April 2015 Expansion Update

Here is a link to the Canal Authority's April Update of the expansion project. They have been putting these out monthly but most of the time it has been mostly recycled footage with only slight changes in the statistics. This one has some more up to date shots of the project.

Have a look....

Thanks for the update. We did our fourth full transit in late April, and visited the new Gatun Locks construction site.

Thanks for the link. Fantastic info here.

I guess my question is, will the Cruise Lines jump to use the new locks?

What size cruise ships will go thru. Right now Princess uses the Island and Coral. Will they be able to use the Grand Class ships, ie Star, Ruby or even the bigger Royal/Regal types.:)

Thanks for the link. Fantastic info here.

 

I guess my question is, will the Cruise Lines jump to use the new locks?

 

What size cruise ships will go thru. Right now Princess uses the Island and Coral. Will they be able to use the Grand Class ships, ie Star, Ruby or even the bigger Royal/Regal types.:)

I really don't have a feel as to how fast the cruise lines will be to embrace the new expansion. Have not read a single thing on any cruise lines plans for using their larger ships on Canal transits, but then again they really don't like to show their plans to the competition any earlier then they have to. Right now with the opening date continuing to slip they probably will wait to it is up and running to make plans for the larger ships. I have no doubt that there is some build it and they will come in the Canal's thinking.

The new locks dimensions are 1400x180 ft and they will take ships that are 1200x160 ft, so that should take care of all of Princess's ships for now, even the Royal/Regal ships. Maybe they will substitute one of the Grand class ships for the full transits that the Island and Coral do now and they would easily fit in the new locks.

The only caveat to the dimensions is the ships cannot have have a height (air draft) of more than 205' which is the Canal's upper limit for ships to pass beneath the Bridge of Americas. I believe all the Princess ships are OK in this area, but there are a few ships that may have some issues with that figure.

"Panama Canal Supersized" on the History channel a few nights ago was very interesting as it shows the magnitude of the work going into building the new locks. I'm sure it will be repeated. Highly recommend.