Panama Canal shore excursion description lacking important details

[Joker54]

We were on Beyond for 29 Jan cruise to the Panama Canal. We booked Destination Highlight: Aerial Tram Through Panama's Tropical Rainforest Colon, Panama as an excursion and were quite surprised at what we felt were important details on this excursion missing from X’s web page.

 

This excursion includes a 90 minute bus ride from the pier to the excursion site and another 2 hours on a bus from that location back to the ship in Panama. Had the description mentioned 3.5 hours on a bus we would never have booked it. There was a letter included with tickets that provided the additional detail along with 2 other letters.

 

Anyone taking this tour will depart the Beyond shortly after passing through the locks and after entering Gatun Lake and would miss transiting the locks on the way back to the Atlantic.

 

Other cruisers mentioned long unanticipated bus rides on excursions from the canal also. Seems to be a pattern of missing details.

On prior cruises the web had more detail about bus rides that were part of a given excursion. 

 

cheers

 

[mahdnc]

8 minutes ago, Joker54 said:

We were on Beyond for 29 Jan cruise to the Panama Canal. We booked Destination Highlight: Aerial Tram Through Panama's Tropical Rainforest Colon, Panama as an excursion and were quite surprised at what we felt were important details on this excursion missing from X’s web page.

 

This excursion includes a 90 minute bus ride from the pier to the excursion site and another 2 hours on a bus from that location back to the ship in Panama. Had the description mentioned 3.5 hours on a bus we would never have booked it. There was a letter included with tickets that provided the additional detail along with 2 other letters.

 

Anyone taking this tour will depart the Beyond shortly after passing through the locks and after entering Gatun Lake and would miss transiting the locks on the way back to the Atlantic.

 

Other cruisers mentioned long unanticipated bus rides on excursions from the canal also. Seems to be a pattern of missing details.

On prior cruises the web had more detail about bus rides that were part of a given excursion. 

 

cheers

 

 

Thank you for posting.  There have been two other similar complaints this past month about Celebrity shore excursion descriptions inadequately advertising how much time would be spent traveling. (Example 1, Example 2).  

[NMTraveller]

I wish that they would publish the length of the bus rides on the excursions.

 

On my upcoming AMA Waterways excursions you know the length of walking and of the bus ride.  They also score the level of difficulty from 1 to 10.

 

Some of the Celebrity excursions can be on a bus for most of the day and then an hour or so to see the site(s).

Edited February 19 by NMTraveller

[mahdnc]

45 minutes ago, Joker54 said:

We were on Beyond for 29 Jan cruise to the Panama Canal. We booked Destination Highlight: Aerial Tram Through Panama's Tropical Rainforest Colon, Panama as an excursion and were quite surprised at what we felt were important details on this excursion missing from X’s web page.

 

This excursion includes a 90 minute bus ride from the pier to the excursion site and another 2 hours on a bus from that location back to the ship in Panama. Had the description mentioned 3.5 hours on a bus we would never have booked it. There was a letter included with tickets that provided the additional detail along with 2 other letters.

 

Anyone taking this tour will depart the Beyond shortly after passing through the locks and after entering Gatun Lake and would miss transiting the locks on the way back to the Atlantic.

 

Other cruisers mentioned long unanticipated bus rides on excursions from the canal also. Seems to be a pattern of missing details.

On prior cruises the web had more detail about bus rides that were part of a given excursion. 

 

cheers

 

 

 

I was just looking up your tour since that tour is offered for our Summit cruise in April which calls on Colon for a full day and then we cross through the entire canal to the Pacific Ocean on the next.

 

I noticed that the details in the tour description include a warning about delays getting back to the ship because the ship may be delayed transiting through the locks.  Perhaps that is what you suffered?  Of course for us, the language doesn't apply because Summit will transit the Panama Canal on the day after we call on Colon which goes back to your point about inadequate tour descriptions.

 

 

 

Edited February 19 by mahdnc

[Joker54]

2 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

 

I also just noticed that the details in the tour description include a warning about delays getting back to the ship because the ship may be delayed transiting through the locks.  Perhaps that is what you suffered?  Of course for us, the language doesn't apply because Summit will transit the Panama Canal on the day after we call on Colon which goes back to your point about inadequate description of the tour.

 

 

 

I didn’t suffer anything, I cancelled the excursion. The DW and the couple we were traveling with wanted to see the locks inbound and outbound.

 

The bus rides and times I mentioned had nothing to do with ship transit time. My entire point was that X should have noted the bus travel times. Yes some of it was implied but it was vague at best.

 

It is a very simple process to have different descriptions of an excursion and link the descriptions to the appropriate ship/itinerary.
 

You may have noticed that the excursion is listed as Cologne Panama which would be appropriate for your situation, for those on the Beyond it would be better to list it as Gatun Lake, Panama or Panama Canal as that is where the excursion begins.

 

I hope you enjoy your tour excursion/cruise.

 

cheers

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Click]

They do seem to have some "issues" in their descriptions.  One our Southern Caribbean trip on the Beyond we booked a "small group" tour  in St. Lucia.  The bus held 25 people.  It was the biggest bus you could have in St. Lucia where the roads are terrible and narrow.  No, it was not a 50 pax bus but I expected something smaller than 25 on that island. We live, we learn.

[mahdnc]

19 minutes ago, Joker54 said:

I didn’t suffer anything, I cancelled the excursion. The DW and the couple we were traveling with wanted to see the locks inbound and outbound.

 

The bus rides and times I mentioned had nothing to do with ship transit time. My entire point was that X should have noted the bus travel times. Yes some of it was implied but it was vague at best.

 

It is a very simple process to have different descriptions of an excursion and link the descriptions to the appropriate ship/itinerary.
 

You may have noticed that the excursion is listed as Cologne Panama which would be appropriate for your situation, for those on the Beyond it would be better to list it as Gatun Lake, Panama or Panama Canal as that is where the excursion begins.

 

I hope you enjoy your tour excursion/cruise.

 

cheers

 

 

 

 

Thanks.  Fortunately we did not book that tour. I was under the impression that you had taken that tour based on the issues that you cited. 

Edited February 19 by mahdnc

[Joker54]

Just now, mahdnc said:

We did not book that tour. 

Still wish you a wonderful cruise and that you enjoy transiting the old locks. The new locks are interesting, not as interesting as the old locks in my opinion 

[mahdnc]

2 minutes ago, Joker54 said:

Still wish you a wonderful cruise and that you enjoy transiting the old locks. The new locks are interesting, not as interesting as the old locks in my opinion 

I appreciate that!  I trust your cruise went well?

Edited February 19 by mahdnc

[john bowtie]

I like how most Princess Shore Excursions include detailed tour information.

 

https://www.princess.com/ports-excursions/fuerte-amador-panama-for-panama-city-excursions/panamas-rainforest-aerial-tram

 

click to the excursion detail tab.

Edited February 19 by john bowtie
addition

[NMTraveller]

39 minutes ago, Mr. Click said:

They do seem to have some "issues" in their descriptions.  One our Southern Caribbean trip on the Beyond we booked a "small group" tour  in St. Lucia.  The bus held 25 people.  It was the biggest bus you could have in St. Lucia where the roads are terrible and narrow.  No, it was not a 50 pax bus but I expected something smaller than 25 on that island. We live, we learn.

I have seen "small group" excursions range from 8 people to 50.  It would be nice if Celebrity would tell us what they consider to be the max on each of these "small group" excursions.  Small group is normally what I book.

 

[NMTraveller]

3 minutes ago, john bowtie said:

I like how most Princess Shore Excursions include detailed tour information.

 

https://www.princess.com/ports-excursions/fuerte-amador-panama-for-panama-city-excursions/panamas-rainforest-aerial-tram

Oh wow.  That definitely beats Celebrity.  They even have reviews.  I would like to know what people thought of the excursions.

[LB_NJ]

In my experience both Celebrity and Royal have rather poor and/or wrong shore excursion descriptions.

 

Sometimes the shore desk people on the ship know more information, sometimes not.

 

I’ve tried calling pre-cruise to get more info with generally poor results.

[Essiesmom]

There seems to be some misconception here about returning to the ship after an excursion.  Anyone taking an excursion will tender off in Gatun Lake but will NOT tender back to the ship and pass back through the locks.  All tours rejoin the ship in Colon.  Only those not taking a tour will repeat the transit of the locks.  So the length of time on the bus back to the ship is irrelevant.  EM

[Mr. Click]

11 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I have seen "small group" excursions range from 8 people to 50.  It would be nice if Celebrity would tell us what they consider to be the max on each of these "small group" excursions.  Small group is normally what I book.

 

If you read the fine print it says up to 25 people but on St Lucia where the roads are very bad at best I mistakenly assumed it would be a smaller van.  We rarely book ship's excursions and I should have paid more attention.

 

[Joker54]

6 hours ago, Essiesmom said:

There seems to be some misconception here about returning to the ship after an excursion.  Anyone taking an excursion will tender off in Gatun Lake but will NOT tender back to the ship and pass back through the locks.  All tours rejoin the ship in Colon.  Only those not taking a tour will repeat the transit of the locks.  So the length of time on the bus back to the ship is irrelevant.  EM

It is very relevant if your not interested in an excursion where you will be spending 3 or so hours on a bus.

[john bowtie]

I would suggest doing the original rainforest canopy tram ride (the very long two level tram) in Costa Rica (though is does require a very long bus ride from Limon. For the partial Panama Canal transit--if your ship is too large for the old locks (like the Celebrity Beyond)--I would recommend a shore excursion on a small ferry boat that completes the transit to the pacific ocean though the old locks--it allows you to see the old locks up close and also experience a full transit--long tour/day but worth it.