Why Panama Canal cruise ... aboard Disney?

[MunFam]

We LOVED Cartagena. I am a corporate travel agent so I am no rookie to booking group travel, so for this port, I decided to hire a private guide "Dora the Explorer from Cartagena Tours" who was highly recommended and then put together a group of people from our DIS meet group for the tour. We were able to basically do two complete Disney tours in the time that it took Disney to do one (because when you are in a small group, you move faster). It was also cheaper per person than one tour. We had a FABULOUS time and everyone in the group was very happy. We plan to vacation in Cartagena at some point because we liked it so much.

As far as the cruise itself, it was our one and only DCL vacation we will ever take. We wanted to go on a DCL vacation. We wanted it to be affordable. We wanted sea days and lots of them...and we live in San Diego, so we only paid one way airfare. We also liked the idea of so few kids on board so our kiddo got lot of special attention from the cast and characters. It was an amazing trip and I definitely encourage any one considering a DCL trip to take the Panama Canal trip...and we got to go through the locks which was on our bucket list.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Our WBPC cruise on DCL was in 2014, and the best cruise we had ever taken. However, I craved more information, so in January this year we did a partial transit of the canal on Princess. That cruise allowed us to get off in Parama, (tendered) see the sites in that country, and we went into the Gatun Locks visitors center where we watched the whole process of some ships entering and finally leaving the lock.

We passed a new lock while we were in a bus in Panama, and the size of it blew my mind! I have to go through the new lock, so we booked 2017 EBPC on DCL. I think DCL just did the transit explanations better than Princess. We like Prncess CL, and will be doing their WBTA in 2017.

In Cartagena with DCL we did a bus tour that included the monastery at the top of the hill, and for me that was the highlight of the tour. I could have skipped the rest. On Princess, we took a boat tour of the harbor which had dancing entertainment and was a wonderful experience.

 

[ludari]

I have always wanted to do a Panama Canal Cruise and I recently changed a place holder to the October 2017 eastbound Panama Canal Cruise. In addition to numerous other cruises I have completed two transatlantic cruises with Disney and loved them both and if the Panama Canal Cruise is anything like the transatlantic cruises as far as sea days I know I will be happy.