Terminal de Cruceros de Amador in Panama City - Passengers must take a shuttle

[Auroraborealis8]

We just got off of a 15 day cruise on the Norwegian Bliss that did a full transit of the new locks. We also did a ferry tour of the old locks, which I very much recommend. All in all, really fabulous.

 

However, the point of my post is to alert people to the fact that there is a new cruise port terminal being built at the Terminal de Cruceros de Amador in Panama City. Because of the construction, the port authority will not allow passengers to simply walk off the ship and go into Panama City, they must take a shuttle bus. Our shuttles only went to a stop on Perico Island (which is just down from the terminal, 10 mins max), where people were then free to take a bus or a cab into town. However, and I can't stress this enough, there is no proper road from the main road to the terminal right now, just a lot of very bumpy "roadway." This means two things: 1) a bumpy ride (obviously); and 2) a very slow process of getting back to the ship. The buses have to go extremely slowly, and there is only room to unload three busses at a time. If you are trying to come back at a time where a lot of shore excursions are also returning, you could be in a long line of busses waiting to get to the ship to let off passengers. We were sat in such a line for about 50 mins until we could get off the bus and onto the ship. 

 

I don't say this to discourage anyone, but only to manage expectations. Make sure you plan your day accordingly, and go to the bathroom before getting on a bus back to the ship!

[Turtles06]

Thank you for your post. The status of the cruise terminal at Fuerte Amador has been a subject of great discussion in this forum (see thread linked below), and it’s helpful to have current reports as the Canal transit season progresses.  We’ll be at Fuerte Amador on the Gem in early February on a B2B cruise, and the situation that you and others have described is distressing. 
 

Quick question: others have reported that the shuttle leaves guests on Flamenco Island (where the tenders used to drop folks off), but you said Perico.  Are you certain?  Thanks again! 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Turtles06

[Auroraborealis8]

10 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

Thank you for your post. The status of the cruise terminal at Fuerte Amador has been a subject of great discussion in this forum (see thread linked below), and it’s helpful to have current reports as the Canal transit season progresses.  We’ll be at Fuerte Amador on the Gem in early February on a B2B cruise, and the situation that you and others have described is distressing. 
 

Quick question: others have reported that the shuttle leaves guests on Flamenco Island (where the tenders used to drop folks off), but you said Perico.  Are you certain?  Thanks again! 

 

 

Thanks! I did a quick search but did not connect Fuerte Amador as being the same thing! Apologies for starting yet another thread on the subject.

The port authority does do shuttles for Isla Flamenco and was supposed do for us (in addition to Perico), but did not end up doing so (I think the official reason was that it was because it was a Sunday). In the end, we only had shuttles to Isla Perico.

[mcmarya]

Just curious where they drop  passengers on Perico.