Info on Colon, Panama please

I have never been to this port before and have heard varying descriptions of it. I looked over the excursions for it and have not seen anything I really liked. Can anyone give me some details about this port? I have been told that it is not very safe.

Think of Colon more as a "service port" for Panama's North side, a jumping off point for shore excursions to fascinating places, and not a destination in inself. It is the second largest free port in the world, second only to Hong Kong, but it is for commercial/wholesale sales, not tourist "duty free" stuff. Tourism and cruise ships are not the focus. But there are some neat tours and I would recommend booking through the ship or advance booking on your own based on some of the recommendations on this board. You might be interested in info I posted on my Web site about Colon http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/a-tale-of-two-ports/ as well as some other info there about tours and stuff in Panama. Get off the ship . . . see some Panama . . . but what you want to see is not IN Colon.

Regards, Richard

I second Richard's advice. Get out of Colon on ANY tour. We did the Canal ferry. Some friends did the Panama City tour and others did the Embarra (sp?) Indian village. All of us enjoyed our tours.

We did a My Friend Mario tour in Feb. and had a great day. Saw the canal at Gatun Locks, went to Portobello and from there to a small secluded beach to snorkel. There are several other tours on his website. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend that company.

Colon itself, the part we drove through anyway, was not much to look at.

Thank you all for your advice!:D

We have found that the Caribbean working port towns themselves are nasty places. Great for going through on your way to somewhere else...but not for strolling around and soaking up the local culture.

In Panama there are so many interesting excursions to take make sure you get off the ship in Colon and see some of the country. If you don't like excursions then at least get off the ship and go to the freight shed right on the pier that they have converted to a shopping mall....make sure you go through the air conditioned part out into the "flea" market where the local artisans sell their wares.

We are headed for Panama in September on our way to Brazil. We'll do a complete transit from Pacific to Caribbean, but unfortunately the ship does not stop in Colon. As far as we are concerend that is the only 'down-side' of the whole five week itinerary!!!

We did a My Friend Mario tour in Feb. and had a great day. Saw the canal at Gatun Locks, went to Portobello and from there to a small secluded beach to snorkel. There are several other tours on his website. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend that company.

 

Colon itself, the part we drove through anyway, was not much to look at.

Sparky:

Can you give me more info on this tour, we are in Colon in January on the Freedom and we are looking for something to do, this looks interesting.......TIA

dst --

The My Friend Mario tour we took was #CL003. I tried to go on his website just now to double-check that and I wasn't able to get into his site -- don't know what that means exactly. It should be myfriendmario dot com.

The tour guide we had was Lori, originally from England but has lived in Panama for many years. She was great - had a lot of information to share and very friendly and fun. She picked us up at the bottom of the escalator where the ship docked at 9 am and we went in a van (total was 6 passengers) to the Gatun Locks. Spent maybe an hour or so there; watched a ship pass through the locks. There was no sense of hurrying to leave or of having to stay longer than we wanted -- it was very flexible all day.

After the locks we drove to Portabello which is a very small, rural village. There is a fort and a Customs house and church we walked through - interesting to see. Then we got in a small boat - like it was just big enough to carry the 8 of us (including Lori & the van driver, Lucy) to a secluded beach where people snorkeled. Nothing fancy, not like a resort area at all -- no chairs, no other people. But a very "real" experience and not touristy feeling at all. I didn't snorkel but the others said they did see a fair amount of fish.

The drive to and from Portabello to Colon was a little over an hour each way. It was scenic and Lori spoke about what we were seeing and gave other info about Panama -- the government, the people, etc. So it was not a bad drive.

We had drinks (Panamanian beer plus soda plus water) and some snack chips but you should probably bring a snack with you from the ship. We all had brought power bars or fruit or muffins from the breakfast buffet on the ship.

The tour ended at 3:30 and we had enough time to do a little shopping at the duty-free stores at the port. The cost was $45 per person. I don't know what a ship's excursion would cost but I thought it was reasonable and the fact that we had only 6 people touring vs. a large group made it very nice.

We had originally signed on for a different tour but not enough people were booked so we got added to this one -- I ended up being happy that it changed. We had a great day. One other note - there is no place to change so wear a bathing suit under your clothes and bring your own towels.

Hope whatever you do in Panama, you enjoy your visit!

Sparky: Thanks so much, in one way I am excited to go to Panama and in another all of the negative things I have heard makes me think otherwise.

This helped a lot; I am going to try and get on that site and hopefully book something with them.

Again thanks so much for your post, hope to see you on a crusie in the future :)

You're welcome, dst!

Wanted to also mention, a couple on our ship took a different Mario tour in Panama -- the Gatun Locks then went through the rainforest. She said they had a great time and saw a variety of wildlife. So if that's your cup of tea you might consider that tour.

From my experience and from what I read on cruisecritic when trying to decide, it seems you can't go wrong with Mario's company.

Have fun. :)

Sparky: I got on the website and it does look great, I believe we will use Mario for one of the tours - now the hard decision of what to do :)

thanks for your help,

Home of the original Colon irrigation! :D And, possibly the only port you can diss on CC without fear of anyone putting you down!

Actually, I did some personal (and family :eek:) taxi touring of Colon and it was memorable. (In the 'God Bless America!' sense) But, I'd been in Panama before shoreside, and I'd done a full transit on a cruise ship previously so it's not as if I really gave up an opportunity to see a 'new' country and I wouldn't recommend it for a first time visiter.

Colon is a very economically depressed, urban, gritty third world dump. I initially started hiking out of the port, but my personal security meter started red lining and I walked back. Since I'd already walked the gauntlet of assertive, vehicle questionable, taxi solicitors I was positioned to just hang around and observe which allowed me to deliberate and pick out a driver that my internal meter was OK with.

As are most people picked this way, he was a genuinely nice fellow. He gave me a nice tour of the dump. Being honest, he pretty much acknowledged it as a dump - the economic victim of a local US base closing (although that couldn't have made a HUGE overall difference in appearance of the place, I'm sure it negatively impacted the bordellos he pointed out). We drank some beer and what not. Then on a whim, I returned to the ship and made arrangements to reconnect with this driver and a couple of my kids, one of whom: teen girl that'd been insisting on the need for new sandals. What a great opportunity to show her what she was 'missing' in her highly privileged life.

It worked out well. We bought a few molas at the park overlooking the canal approach. We went to a cobbler - saddle maker and the sandal 'fitting' was a real hoot!

My driver encouraged me to do a more extended cab tour to get the H outta Dodge, but I didn't. I wouldn't encourage anyone 'casually' (easy mark) trapsying about Colon, but... if you're a sharp witted travelor with a twisted sense of adventure... you can find the weird charm to just about anyplace.

Loved your review of Colon!! You certainly described it very accurately. As far as the US base closure having an impact on Colon, I'm sure it did, but it has always been the pits. It just might be a little more grittier now, if that's possible.

Which beer did you have, Panama, Atlas, Soberana, Balboa? There are a few more, just can't think of them.

Has anyone had trouble with using an outside tour such as "mario" and not getting back to the ship on time? I hear traffic in Panama is unbearable (and we thought it was bad here in Norcal!)

So far the most I have heard is a some near misses, Mario seems to have a good reputation. Having said that, any tour that goes to the Pacific side, Panama City, Miraflores Locks, Ft. Amador for example, uses the only main road. As you are aware it can be very challenging at times negotiating that stretch of road as well as the traffic in Panama City. While the distance from Colon to Panama City is not that great, only about 50 miles, they can be far apart time wise.

If you were to take an independent tour operator to somewhere nearer to Colon, say to Gatun Locks, that would be fine. Otherwise I believe the ship's tour will give a great deal of peace of mind and you won't have that nagging doubt in the back of mind all day.

Only can speak for myself and our tour with Mario this past spring but we had no problem - were back pretty early. Our tour guide seemed very aware of the time and making sure we were back -- but I guess if there was an accident that blocked a roadway there could be a delay. Don't know if there are enough alternate routes that they can navigate around. I guess there are no guarantees but companies with good reputations know one missed ship could really mess up their business so I think they are not reckless with the return time.

Does anyone have a different one? I tried the site that's on here and also did a search and it comes up the same. I wonder if he's still doing tours?

I have not been on Mario's site for a bit but I can tell you as of about a week ago he was still planning tours. The only downside to Mario is that he wanted to be paid a large amount of money up front (cash only). We were uncomfortable with this so we have decided not to use him :mad:

From Sparky333.... " Don't know if there are enough alternate routes that they can navigate around."

This is at the heart of the problem, the Panama-Colon highway is the only way.

OK, well that IS a problem! I'm glad we didn't know about the one road situation or I'd have been nervous the whole time during our tour.

We didn't have to pay Mario (or rather our guide Lori) until the end of the day - he must've changed that policy since February.

Sparky - thats interesting, we wanted to set up a group tour and he wanted 500.00 cash, I would have no problem putting on my card (then we are protected) but cash to an Indiana address was just a bit too risky for us.

From what I have been told we are probably better off going thru the cruiseline for Panama :(

An Indiana address? In the US? Odd. I wouldn't send cash either.

It does sound like you might be better off going with a ship's tour.

Seeing the canal was so cool - I had just read the McCullough book about the making of it and it was fascinating to see it in person. As long as you get to do that on your tour - -the snorkeling for me was entirely secondary. Seeing the countryside and a small village & remains of a fort was okay - but i really was most interested in the canal.

Sparky: Yes it Was Indiana, US :) When that happened I was completely caught off guard and we all decided against it.

What ship were you on? How far would you say it is from the ship to the Canal. I would be content with hiring a taxi and just going to the canal viewing it and heading back tot he ship area to poke around and then hanging back on the boat.

Thanks for your help,

I was lookinig at a repo cruise that left from Colon.Are there any hotels to stay in if you wanted to go drown a day early?

I am assuming your are going on the Enchantment out of Colon on her return to FLL. There's a ton of places to stay in Panama City. So far the problem seems to have been is that RCI has not finalized any of their pre cruise hotel and tarnsportation arrangements, or at least made them public at this time. Panama City is about an hour and a half from Colon over what can be best described as a challenging piece of road. There is a lot of construction on the road complicating the drive. As far as hotels in the Colon area.... pretty limited. There is one outside of Colon, about half way to Gatun Locks, which seems to be a nice facility. It's operated by Sol Melia Hotels, (sorry don't have the web site handy, go to their site and look under Panama). I have not stayed there but I have stayed in one of their other hotels in Spain.

I think the best thing to do is wait and see what RCI is going to offer in the way of hotels, transfers etc. Using Colon as a homeport is all new and this maybe the reason things are not in place yet.