Flyinby

The night before Fuerte Amador we got a notice from Princess saying it was available, but not a "Princess-sponsored" tour.  They did include a form to give the bus that allowed them to collect the fee from Princess (charged to our room).  If that doesn't happen when you're there, you can probably just catch it at the tender port when you come in.  It runs every 30 minutes, and is a two hour round trip if you don't get off.  I think it was $39, and you got a wrist bracelet for all day.

They do a great job of describing the stops, providing a map and guide information, and also give you new earbuds to listen to the recorded description as you're passing points of interest.  The top is open (but roofed) and the bottom is closed and air conditioned.  We only got off once in old town for a couple of hours, but it was thoroughly enjoyable, and with buses coming every half hour, no long waits.  They go through the new city (Panama City) also, so you get to see how different it is...looks like it could be LA or any other large city downtown.

We did the (bus) city/oldtown tour about two weeks ago and found it disappointing.  One factor in our case was that it was very hot and humid, so that may skew our opinion to some extent, but overall I'd have rather sat on the bus for the all-day tour rather than what we did.

The fort was reasonably interesting and had some nice views of the city, but in areas where there was no breeze it was almost to where I felt like I couldn't breathe.  Cooler weather most certainly would have helped, instead of the ~92/feels like 103 we had.  The slope is somewhat steep but if you take it slowly, not so bad.  My wife has knee issues to where much walking is a problem, and she made it up and down OK.  Expect a lot of vendors pushing cheap junk in your face for much of the way.

The rest of the tour was pretty useless, other than a visit to an old Catholic Church.  Dropped us off at tourist junk shops for a few minutes, and a short walking tour, followed by the church (where the guide (Jenny) failed to announce she was leaving and we nearly lost the tour, had not someone noticed we weren't there).  Next a stop for a local folk dance group dancing for tips where we finally were offered a small bottle of water.  Then a way-too-long stop at a jewelry shop where they offered day-old coffee,  wifi, and air conditioning, while we waited way too long for the few interested members to look at jewelry.  Then to top it off, the guide had never really completed a count, and we left for the boat without 2 of the group (they had found someone on a similar tour who radioed the driver and we returned to get them).

Basically, after we left the fort, I'd have much preferred to sit on the air conditioned bus or go back to the ship, rather than the rest of the tour.

Another cruiser said they went on the Mangrove tour where a small paddle boat takes you through the mangroves, along with a short city tour, and he said they enjoyed that, so you might consider that one.  This tour was so bad that we cancelled a city tour in Panama for a couple of days later...no more "city tours" for a while...  We did the hop-on, hop-off bus there which was fine and enjoyable.  But as for Cartagena, the town itself is interesting and historical, but bad weather and a bad tour plan, along with way too many aggressive vendors and tourist junk shops spoiled it.