Taking a full passage cruise through the Panama Canal had been on our bucket list since our first transatlantic trip back in 2019 and, like so many other people’s plans, was a casualty of Covid.
This was the third and most important leg of our trip to America. We had done some research to try and figure out the best direction of travel Atlantic to Pacific or viceversa. We dithered a bit on this decision but it was finally resolved as other travel plans fell into place and we chose Pacific to Atlantic. The two most important things for us were that we wanted a full passage ocean to ocean, many Panama Canal cruises go in and out from the same ocean and have excursions to Panama city, also we wanted a guaranteed daylight passage (obviously).
Getting to the ship
I’ve mentioned before that the logistics of embarkation and disembarkation for today’s huge cruise liners can be very tedious but we didn’t expect the problems to start before we left our hotel in Los Angeles Harbour! We stayed at the Crown Plaza Los Angeles Harbour Hotel because it was almost walking distance to the cruise ship port and offered a shuttle bus to ‘your’ ship on embarkation morning. We were there for a few nights before we sailed and the hotel was quiet and fairly empty. We enquired about the shuttle and were told that, yes they did one and that left at half hourly intervals on the day but we couldn’t book it until the day before, oh! and that’ll be $10 each please. We had naively thought it would be a free service.
Over the next couple of days the hotel began to fill up with other cruisers and it appeared there were three departures on the same day. Now, as far as we could tell, this hotel’s sole purpose for existence in the winter season depended on putting people up prior to a cruise? So you’d think it would have its act together?
Well, we descended to the lobby with our luggage about a quarter of an hour before our allotted shuttle at 11:00 am to find the place absolutely heaving.
There were disorganised queues everywhere inside and out. A quick sortie through the throng revealed that there were supposed to be three ships being serviced by the shuttle buses to different port destinations but the hotel only appeared to have two and that some of the folk outside were still waiting for their 10 o’clock transfer. It was chaos. UBERs we maxed out as were local taxis. To cut an already too long story short, at 12pm four of us jumped into a taxi that had pulled on to the hotel forecourt on spec and shared the fare for the 4 minute ride to the port.
I’ll skip a description of the rest of the mayhem at embarkation as thanks to a cabin upgrade to ‘Haven’ level, we could jump the queues.
Sailing South 6 Jan
Our home for next 15 days was the Norwegian Joy and late in the afternoon with the sun shining we departed south for a day at sea towards warmer weather.
Cabo San Lucas, México 8 Jan
It had been over 3 years since we were last in Mexico for ‘Day of the Dead’ https://leavingtheislands.wordpress.com/2019/11/08/muertos/ and it felt good to be back. Cabo San Lucas is at the tip of Baja California, a peninsula that is a southern extension of California, US, but belongs to México. Cabo is a relatively new city, it was a mere fishing village back in 1917, but it’s the geography of the entrance to the harbour that is most stunning. There is no cruise port here so it’s all aboard a tender to get ashore, with sea lions for company We celebrated our return to México with Guacamole and Margaritas in the sunshine.
Puerto Vallarta 9 Jan, we’d been to this 100% beach resort during our last trip to México so needn’t feel the need to do any exploring ashore, instead we enjoyed a quiet day on the sun deck watching the wildlife.
Acapulco 11 Jan
Famous for its cliff divers and … not a lot else it would seem. This spot had recently been given some bad press in the American community (Americans believing Acapulco was more dangerous than US cities?) We went for a walk around the old fort then into the centre and found it to be quite an honest little town with back streets bustling with locals. I even found a barbershop and treated myself to an 8 peso (35p) hair cut.
We saw the cliff but missed the divers actually diving, apparently they only do it twice a day and then the place is crowded out with tourists (who knew!) but they were hanging around in their speedos if you wanted a selfie.
Guatemala 13 Jan
The ship docked at Puerto Quetzal and we took the excursion to Antigua a small city surrounded by volcanoes some 80 km to the north of the port. For 200 years, from 1543, it was Guatemala’s capital and has many colonial buildings though most of them had to be restored following the 1773 earthquake. Walking around the old town gave us plenty of opportunity to be ripped off by the local artisans. You can’t blame them, when there’s a cruise ship tour in it’s a chance to make some decent money.
Then it was a day at sea cruising down to Panama City watching the wildlife of the Pacific Ocean float and fly by.
Panama 16 Jan
The ship docked for a full day outside the city and we opted for a trans-continental rail journey, Pacific to Atlantic and back in near Venice Simplon splendour (well not that near but the nicely maintained wood and leather coach interiors provided a comfortable ride). On the journey, as a prelude to our canal transit the following day, we learned the history of Panama, the railway and its canal. The railroad followed the canal closely and we got glimpses of the old locks (still in use) but we would be going through the new locks so a chance to see it all.
The CANAL 17 Jan
This 82 km (50 miles) waterway cuts across the Isthmus of Panama, it was completed on 15 Aug 1914 and took 11 years. This was after a failed attempt in the 1880s by a French construction team to dig a sea level passage. I’ll let you google all the other statistics for yourself.
The transit started before dawn, although cruise liners aren’t the largest ships that go through they are the tallest. From the pacific side the first thing you encounter is The Bridge of the Americas and this can only be navigated at low tide so we crept up to it in the dark until we had a foot clear just as the sun came up. It stayed hot and sunny for the entire day.
Throughout the day we were treated to a running commentary about all things Panama Canal by a retired pilot. Every boat that goes into the canal must have an authorised pilot at the helm and Norwegian has this very informative guy on all their Panama cruises.
Then it was into the Cocolí locks (a staircase of three chambers in canal speak). These new locks have been use for nearly 7 years and as you go through you get a view of boats in the original Miraflores Locks to the right.
From these locks you go through the narrowest part of the cutting before entering Gatun Lake, which was the largest man made expanse of water in the world up until the Hoover Dam was built. Then you have the surreal experience of cruising across an inland lake 14 stories up on a 167,725 tonne ocean going liner.
Eventually we arrived at Gatun to descend through the 3 Agua Clara locks into the Caribbean Sea via Limon Bay and eventually the Atlantic, this time with the old Gatun locks on our left.
18 Jan South America at last!
Our last port of call was Cartagena, Colombia and our first visit to a South American country. Boy was it hot 40°C! Not wanting to repeat the excursion experience of 3 hours or more in coach with 50 other passengers in this heat we chose to walk off the ship to see what we could find. We made it to the end of the docks where we found a little jungle oasis with local wildlife, a cafe and gift shops. A bit of a cop-out really but once the crowds had gone on their way we could enjoy the peacefulness and cool shade.
Finally we had 2 days at sea travelling between Cuba and Haiti to arrive in Miami in the early hours of 21 Jan.
Leaving the Islands 