pclare said:
DCLNewCruise.html they are showing a short stop on day 7 (7am till 1pm) at Puerto Quetzal. Can anyone confirm this?
Answered before, was dropped re security.
pclare said:
Also are all our stops cabo, acapulco, curaco, and castaway docked stops? Once again your help is invaluable!
Pauline
When I was on a cruise before through the Panama canal, Cabo was a tender port and didn't have any facilities at all. However that was a few years back and I have seen a picture of a reasonable sized harbour, so things might have changed. I would say that unlike other tender ports it worked very well, as all of the 'Boat' excursions tendered up to the ship and you went straight off on those, and didn't have to go via the Harbour and land.
Acapulco is a very large semi circle of a bay, when I was there the last time, us and three other ships, tendered in to the central part of the beach area, just opposite the central market.
There seemed to be some industrial ship harbours but at that time again no cruise facilities, they might have been built now, but it will still depend on the number of cruise ships in at that time. The good news is most other repositioning ships do not come back to the Caribbean until September or October so Acapulco hopefully will not be busy.
Castaway cay is a port and there will not be any tendering the ship will either dock or miss it.
Curacao, I haven't been there but believe is a docked harbour and they move a temporary bridge over to let us in. Confirm anyone?
Some more observations from my previous Panama canal cruise, some might have been posted before, but as new guests join and Shore trips are available soon thought I would update:-
Oceans Pacific generally had more wave movement than Caribbean sea.
Suggestion even for seasoned cruisers revise any seasickness contingencies.
Cabo, The sea life is excellent here with excellent views and the ship excursions with commentary are very good indeed. You can still tender ashore later/earlier than the sea trip to walk into the town.
Acapulco, We undertook the highlights trip and the cliff divers are excellent, you see it on TV but its not the seam as being there.
We went afterwards to a market just next to a large church in the centre of the crescent bay, there was lots of bargains available, and it was close to the tender drop off zone.
The place to buy those Mexican souvenirs. Careful of pickpockets!
Panama, its a full day transit and I know its been posted many times but HOT, its like going through a tropical rain forest. Hats, water, high factor sun creme a must.
You will try to see everything, it takes a very long time to go through each lock say 90 mins, and you stand around getting burnt and hot! Pace yourself, take breaks to the inside restaurants where the A/C is on, or even the pools to cool down. It was wonderful but I had a migraine afterwards and I do not suffer from them usually.
Cruise photographers get off the ship and take your pictures so look out for them and look for the pictures later.
Charge up all batteries films and ensure tapes and chips have a lot of space, again its a long day.
Now not building everyone up too much, the Western cruise might give us an indication, but we had a surprise stop at the end of the Panama Canal for six hours, it was at the port of Bilboa (we were going to LA that time) and it was for six hours and they had a market for the cruise ships that where in. I understand refuelling is cheap there, worth
DCL considering it, and they can take on food and water stocks.
For us if was pass quickly it might be the other end Christobell.
Good things to watch for are the PC pilots getting on ship jumping across, they take control of our ship, and how the lock water goes down, no pumps all gravity.
Lastly hopefully DCL will take onboard a guide to talk us through the whole day and what you are seeing.
