Cruises Through the Panama Canal

I knew this man who wanted only to visit Panama to take one of the cruises through the Panama Canal. He wasn’t interested in anything else except seeing the Panama Canal. Mind you, after his Panama Canal cruise, he came back again to Panama because he had fallen in love with the country. There are many cruises to Panama available nowadays at reasonable prices offering you an amazing experience of cruises through Panama Canal.

First, a little history about one of the greatest engineering wonders of this world: the Panama Canal. The Panama Railroad was built and completed in 1855. Before this time, the explorers of Panama had to trek through the jungles and over the mountains by canoe, by foot and/or pack animal. To make it somewhat easier, a herd of camels were imported into Panama to help the explorers travel through Panama. The Panama Canal was dreamed up as a short cut for ships to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a journey which necessitated sailing around Cape Horn to get to the ocean on the other side, a 3,000 mile journey.

The Panama Canal had been a dream of men and explorers for over 400 years. The French were the first to attempt to build a Canal, spending about $300 million on this venture and building only 10 miles of the Canal. In May of 1904, they gave the keys of the Panama Canal to the Americans. On August 14, 1914, only ten years later, the first ship, the S.S. Ancon passed through the Panama Canal. There was an extremely high human cost to the building of the Canal. Many workers died from diseases caught in the swampland as the Canal was dug and constructed. The Panama Canal has officially existed and remained operational since that time. Today, the Panama Canal is undergoing an expansion project which began in 2007 and is hoped to be completed around 2014.

On a daily basis, approximately 40 ships a day have sailed through the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal consists of massive locks which take about eight to nine hours to pass through to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. As far as measurements go, for those interested, the Panama Canal’s locks are 110 feet wide, 1,000 feet long, and 83 feet deep. The weight of each lock gates weights between 390 and 730 tons. No pumps are used for the locks. Instead, the water is drawn by gravity from Gatun Lake.

Since the opening of the Panama Canal, a million ships have passed through the Canal. The Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific is 50 miles long. The entire journey takes eight to nine hours. The ship is lifted 85 feet by the Gatun locks into Gatun Lake and then sails through the narrow Gaillard Cut to the Pedro Miguel lock and then the and Miraflores locks. At the Miraflores locks, the cruise ship is lowered down to the level of the Pacific Ocean.

When you take one of the available cruises through the Panama Canal, you will cross through the Canal in a cruise ship built for it. A cruise to the Panama Canal is one of the most sought after destinations. There are many cruise lines to choose from to traverse the Panama Canal, including the Carnival Cruise line, the Princess Cruise line and the Royal Caribbean Cruise line.

Offering many different deals for a cruise to Panama, the Carnival Cruise Line has a 14 day Panama Canal Cruise from $1,179. It departs from Los Angeles and cruises to the following places Manzanillo, Mexico, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, makes the Panama Canal transit, then on to Cartagena, Colombia, Ocho Rios, Jamaica ; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands and finishes in Miami, Florida.

The Princess Cruise line’s cruises through the Panama Canal include round trip sailing from Los Angeles or between Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles.

The Royal Caribbean is another cruise line which offers cruises to Panama.

A Panama Canal cruise can be taken in either direction from west to east or east to west. From east to west is the favourite because you will experience crossing under the magnificent Bridge of the Americas to the Pacific Ocean.

There are cruise ports to stop at on your Panama Canal cruise, including Colon, Balboa and Cristobal. While at these ports, have some of the wonderful coffee which is grown in the shade of trees in the mountains of Panama. At Colon, you can actually go for a walk through a rainforest. Do a little shopping too, where you can buy duty-free jewellery and native handicrafts, a look around and try watching a ship from the land as it passes through the locks. You will be able to find some travel tours which offer excursions of the locks of the Panama Canal. If you have the time and opportunity, a side trip to Panama City would be well worth it to visit the old quarter of Casco Viejo and Casco Antiguo.

Panama Canal cruises can be somewhat expensive, but if you are on a budget, you can take a partial Panama Canal cruise which will take you from the Caribbean side to Lake Gatun.

Check out the websites of the individual cruise lines already mentioned in this article to obtain exact information on Princess Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean or the Carnival Cruise line for cruises through the Panama Canal. Experiencing one of the many cruises to Panama will be a once in a life time experience when you traverse this Canal between two oceans.

Beach Hotels in Panama | Bocas del Toro

I wrote this article about another one of the great beach hotels in Panama destinations before I heard about the floods in Panama. A state of emergency has been declared and there have been casualties. It is sad news to hear that this wonderful and very beautiful area in Panama is suffering at the present time. However, if you would like to read further about Bocas Del Toro, please read on. No doubt, they will recover and rebuild from this tragedy. As I have mentioned in this article, the high rain season is in November to January.

There are so many places, so much to discover and so many beach hotels in Panama to choose, and that includes Bocas Del Toro, that this blog might go on forever. I wanted to tell you all about Bocas del Toro, known as the “Venice of the Caribbean”, in this posting, but I think already it’s going to end up as a very long, long article or else, I might have to do this in two or more blog postings. It all depends how tired my fingers get from tapping away at the keyboard.

Bocas del Toro, on the island of Colon, situated on the Bocas del Toro archipelago in the Caribbean, north coast of Panama is actually the capital of the Province of Bocas del Toro. It’s a culturally vibrant and ethnically diverse area. You will find numerous small towns along the collection of islands, but not many roads. The actual town of Bocas del Toro is entirely constructed of lumber in the Caribbean colonial style, somewhat Victorian and reminding you a little of Key West. Bocas del Toro itself has paved roads, sewer systems, electricity, phone service, Cable TV, ambulance and a hospital and a fire department. The population of Bocas Del Toro is approximately 12,660 total inhabitants, Spanish is the main language, but English is widely spoken. Offering peaceful serenity, absolute beauty and tranquility, you won’t want to leave this paradise in Panama.

In 1502 Christopher Columbus landed in the area of Bocas del Toro and was so astounded by its beauty, that he named two of the islands Isla Colon and Isla Cristobal. There are many hotels and resorts in Panama located here for sun seeking tourists. For people looking for more than just a beach, you will find this to be another great eco-tourism destination in Panama.

How does one get to Bocas del Toro? You can get to Bocas del Toro by airplane from Panama City or Costa Rica or boat. What will you find here in Bocas del Toro Panama? You will find long stretches of unspoiled white sand beaches, beautiful resorts, shops, markets, restaurants, nightclubs and discos, thematic parks, surfing, snorkelling, some of the best scuba diving, boating, and the well-known Bastimentos Island National Marine Park – a chief destination for ecotourism. All of these things make Bocas del Toro an excellent and popular choice to vacation in Panama.

Bocas del Toro is so beautiful, and you may end up feeling like you have been to Paradise because you won’t want to leave here at the end of your vacation. Bocas del Toro possesses a natural beauty, with miles of beautiful beaches, the surf, its peacefulness.

For those tourists seeking ecotourism in Panama, there are nature reserves and national parks which reache over 25% of its total land mass. Panama aims to protect its wildlife and their habitat which consists of 960 different birds, 10,000 various forms of plant life and fauna, 240 species of reptiles, 160 species of amphibians. Like Costa Rica, Panama’s protection of the environment and wildlife make this country another viable destination for those who love and respect nature and want a holiday in a natural wildlife environment.

The best time to travel weather wise to Bocas del Toro Panama is from February to April or in September/October in the dry seasons. The temperature averages about 27 degrees Celsius or 82 degrees Fahrenheit on average throughout the year. If you like the rain, the seasons of May to August and November to January will please you because this is the rainy season in Bocas del Toro. This rain feeds the lush foliage and fauna of the virgin rain forests of Panama, the forests which are in abundant supply in Bocas del Toro. The white sand beaches run for miles in Bocas and the water is so clean and clear that you can see down to the reef when you are surfing. At night on the beach, watch as sea turtles emerge on to the beach from the surf and lay their eggs, bury them and then slowly lumber back to the sea, returning again next year. For surfing enthusiasts, some of the best surfing in the world can be found in Panama, and the waves in Boca are comparable to the surfing in Indonesia and Tahiti. The best surfing seasons are in December to March and June to July.

Okay, so I’ve written a lot about this fascinating and very beautiful place in Panama which offers another option destination for the winter sun seeker. If you are a retiree who wants to retire in the Paradise that is Panama it’s another destination to research.

And, like I thought at the beginning of this article, my fingers and brain would eventually get tired and have to wind down. I haven’t even started to mention the beach hotels in Panama situated in Bocas del Toro because you are going to need accommodation when you visit this paradise in Panama while you explore all this amazing country has to offer. So, until my next posting which will be about resorts in Bocas del Toro for my readers, stay tuned…