the day  prior to excursion we received a letter in cabin that the tour would be cancelled due to mechanical issues.  Of course it was too late to try and book another tour at this time due to being sold out of anything comparable.  We opted to stay onboard and enjoy our extended balcony at the rear of the ship E731, and watched the transit.  To be honest it was the best case scenario as we had the wake view at the back of the ship as well as the side view due to the double length balcony.  Later that evening we heard all of the horror stories of boats breaking down & buses as well.  I think someone was looking out for us, so no regrets here.  I'm surprised with the expense of this tour they would have equipment maintained better.  It was a wonderful 10-day partial transit, and a bucket list item for us.

[mam11]

13 cheermom, we were probably on the same trip- that happened to us too. There were a lot of hot passengers at the excursion desk. We switched to the one with the train. We were disappointed, but the excursion we did was great. The train was anticlimactic, but we had a bus ride with a fabulous tour guide. Got to drive across a lock and go to a high observation park and overlook the locks. So our day was wonderful too. 

[azbirdmom]

We've done this tour twice and agree that it's a great way to experience the locks from different perspectives.  On the smaller boat you can really feel the movement and can even touch the walls.  It's a long day but we really enjoyed it.  By the way, both of these tours were pre-pandemic.  If the boats and busses are breaking down it could be that the pandemic hit the tour operators hard.  Hope they fix the situation soon as this is a wonderful excursion.

[dreaminofcruisin]

If it's the old locks, this is how close you are to the sides...

 

[suekel]

It says 7 hours...ours was over 12...Totally long day but worth it.  The ferry can't go through the locks by themselves so sometimes you have to wait for another ship to go through with. Ours   was made longer by our bus breaking down on the way back to the ship. Take extra $$ for beer and snacks.  Read A Path Between the Seas beforehand.  If you have never gone and may not go again, it's a once in a lifetime experience.  

[caribill]

OK, to some extent if you have seen one set of locks, you have seen them all.

 

But as others have said, experiencing them on a small ship is quite different than on a sigificantly larger cruise ship.

 

But, to me the main benefit of the transit on this excursion is that you get to go through the long section of the Canal where all of the digging had to be done to make the Canal a reality. Just doing a partial transit misses this historical and impressive engineering achievement.

[coo359a2]

16 hours ago, mam11 said:

13 cheermom, we were probably on the same trip- that happened to us too. There were a lot of hot passengers at the excursion desk. We switched to the one with the train. We were disappointed, but the excursion we did was great. The train was anticlimactic, but we had a bus ride with a fabulous tour guide. Got to drive across a lock and go to a high observation park and overlook the locks. So our day was wonderful too. 

We had to be on the same cruise too.  We've done the tour and it was very interesting going through the old locks.  Talked the kids into signing up for the tour only to get the letter saying the tour boat had problems.  All stayed on board and enjoyed relaxing and drinking

[puggymom]

I just did this tour in November and was fantastic. As others said going sailing the cut as well as going through the old locks on the Pacific side was amazing. Only the first lock did we share with a larger ship though. 
we did go through the the 2nd and 3rd locks without another ship. Maybe we were an exception. 
It was a very long day as we had to wait for the pilot to get to where the ferry was docked. Then once we finished the transit had to wait for him to be picked up. We were so late getting back we were late arriving in Costa Rica the next day. 
I was glad I had some bags of nuts as we were only served lunch on the ferry when we first boarded.