The Panama Canal – an architectural wonder!
We visited Panama during a 12 night cruise to the ABC islands and South America. Going through the Panama canal was an amazing experience. Full disclosure – we didn’t quite do Panama justice for a few reasons:
- I had food poisoning the night before/day of this stop, and I actually missed out on our tour! Terrible!
- We booked a cruise ship tour – which we hardly ever do – because we had some extra credits to use. This meant they were on a big bus, were super delayed with people taking breaks, asking questions and more and this made my family cranky
- I’m the picture taker on the trip normally, so I wasn’t there to take pics! More videos are on the blog though.
The cruise excursion took my family out onto Gatun Lake to Monkey Island. One thing we learned – you actually cannot just get off the cruise ship anywhere here without a pre-booked tour through your cruise company. – Hence, another reason we booked a tour.
Looking back – even though it was really fun to see the monkeys, this might actually be a scenario where it may be more interesting to stay on the boat.
The day went something like this:
- Super early in the morning we pulled up in front of the locks – there are hundreds of ships in this area waiting to pass through
- Our ship passed through the locks early in the morning – people had setup chairs out on deck to watch. Would be extra cool if you had a balcony
- Once through the locks and into Gatun Lake, they let people off on their excursions
- My family went and saw the monkeys and had an OK time
- While they were doing that – and I was laying in bed recovering, the ship went back through the locks – this is the part about staying on the ship that might have been more interesting
- I was able to drag myself out of bed for a little while and watch – it was amazing how incredibly close the ship gets to the side of the locks!!
- The tour bus dropped them off at the cruise ship after we had gone back through the locks
Anyway, was an interesting stop, and would have loved more time there to explore the country properly.
