Partial Panama Canal options

[dottiedef]

Which is better for the partial Panama Canal cruise. The Indian Village trip or the small boat through the canal with bus back. Thanks for advice.

 

Dottie

[BillB48]

Both of those tours are certainly the most popular tours for Panama. I'm always a little hesitant giving advice in a case like this because so much of the decision stems from what interests you. No doubt that for some the lockage through Gatun Locks with accompanying narration of the Locks and the Canal will be more than satisfactory, then it's time for an excursion. Visiting the Embera village would certainly be a great choice. Now for the opinion portion, the Canal is the star of Panama as it is unique to most other stops and owing to the fact that I am more interested in nuts and bolts things, I'm sure I would opt for partial transit of the Pacific Locks. My reasoning is this, your morning lockage at Gatun along with the partial transit of the Pacific Locks and through Gaillard cut will give you almost a complete transit of the Canal. There is an added benefit of being able to see the operations of the Locks from your Panamax ship and then see the process from a smaller vessel. A great A/B comparison! The bus trip will allow you to see a litlle of the countryside. Seeing both the Atlantic and Pacific Locks with the passage through Gaillard Cut displays what an enormous task that was undertaken a 100 years ago. You will also get a fairly up close look at the constuction underway for the new set of locks.

 

There are no "bad" choices here. The major problem is there are too many choices, so in that case you will just have to schedule another cruise to the region!