Full Transit Of The Panama Canal

There are 2 ways to do a Panama Canal cruise – full transit from Pacific to Caribbean or vv; or you can do a partial transit where the ship enters one side, usually the Caribbean, goes through a lock or two so you can see what it’s like and possibly stop for shore excursions.

Here’s an idea of what to expect in the way of shore excursions on a Panama Canal cruise.

Full transit 

Stop in Colon (sometimes tagged on to a full transit)

Partial transit with stop in Gatun Lake

Partial or full transit with stop in Panama City (Fuerte Amador)

The day before we were due to go through the canal, I noticed some ADULTS doing crafts with construction paper and cardboard signs.  It turned out they were making signs to wave at the photographer as we went through the canal.  I decided to join in!  Of course I had to feature a bird on my sign.  I’m sure a 5 year old would have done better but I liked my finished product anyways!

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The full transit we did in April 2011 went from Pacific to Caribbean with only a 3 hour stop in Colon so no time to go out.  We were told to stay in the shopping centre for our own safety.  We arrived at 5pm so it would have been too late to go anywhere else anyway.  During the transit, our fantastic port lecturer, Dr Thomas Ryan gave a fascinating and detailed commentary as we went through the canal.  We saw a few birds flying overhead but not very good views.  If you have a stop in Panama City, I recommend going to Soberania NP (Rainforest Center).  We did end up going there in August 2013.

We entered the canal at dawn.  In the following pictorial you will see the pilot boats, Bridge of the Americas, banks of the canal, a few odd birds and ships we passed including another Princess ship.  You can see the locks opening and closing with water levels going up and down and the Princess photographer down below aiming his camera at the people like us on the balconies.

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How I Planned A Birding Cruise

The cruise I will be blogging about in this series took place in 2011 on the beautiful Coral Princess by Princess Cruises.  It remains to this day as the best cruise we have ever taken out of about 6 so far.  It was the perfect itinerary – birding at almost every port and not too many sea days.  Unfortunately Princess no longer does this itinerary, probably due to American passengers being afraid to travel to Acapulco and the cruise was only just over half full.  Good for us, not so good for Princess!

GETTING THERE

This cruise was done during what I call the Golden Age of Miles & Points – when there were lucrative promos and fewer people who had the expertise to exploit them.  I did the US Airways Grand Slam promo on both mine and my husband’s accounts to get over 120k miles in each our accounts.  The whole itinerary was in business class!

SINGAPORE AIRLINES:  BNE-SIN

ASIANA:  SIN-ICN-LAX

US AIRWAYS:  LAX-PHX-MEX

Open jaw for cruise, then drive to Orlando to see friend.  Fly to LAX and drive to see family using separate ticket on AA.

ASIANA:  LAX-ICN-SIN

SINGAPORE AIRLINES:  SIN-BNE

As I stated in the previous post, we arrived in Mexico 3 days prior to the cruise and spent 1 day in Mexico City at the Hampton Inn Centro Historico, saw the pyramids, took a bus to Acapulco and spent 2 nights at the Crowne Plaza on points and were upgraded to a corner suite.  We had a great view and even saw our ship the Coral Princess come in!

THE CRUISE ITINERARY

This map shows the ground transport (red) and cruise (blue).

Cruise & Flights

Here we have the cruise itinerary with timings.  Timings are always important as you see way more birds in the early morning.  We were really good about being downstairs ready to dis-embark the minute they started allowing people off.

Cruise ItineraryOUR SPECIFIC PLANS FOR EACH PORT

Huatulco – Princess actually had a bird-watching shore excursion so we did that.

San Juan del Sur – I couldn’t find anything for birding at the time so we did a Masaya Volcano/Granada shore excursion hoping to see birds incidentally.

Puntarenas – I booked a private day trip to visit Carara National Park and a bird sanctuary

Panama Canal – The ship provided commentary throughout the transit of the canal.  When we reached Colon, they only gave us a few hours to see the shopping centre at the port.

Ocho Rios – I booked a private birding tour.

FUN FACT:  I got to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on the big screen at the swimming pool during the cruise even though I had to get up at 4am to do it!