Any past Panama Canal cruisers?

[GaDisneyFan]

Just wondering if anyone has done 14 night Panama Canal cruise? I'm especially curious about eastern bound in mid-Sept.. Anyone have problems with rough seas? Overall experience with cruise and entertainment? I have done the DCL transatlantic cruise one time and I loved all the extra days! Just curious

 

[jjje]

Following along since I have this cruise booked.

 

[Gilland18]

We did the EBPC in 2012 that was in Dec. The seas were great except for one day going north across the gulf. The pools were closed and making big waves and I think that was the day the door to deck 4 was locked for a while because of the wind. We were all kind of bouncing off the walls as we walked the halls to our cabins. But it was only one day. Of course, Dec. is after hurricane season. YMMV. Have fun; this was the best vacation I ever did!

 

[LindaBabe]

3 times - 2 WB (January 2011, May 2013), 1 EB (Dec 2012) The only rough seas we encountered were on the first day out on the EB and on the last day on the two WB. Those occasions were "a little choppy" not crazy like skirting a hurricane or on the open Pacific, sailing to Hawaii. Other than that, it was pretty smooth.

 

[Denise W]

We were on the first eastbound Panama Canal cruise in 2005. We encountered Hurricane Hillary in the Pacific, which caused us to miss stopping at Cabo and instead going to Manzanillo. It was a little rough as we went around the weather system but it didn't bother me. It was fun watching the water slop out of the pools up on deck! Other than that the seas were fine. This was at the end of August.

Denise

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Our first DCL (well, first ever) cruise was a WB Panama Canal in May. I don't remember any rough seas. We recently did another WBPC (not DCL) Oct-Nov, and, honestly, I really don't remember any rough seas on that one either.

The roughest seas we've had on any cruises were the day before porting in Ensenada on a Hawaii cruise (Oct); crossing from the Med to the Atlantic on our Transatlantic cruise (Sep); and crossing from Vancouver to the Inside passage on one of our Alaska cruises (Sep).

 

[jrabbit]

We were on the first eastbound Panama Canal cruise in 2005. We encountered Hurricane Hillary in the Pacific, which caused us to miss stopping at Cabo and instead going to Manzanillo. It was a little rough as we went around the weather system but it didn't bother me. It was fun watching the water slop out of the pools up on deck! Other than that the seas were fine. This was at the end of August.

Denise

What she said!!!

In May on the WBPC one day between CC and Cartagena the ship was smoothly rocking pretty good, but was not rough. But it did last all day and I turned a little green.

The Pacific is always rougher than the Caribbean. Neither of our PC cruises experienced "Plates crashing to the floor" roughness.

 

[GatorMomInNC]

We did be EBPC this last September. If I recall correctly there was a hurricane that hit Mexico about a day before we got there. And I think there was another one in the gulf. I wasn't reading or watching the news but occasionally the captain would make some announcements. Despite all this I don't really remember any kind of rough choppy weather. It could be that we had some I just don't remember. Obviously if we did it wasn't too bad. This is a really great cruise and I highly recommend it.

 

[dsnydaddy]

I've been on cruises on both the Atlantic/Caribbean side and the Pacific side. And not counting inclement weather, the Pacific is always feels rougher than the Atlantic. That said, I haven't been on any really rough seas since the 90's and I tend to cruise toward the end of hurricane season.

 

[dta87]

We did be EBPC this last September. If I recall correctly there was a hurricane that hit Mexico about a day before we got there. And I think there was another one in the gulf. I wasn't reading or watching the news but occasionally the captain would make some announcements. Despite all this I don't really remember any kind of rough choppy weather. It could be that we had some I just don't remember. Obviously if we did it wasn't too bad. This is a really great cruise and I highly recommend it.

We were on this cruise also and enthusiastically second that recommendation! We did hit a storm coming into PV which rocked the ship a little but it was nothing compared to sailing through Hurricane Sandy the year prior. The rocking woke my wife up but I slept through it and the remnants of the storm caused the PV beach day to be a little wetter than planned but we still had a great time.

 

[Sparky47]

Just wondering if anyone has done 14 night Panama Canal cruise? I'm especially curious about eastern bound in mid-Sept.. Anyone have problems with rough seas? Overall experience with cruise and entertainment? I have done the DCL transatlantic cruise one time and I loved all the extra days! Just curious

We did be EBPC this last September. If I recall correctly there was a hurricane that hit Mexico about a day before we got there. And I think there was another one in the gulf. I wasn't reading or watching the news but occasionally the captain would make some announcements. Despite all this I don't really remember any kind of rough choppy weather. It could be that we had some I just don't remember. Obviously if we did it wasn't too bad. This is a really great cruise and I highly recommend it.

We were also on the EBPC this past September. I agree with GatorMomInNC...although there were regular reports of storms/hurricane that hit Mexico it did not impact us. You would never have known there was a hurricane. We did see signs of it in the sea though; there was A LOT of debris floating in the ocean - huge pockets of it which from a distance looked like islands but when you got closer, it was just a lot of trees, debris and many coconuts!

We had a fantastic trip. The PC cruise was high on my hubby's list but not so much on mine. I was looking forward to it but I didn't think the PC day would be as exciting, fantastic and amazing as it ended up being! Although all of our port days were FABULOUS the PC day was the highlight of the trip! It was a LONG, HOT day but it was worth the sweating and tiredness of the day (up on deck by 4:40 a.m. which was not as early as many others!). I'm happy to answer questions (which may end up helping me remember things since I'm just now putting together my shutterfly photobook!)

 

[Sparky47]

Thought I'd post a few pictures to keep you excited:

Shuffleboard!

Cabo!

Snorkeling in Cabo

One of the locks!

The Wonder!!

 

[dsnydaddy]

Wow that pic if the Wonder is really cool.

 

[WalleandEve]

Love the pics! We're doing the WBPC in May...Getting excited!

 

[dta87]

For those that do not have an excursion planned for Cartagena, I highly recommend Segway Cartagena (http://segwaycartagena.com/) along with the crossing this tour was one of the highlights of the trip. This was not an official DCL excursion for our cruise, we booked it after reading about it in our meet thread. Cesar, the owner/tour guide was amazing! He arranged transportation to and from the tour and recommended an outstanding place to eat for lunch within walking distance of his shop. The historic part of Cartagena is beautiful and I am sure we got so much more from this tour than the generic DCL excursion offerings.

 

[sejejoemmiev]

Loved the EBPC cruise! You will have a fantastic time. We had pretty good weather the whole trip so the seas weren't too bad for us.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards