Independent tours in Colon for the Panama canal. Can anyone recommend one that is not from RccL

[wendyatpml]

We d on't like large amounts of people in a tour group.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

[ILOVESHIPS]

What ship is stopping in  Colon in Panama.  Serenade and Radiance  do not  stop in  Oct.  2022

[handbellplayer]

5 hours ago, wendyatpml said:

We d on't like large amounts of people in a tour group.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

We have had Colon as a port stop on two cruises.  One was a canal excursion and one was a tour of Panama City.  There is nothing near Colon and Panama City is at least (in my memory) an hour bus ride away.  On our canal excursion, we were caught in terrible traffic in Panama City and they held the ship for us - I was SO glad to be on a Royal excursion or we would have missed the ship!  We are usually fans of non-ship excursions, but I would never recommend one from Colon.

[Biker19]

45 minutes ago, ILOVESHIPS said:

What ship is stopping in  Colon in Panama.  Serenade and Radiance  do not  stop in  Oct.  2022

Adventure repo.

[neverbeenhere]

Unless Colon has changed very recently, it is a very wild and woolly area. Not for the tourist crowd, unless you look and speak like a local. 

[emeraldcity]

47 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

Unless Colon has changed very recently, it is a very wild and woolly area. Not for the tourist crowd, unless you look and speak like a local. 

I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. Stick with a ship's excursion here and suffer the big bus experience (which I also am not a fan of).

 

Special trivia note: the emeraldcity avatar is actually a photo of a condo in Panama City

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

1 hour ago, ILOVESHIPS said:

What ship is stopping in  Colon in Panama.  Serenade and Radiance  do not  stop in  Oct.  2022

Vision ... November of this year

[TexasRon]

Grandeur is stopping there in November 2023.

[joeyancho]

When you get off the ship walk past the naked people and over the bridge to the parking lot.  Lots of locals selling their wares.  Also lots of wild animals (sloths , monkeys, birds)  to get your picture taken with.  There will be plenty of people with vehicles waiting to take you wherever you want to go.   They will take you to the locks then around town for shopping,  if you like.  You get up close to the locks and watch their operation.  Very fascinating.  I remember everything was very cheap there.  Their currency is the USD.  It is an interesting place.  The US was there for years running and guarding the canal.  You will see where the soldiers lived, shopped, etc.  Jimmy Carter is a big hero in Panama,  lol.  

[little britain]

13 hours ago, wendyatpml said:

We d on't like large amounts of people in a tour group.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

My advise; don’t bother!
The port area looks like a bombsite. Poverty and corruption everywhere. Took ships tour to Old Panama City… felt very unsafe walking around as a single lady… even went into a church to avoid men that were hassling me.  
4 male friends who went for a walk in Colon were stopped by security and advised to go back on board. 
Big modern duty free shop in port terminal is the only redeeming factor 

 

The comments about the animals ^ is actually the little zoo area in Cartagena- which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in comparison! 

 

pic 1 outskirts of Panama City

pic 2 one block from cruise terminal 

pic 3 skyscrapers of PC

Edited August 16, 2022 by little britain

[shipgeeks]

Your daily planner will probably advise not going beyond the terminal.  We did not read our planner. We went for a walk around Colon. A Port Security guard accompanied us back to the terminal.  Not a good place.  Looked like a movie set from Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo and Juliet".

Crew were only permitted to go ashore in groups and in authorized transportation.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[handbellplayer]

11 hours ago, handbellplayer said:

We have had Colon as a port stop on two cruises.  One was a canal excursion and one was a tour of Panama City.  There is nothing near Colon and Panama City is at least (in my memory) an hour bus ride away.  On our canal excursion, we were caught in terrible traffic in Panama City and they held the ship for us - I was SO glad to be on a Royal excursion or we would have missed the ship!  We are usually fans of non-ship excursions, but I would never recommend one from Colon.

After all of the other comments, I'd like to add that we really enjoyed our ship excursions.  Going through the locks was fascinating  and our tour of Panama City was very enjoyable, too.  You don't have to stay on the ship and not visit the country at all.

[Ret MP]

My only advice is to take a "Ship's" tour.  If you book a 3rd Party tour and it runs late, the ship won't be there when you get back to the dock.  As stated, Panama is a wild place and anything can happen, just one glitch in the tour can cause you to run late and the ship doesn't wait on none "Ship's" tours.  They will, however, wait for "Ship's" tours that are running late, with only a few exceptions (weather, security, and such).  

We took a "Ship's" tour to go through a couple of the Locks, we ran over 2 hours beyond the ships departure time because of the congestion at the Locks (as we were told).  The ship was there when we got back, no problem.  I hate to think what we would have done if the ship left without us.  The tour was great, by the way.  

[cruizinfools]

On 8/15/2022 at 11:48 AM, wendyatpml said:

We d on't like large amounts of people in a tour group.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I reached out to a tour operator that I used many years ago to see if he was still in the business. I just heard back from him and I highly recommend you reach out to him. He provided a tour from Colon to see both the old and new locks (at that time they were still under construction). This was a large group from the CC roll call for that cruise, but he definitely works with small groups as well. The tour that I worked out with Roberto just happened to appeal to many of the folks on our roll call. His contact info is:

 

Roberto E. Whitaker H.

email: robtads2@hotmail.com

Telephone: (507)442-2499 Office; (507)6875-3683 Cell. 

 

Good luck!

[Cruisin'Texas]

On 8/15/2022 at 7:05 PM, ILOVESHIPS said:

What ship is stopping in  Colon in Panama.  Serenade and Radiance  do not  stop in  Oct.  2022

The Radiance will be doing a 11 day cruise out of Galveston in 2023. We have the Feb. 27th cruise booked.Super excited! Hope this is helpful.🙂