Panama Canal 20-day Cruise 2025

The Canal, Cartagena and the trip home

Monday and Tuesday, November 3 and 4

The Canal Crossing

Well, Norbert and I both had fevers all night Sunday and all day Monday. We had to forgo our excursion and also cancelled our excursion for Wednesday. Turns out, our transit through the Panama Canal began very early Tuesday morning. By 6 am, we were approaching the Bridge of The Americas to enter the Cocoli Locks. We had attended a talk onboard about how the canal works so I understood what I was seeing. I think that made it even cooler to experience. The Panama Canal is basically a huge, freshwater lake in the Panamanian Central Mountain Range, created by damming the two entrance/exits to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. There are two sets of locks at each entrance/exit. There are the original 1914 locks and the 2016 expanded locks for bigger ships. Our ship, built in 2019 apparently was specifically designed to go through the expanded locks. Panama had a referendum where the country decided to build the expanded locks. The Cocoli Locks have three chambers. From the Pacific Ocean, the ship enters the first lock, in which the water is at sea level then a rolling gate closes behind the ship. We had a tug boat on our bow and one at our stern through the locks. There was no room for any boat on our sides - we basically just fit with about 2 m to spare on each side. Once the gate behind us closes, the water from the gate chamber in front of us is allowed to flow into our chamber through 20 culverts in both walls. The water stops flowing naturally when the water levels in both chambers are even. Then the front gate opens and we sail to the next gate, where the process repeats. The last chamber is filled by allowing lake water to enter the chamber until it is level with the rest of the water on the lake, which is 27 metres above sea level. And we’re off! We weren’t feeling great that day but I still sat on our balcony watching as we sailed through the gorge that was cut into the mountains, and through the huge lake dotted with islands that were formerly tops of smaller mountains. The guide talking us through was very good. He mentioned that there are American Crocodiles here, no alligators, but that they were very big and aggressive. He said that he had spotted one at the beginning of our journey. I didn’t see any but I did hear a lot of birds and jungle type of sounds. It was hot, misty and raining the entire time so I felt like I was on a jungle safari. There was a monkey island but all I saw were a few tour boats floating around. It was so quiet that I even took a video of the sound of the rain on the leaves and the water. Very cool! It definitely was worth the 17 days of cruising to get to this crossing. Also, I had not known this before, but the actual general direction sailed is not east-west but north-south (SE-NW) - HUH?!

The gorge cut into the mountains is large enough to allow two huge vessels to pass each other. The exit of the canal is the exact reverse of the entrance. These, called the Gatun Locks also have three chambers that empty into each other and then out to the Atlantic Ocean, or more specifically, the Caribbean Sea. Lake water is lost to the ocean in this process, but it rains so much here that the only time they have issues is in a drought. They do have water saving basins beside the locks to help if needed. The locks use no water pumps at all. It apparently cost Norwegian Cruise Lines about a million dollars for this crossing. An interesting experience is that when we were approaching the Gatun Locks, I could hear people cheering and someone on a loudspeaker announcing stuff in Spanish and I caught the name Norwegian Encore. I looked up and saw a bunch of people waving at us. They were in some sort of observation area. It turns out, November 3 and 4 is Panama’s Fiesta time to celebrate Separation from Columbia and Flag Day. The narrator of the tour said that it was good that we did not try to have tours in Panama that day because the business are all closed for the festivities. It was good to get sailing again. Two full days in a port that I found too hot to explore was enough.

November 5

Cartagena, Colombia

We docked in Cartegena, Columbia before 10 the next morning. I found out that it’s pronounced CAR-ta-HEY-na. The weather: Steamy. Like walking around in a sauna all day, then you step into the sunshine and roast. We had cancelled our excursion to see the city in case we did not feel up to it. It had been the right decision. I found that an eco-park was within 10 minutes walking distance from port so we headed there at around 10 am. Turns out, this is the welcome place for all cruise guests going ashore and is not open to the public. They had all kinds of rescued animals there: Macaws, parrots, sloths, monkeys, peacocks, tortoises, iguanas, ducks, birds. It really was a treat to see. The birds allowed us to be very close. The adult howler monkeys mostly kept their distance but ventured to try to get treats from the guests. Oh- forgot to mention, There were no cages. To get to the city, people without an excursion have to go through the park to the end. There were vendors everywhere, coming right up to you with some standard lines like “almost free”. Norbert decided to let a private tour guide  give us a 2 hour city tour for $60US. Way cheaper than the $181 tour we cancelled. I was very unsure. Then he took us across the busy street to wait until he got his car out of a gated area. It looked like he was having issues and we were standing in the sun waiting. Then he calls a buddy to PUSH HIS CAR so it would start. I figured “Oh Boy- what did we do”. He assured us that his battery was low and it would be all good. His English was very good. The car was air conditioned and clean so we got in… Well, turns out that we probably had a much better tour with this private tour guide, named Roosevelt, than even the cruise passengers did on the big buses. The traffic can only be described as ANYTHING GOES! There may be lanes, but cars just jockey around each other, motorcycles scoot in and around all the vehicles, honking but no swearing, etc. The smaller car we were in could maneuver through traffic where the big buses were stuck in traffic by other big busses. Don’t Drive Here! He took us to the fort and old town where we got out of the car both places to walk. There are no cars allowed in the old, fortified city. He of course had to bring us to two jewelry shops where he gets some kind of incentive. Columbia is apparently known for emeralds, and in the shops, they do not display the prices. I almost fell over when I was told that a pair of 18K gold .1K emerald stud earrings were $500. I said no thank you.

Our guide was very good. He explained that Cartagena has about 1 million people, with no universal health care but they also don’t have to pay high taxes. If you have a job with a company, you pay income tax, if not, you only pay sales taxes. So he said that since he is not employed, that he only works with his car, that he does not pay income taxes… interesting. He got us back to port in time. There was a traffic stoppage on the road during this lunch hour rush, so he made a u-turn on the street and went another way. Something the buses couldn’t hope to do. We paid him his fee with a tip and he insisted that we take his card. Back in the eco-preserve I really wanted a Gatorade so we sat and watched the baby monkeys peering over the edge of the canvas canopy overhead, just as a few squawking Macaws zoomed right over our heads. That was loud! Back onboard we needed showers, then lunch.

November 6 and 7

Headed to Miami

The next two full days are at sea as we pass between Haiti and Cuba. I spent some afternoon on our balcony lounging in the chairs as we sailed in the afternoon. I had always wanted to do that. I couldn’t do that on the way down because our balcony was in full sun and on other cruises, we either were in a port all afternoon, or in the sun. When I woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep, I went out there again. The temperature seems to be a constant 28 degrees and humidity about 77% but there is a nice wind so it was comfortably tropical. A new happy place for me with the ship’s movement rocking slightly.

Forgot to mention that as we were eating on deck 16 by a window that looks almost straight down to the ocean, I saw what I thought were 2-ft long brownish-grey fish. Turns out, they were dolphins! We were around Cabo San Lucas. 

Our stateroom was very comfortable. I had bought some magnetic hooks after discovering only last year that the walls of the staterooms are metal. Those helped to keep our hats, jackets, shirts etc off the couch and desk surfaces so they could be used. There's a nice ledge for our glasses and earbuds. Tons of room for other storage. I even had a hook by my side of the bed for my housecoat. The bathroom had plenty of storage for all our toiletries so that was also always neat. I had brought a night light for the bathroom but it has a polarized plug so it did not fit into the razor outlet. I had also brought a battery night light as a back up with extra batteries. So we used that and it worked wonderfully.

Back in the US a…

We docked in Miami at about 6 am and were allowed to disembark by 7:30. We headed for the taxis and shared one to the airport with a nice, dutch couple who live in Spain. As soon as we got to our gate, the delayed flight messages started arriving on our phones and apps. We would miss our connecting flight in Toronto. We tried talking to customer service in many ways but no one could help us. Our flight was delayed several times with different explanations each time but finally instead of leaving Miami at 4 pm, we left after 9 pm. As I boarded the plane, my phone suddenly got a bunch of text messages and emails from Air Canada with an option to chose a hotel for the night in Toronto and a food voucher for the airport the next day. All was done quickly online before we left Miami and by the time we finally landed in Toronto at 1:10 am, Sunday morning, all we had to do was find the shuttle to the hotel and get in. That ws the shortest stay ever I think because we had to catch the 5:30 am morning shuttle back to the airport where we got on the plane to Winnipeg on schedule. We needed some de-icing so had to wait for the YYZ ground crew equipment trouble to be fixed. Between that and taxi-ing, we didn’t take off for over an hour. Now we are home, all is good.

There’s no place like home.