Review of Panama Canal Cruise–14 Nights on NCL Sun October 14–28, 2016 (with photos)

Hello everyone. This is a review of our 14 night Panama Canal cruise on the NCL Sun. What an absolutely fantastic vacation that I will share with you through my words and photos!

Originally this was supposed to be an 11 night Mexican Riviera cruise but that was cancelled by NCL and we were given the option to take this 14 night cruise instead. The Panama Canal was a bucket list cruise for us which we did not envision taking for several more years or maybe not even until our retirement years as it is normally very hard for us to take this many consecutive days off work. But when this opportunity presented itself due to the cancellation of the Mexican Riviera cruise, getting price protection and 3 extra nights, this being my sabbatical year at my job so I had extra paid time off, and some reshuffling of our vacation schedules, we made it work. So here we go!

The itinerary was as follows:

Cruise started in Miami, FL

At sea

At sea

Cartagena, Colombia

Daylight Transit of Panama Canal

At sea

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Corinto, Nicaragua

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

At sea

Acapulco, Mexico

At sea

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

At sea

Cruise ended in San Diego, CA

About us, married couple in our late 40’s with no children. It had been 2.5 years since our last cruise (way too long) so we were more than ready for this trip! This was also our first cruise that was more than 7 days in length! Yay! We live near Seattle and left for Miami 2 days before the cruise.

Our journey started with a very, and I do mean very, early wake up call. 1:30 a.m. to be precise. Left the house by 2:30 to get to the airport by 4:00 for our 6:00 flight to Los Angeles. The Seattle to Los Angeles portion of the journey went smoothly. We were supposed to have a 2.5 hour layover in LA before flying to Miami. Well, long story short our LA to Miami flight ended up being cancelled due to mechanical issues so we ended up having to stay overnight in LA (airline paid for our hotel and meals). And we sat in the plane at the gate for 3 hours before they ended up cancelling it. A frustrating day! We were very stressed out at this point and were so happy that we had built in an extra travel day. Our flight the next morning from LA thankfully had no issues so we arrived in Miami on Thursday instead of Wednesday.

Yay! We finally made it to Miami! Let’s get this vacation started! We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in the Brickell area in downtown Miami. This hotel is in close proximity to the cruise terminal, less than 2 miles away. It is also very close to a CVS drug store (1 block away) if you need any last minute items for your cruise! This is an older hotel but it is currently undergoing renovations and updating. We were given one of the newly remodeled rooms on the top floor (14th floor) with a balcony and a sliver view of the water. It was a very nice room! Spacious and clean.

More hotel room photos

Friday, October 14. It’s cruise embarkation day! Finally, after waiting 18 long months since original booking (in April 2015), 1 cruise cancellation later and 1 flight cancellation later, at long last it was time to start our cruise! The hotel offered a shuttle service to the cruise terminal for $5.00 per person which we took.

We were impressed with Miami’s cruise terminal. The whole process was quick and efficient with well marked lines. We were on the ship in less than an hour from when we arrived at the terminal. There were 4 ships total that day in Miami so thousands of people, but we had no issues or delays in the terminal.

My first photo of the NCL Sun after arriving at the terminal

We were in an aft mini suite on the coveted Deck 9, Cabin 9278. And having never been in a stateroom category above balcony and having never sailed on the aft before, this was going to be a real treat for us!

All I can say is it was truly worth every penny to pay the higher price to sail in an aft mini suite instead of our usual side balcony cabins. These highly sought after aft minis on the Sun (of which there are only 6) are apparently substantially larger than aft minis on all other ships in the NCL fleet. So what better ship than the Sun to experience our first aft mini suite!

Aft mini suite 9278

More aft mini suite photos. The balcony size was awesome!

Bathroom and closet area

There was also a chair and mirror/dressing area in the bathroom

First views from the balcony

We were supposed to have an informal meet and mingle/sail away party with some of the members of our CC roll call at Champs Bar but the ship ended up leaving Miami 3 hours late and it was dark when we finally left Miami at nearly 8:00 p.m. so no sail away party for us. Some of us did meet there, socialized and waited for about 90 minutes but we all gave up around 6:30 not knowing we wouldn’t leave until 8:00 p.m.

Some photos of the 3 other ships that did leave when it was still daylight

Goodbye Norwegian Sky!

It's finally our turn to leave Miami. Goodbye USA, see you in 2 weeks!

Saturday, October 15. Our first at sea day! Our official CC meet and mingle was held at Las Ramblas Tapas Bar and Restaurant from 11:00 to 12:00. Here is where we met many new friends! We had an excellent turnout, nearly 60 people. NCL provided beverages and pastries. The ships officers came to talk to us and some of us also participated in a gift exchange. Later that same day some of us participated in a cabin crawl which I organized. We had a lot of fun viewing each other’s cabins and also learned a lot about certain differences between cabin categories and even differences within the same cabin category.

We had the UBP and 6 night SDP promos on this cruise. At home I only drink white wine and DH only drinks beer. One of things I loved about having the UBP was trying several “new” drinks, things I would never drink at home. Fun, fun, fun! So on the first at sea day it was time to try some new drinks!

My favorite was the Daydreamer’s Daiquiri

I tried several other drinks throughout the cruise but many of them were just too sweet for me. So back to white wine and champagne I went for most of the trip!

I really enjoyed just relaxing and viewing the ocean and the different colors of the wake on our "at sea" days

Random shots I took around the ship on our first at sea day

That was a great start with nice photos. Will be following along.

Sunday, October 16. Another at sea day. We need football, and we need it now! We love our football and we need to watch our beloved Seahawks wherever and whenever we can. We headed up to Deck 11 to the Sports Bar. Mission fail. They were showing one game and it was not the Seahawks game (we were not expecting that it would be knowing in advance that they only show one game). But we were able to catch the scores to know that the Seahawks did beat Atlanta. Yay!

View from the Sports Bar while watching football. Life is good

More shots from around the ship on another at sea day. The observation lounge on Deck 12 forward was a great place for peace and quiet and nice views

Monday, October 17. Cartagena, Colombia. Wow! What a beautiful city to sail into!

Entry into Cartagena. From Old World

to Modern

Our excursion was the Old Cartagena Walking Tour which was roughly 3 hours long. We only had 6 hours in Cartagena so it was nice having an excursion that did not take up the entire time in port.

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas Fortress

I failed to mention earlier that all of our excursions were booked through NCL. So if you are looking for independent excursion information this review will not contain any.

Beautiful old buildings, churches, and cobblestone streets in the old walled city. The walled city and fortress are a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Such history is so fascinating to DH and I

At first glance I thought this was a statue, but it was a real person

Glad I was not around back in the guillotine days

After the excursion we enjoyed some time at a nice little zoo near the cruise ship terminal. Beautiful birds, iguanas and monkeys.

Time to say goodbye to Cartagena!

NCL Pearl in Cartagena says goodbye to us!

Going to stop here for tonight!

Up next: The World's Greatest Shortcut!

Very excited to read this review. I. Booked on a 16 day Panama Canal cruise from Miami on 1/20. I loved the pool shot on the sun, it's not cluttered with those obstructive water slides

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Hello everyone. This is a review of our 14 night Panama Canal cruise on the NCL Sun. What an absolutely fantastic vacation that I will share with you through my words and photos!

 

Originally this was supposed to be an 11 night Mexican Riviera cruise but that was cancelled by NCL and we were given the option to take this 14 night cruise instead.

 

The itinerary was as follows:

 

Cruise started in Miami, FL

At sea

At sea

Cartagena, Colombia

Daylight Transit of Panama Canal

At sea

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Corinto, Nicaragua

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

At sea

Acapulco, Mexico

At sea

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

At sea

Cruise ended in San Diego, CA

My DH would like to cruise the Panama Canal. After reading your review and looking at your photos it has gone up higher on my bucket list. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your reviews.

I'm enjoying your review and looking forward to seeing the rest. We did a Panama Canal cruise two years ago and your review is already bringing back great memories.

Tuesday, October 18. It's time for the main event of this cruise and the world’s greatest shortcut! A member of the Panama Canal Authority came onboard and spoke about what we were seeing as we transited the locks. You could also listen to him through the cabin tv. Very impressed with his knowledge. He gave a full narration of the history and construction of the canal and also noted the flora and fauna we were viewing.

There was also a movie about the canal that was shown in the theater a day or two prior to the transit which I highly recommend viewing. It gives a lot of history about the canal.

We got up very early, at 5:00, on this day. We didn't want to miss anything! We were already arriving at the canal before sunrise to await our turn to enter.

Sunrise at the Panama Canal

We did move around the ship some to view from the front and also from the sides.

But with our view from our aft mini suite balcony that is where we spent a good portion of the day. It was very nice not dealing with all the crowds and enjoying our 180 degree view. So a lot of the photos I will be posting are after we have passed through certain areas since we were at the back of the ship.

Atlantic Bridge under construction - should be completed in 2017

Getting ready to enter into Gatun Locks

Another ship waiting it's turn!

The Panama Canal is on my hopefully 2018 short cruise list. I'm just trying to decide what time of year is the best time to do it.

The previous evening this flyer was given to all of us who were in balcony cabins if we wanted to order breakfast so we could enjoy the Panama Canal in the comfort of our stateroom while enjoying a traditional Panamanian style breakfast, which included eggs rancheros on a tortilla with salsa, muffin, bacon, sausage and toast. Also coffee and juices. A very nice touch!

After we passed through Gatun Locks we entered into Gatun Lake. It was fun watching all the other ships as well.

Gatun Lake was beautiful. Even in between the sets of locks there was just so much to see and enjoy. Beautiful tropical forests, birds, other ships passing by.

Beautiful, tall grasses everywhere!