The perfect trip to the Panama Canal

Happy New Year! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year!

A customer of mine recently returned from a fantastic trip cruising the Panama Canal. The scenery is spectacular and the Canal structure is engineering at its best!

The Canal was built over 100 years ago to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. The canal structure actually saves an 8,000 mile trip round the coast of South America! 2014 saw the anniversary of the Panama Canal.

My customer cruised with Celebrity on-board the Infinity. The ships still have to be a certain size to cruise the canal and the Infinity is perfect. The ship still has all the Celebrity favourites on a slightly smaller scale. Celebrity were excellent. They opened the helicopter pad for guest to get the best view from the front of the ship! But views from the back were just as good.

Other cruise lines who cruise the canal include Princess, NCL and Regent. Cunard and P&O also use the Panama Canal for the world cruises so you can experience on the full or part of this trip.

Most cruise ships sail from Miami or Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles or San Francisco or even San Diego. This makes it easy to combine a stay somewhere before or after your cruise.

I would choose a few nights in Las Vegas. This is where I got married and I really enjoyed the Vegas atmosphere, the shopping, great lively nightlife and excellent shows.

I would follow this with a few nights in San Francisco where I have not been and enjoy the many sights of the city before boarding the cruise.

The canal is nearly 50 miles long and consists of a lock system with lifts the ships 85 feet. This happens in 3 stages and really is an engineering marvel! The cruises tend to really focus on the canal and areas around the canal which limits the number of ports you visit on a 14 night cruise. Also look out for the round trip cruises from Miami because they will only call at Panama and do not transit the canal.

Is the Panama Canal on your bucket list?

Have you cruise along the Panama Canal?

What did you think?

I would love to hear from you

Thanks for reading

Love Rosie xx