Highlights of Panama on Coral Princess

[txpatty]

Has anyone taken this tour and do you recommend it?

[hippie lady]

I WILL BE ON THE CORAL PRINCESS 2-25-08 AND AM ALSO THINKING ABOUT THE HIGHLIGHTS OF PANAMA BUT WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM FOLKS THAT HAVE BEEN TO PANAMA CITY. IS IT WORTH THE TRIP AND CAN YOU SHOP????? PRINCESS IS NOT LISTING ANY EXCURSIONS FOR PANAMA YET????? THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.:) :confused:

[hippie lady]

MISSPELLED YOUR NAME. I HAVE TAXES ON MY MIND. SORRY.:mad:

[burrma]

I WILL BE ON THE CORAL PRINCESS 2-25-08 AND AM ALSO THINKING ABOUT THE HIGHLIGHTS OF PANAMA BUT WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM FOLKS THAT HAVE BEEN TO PANAMA CITY. IS IT WORTH THE TRIP AND CAN YOU SHOP????? PRINCESS IS NOT LISTING ANY EXCURSIONS FOR PANAMA YET????? THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.:) :confused:

Can someone help me, please?

I need to book a Panama cruise for a group of friends next Feb. and we all like the Princess ships because of Share the wealth; referral rewarsd etc. however; is this a good itineray since you are not allowed to get off the Princess ships at Panama Canal unless you are taking an excursion through it to see the locks. I hear it's important to take the ferry through them. Will my group be pleased with this? Anxious to hear if you were pleased with it or wished you had done another ship or way.

I guess what I'm asking: why did you choose this ship and itinerary to do the Panama Canal? Thanks for any help or threads you can give me.

[mii]

I sail Princess so my only option was the Coral and the Island Princess. they are great ships. Just the right size (1950) passengers. We did a partial transit the first time and once we went through the Gatun Locks, we then were tendered to the shore for the excurison Ocean to Ocean where we went by ferry to the pacific side locks. Wonderful tour. Now make sure you go prepared with hats and suntan lotion as it gets hot and humid. If you go up top on the ferry you will burn quickly. Just stay indoors; all sorts of windows and there is some air conditioning. I would highly recommend this tour. All if you go back a number of pages there is all sorts of reviews about this excursion.

 

Marilyn

[burrma]

I sail Princess so my only option was the Coral and the Island Princess. they are great ships. Just the right size (1950) passengers. We did a partial transit the first time and once we went through the Gatun Locks, we then were tendered to the shore for the excurison Ocean to Ocean where we went by ferry to the pacific side locks. Wonderful tour. Now make sure you go prepared with hats and suntan lotion as it gets hot and humid. If you go up top on the ferry you will burn quickly. Just stay indoors; all sorts of windows and there is some air conditioning. I would highly recommend this tour. All if you go back a number of pages there is all sorts of reviews about this excursion.

 

Marilyn

Appreciate you taking the time to answer; will check other threads before this one.

[smoosh21]

According to the Princess Website, the Panama Canal "stop" is listed as 7:00 AM until 4:30 PM.

 

I know from reading up that it takes 8-9 hours for a ship to make a full transit through all the locks. Now, since this is all the time listed for the port, how do the excursions work?

 

Does the ship actually stop in Gatun Lake from the Hours of 7-4:30 and therefore actually enter the canal sometime in the early, early morning, and then not exit until late in evening?

 

Some of the excursions look really interesting, but the point of a canal cruise to me, is being on a ship during the locks. I don't want to miss that part.

 

I am currently investigating the Coral Princess for the 03/09/09 sailing right now.

 

Thanks for any info you can offer

[Richard in Panama]

There are primarily two ways to do the Canal:

 

Complete transit - leaves from W Coast and ends up on E Coast. Usually these go through the Canal and generally don't allow you opportunity to get off and see Panama, but you do the complete passage from sea to sea.

 

Partial transit - usually leaves from port on one coast and returns to the same port. Goes through one set of locks, turns around in Gatun Lake, disembarks passengers for tours, goes back through the same set of locks, and picks up tour passengers either at Colon/Christobal (Caribbean side) or Amador (Pacific side).

 

Passengers are disembarked for tours in Gatun Lake using tenders. Generally passengers who have not booked tours through the ship are not allowed to disembark in Gatun Lake.

 

Hopefully this helps explain the confusion in timing. I've posted more explanation of this on my blog Cruise Q&A http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/ and Tale of Two Ports http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/

 

Which is the "best" way to do the Canal? It depends. Depends mostly on what you want. Ideal thing is to do TWO cruises!!

 

Regards, Richard

 

PS - HippieLady - You did your taxes and still have money for a cruise? Good for you!! :)

[smoosh21]

There are primarily two ways to do the Canal:

 

Complete transit - leaves from W Coast and ends up on E Coast. Usually these go through the Canal and generally don't allow you opportunity to get off and see Panama, but you do the complete passage from sea to sea.

 

Partial transit - usually leaves from port on one coast and returns to the same port. Goes through one set of locks, turns around in Gatun Lake, disembarks passengers for tours, goes back through the same set of locks, and picks up tour passengers either at Colon/Christobal (Caribbean side) or Amador (Pacific side).

 

Passengers are disembarked for tours in Gatun Lake using tenders. Generally passengers who have not booked tours through the ship are not allowed to disembark in Gatun Lake.

 

Hopefully this helps explain the confusion in timing. I've posted more explanation of this on my blog Cruise Q&A http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/ and Tale of Two Ports http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/

 

Which is the "best" way to do the Canal? It depends. Depends mostly on what you want. Ideal thing is to do TWO cruises!!

 

Regards, Richard

 

PS - HippieLady - You did your taxes and still have money for a cruise? Good for you!! :)

 

Interesting, but now somewhat more confused. Does it always work this way? Princess is listing the excursions for this particular sailing, implying that there is some way to 'visit' Panama on the crossing. Does this mean that you get dropped off before the ship enters the canal and picked up in other Ocean? I do see that you say generally, so maybe some ships work differently.

 

If this is the case, I would probably almost want to go for the partial transit instead if it gives me more time to actually explore the Canal zone.

[Richard in Panama]

Smoosh, Appears from the Itinerary on the Princess Web that CORAL is doing a "Partial Transit" in Spring '09

 

Partial transit - usually leaves from port on one coast and returns to the same port. Goes through one set of locks, turns around in Gatun Lake, disembarks passengers for tours, goes back through the same set of locks, and picks up tour passengers either at Colon/Christobal (Caribbean side) or Amador (Pacific side).

 

Passengers are disembarked for tours in Gatun Lake using tenders. Generally passengers who have not booked tours through the ship are not allowed to disembark in Gatun Lake

 

If you're interested I've posted some of the Canal stuff on two pages

http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/category/canal-cruise/ and also http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/ - Hope that helps!

 

Regards, Richard

[smoosh21]

Smoosh, Appears from the Itinerary on the Princess Web that CORAL is doing a "Partial Transit" in Spring '09

 

 

 

If you're interested I've posted some of the Canal stuff on two pages

http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/category/canal-cruise/ and also http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com/qa-for-cruisers/ - Hope that helps!

 

Regards, Richard

 

Well, that sailing on 3/09/09 is actually a full transit from L.A. to FLA, but I think I see the differnce now on their Website. Some Full Transits have a 5 hour stop listed right after the transit. It appears that in this case people can do excursions. The 3/9/09 sailing does not have this stop, so I believe that the excursions are not itenerary specific but only port specific and this sailing will not have excursions

 

The Princess site is having problems right now, but I did see some full transits yesterday that did make a 5 hour stop in Panama just after the transit. The transit was listed as 7-4:30 and the port stop was from 5-10 PM and listed as a tender site. I guess based on the full itinerary, they are able to make a slightly longer stop on some sailings than on others.

[hippie lady]

Thank You Sooo Much For Your Wealth Of Information. I Just Got Back From The Panama Canal On The Coral Princess. The Locks Are Amazing. This Cruise Is Mainly The Panama Canal With Short Visits At Other Ports - Aruba Only Half Day. The Reason For This Is Because It Is So Far To Get To Panama. The Ship Covered More Than 2,000 Miles On This Cruise. I Enjoyed All Of It And As Far As Excursions Go, We Each Want To Do Our Own Special Trip. I Would Encourage You To Read All Richards Links. The Coral Princess Is A Beautiful Ship, Food Good, Service Good But Very Sedate - Not A Happeniing Ship- An Older Crowd But When The Ship Had Parties Everyone, Seniors Included, Were Ready To Dance And Have A Good Time - This Ship Just Needed More Of This. I Wish You A Great Cruise And I Have Found That Any Journey Is As Good As You Make It.:d And No, Richard, Unfortunately I Have Not Done My Taxes.:( Visa Awaits Me.