Cruising Panama Canal

[Nadine]

We will be on the Jewel of the Seas, departing Miami on 1/9/09. My question:

The itinerary states "cruising the canal". We are assuming that the ship will enter the canal and go through one of the locks. Is this assumption correct?

I see that there are excursions available on this leg of the voyage and I didn't see how you could "cruise the canal" and also do an excursion.

Probably a dumb question, but hopefully someone can clue me in! Thank you!

Nadine

[f-mattox]

Nadine, "cruising the canal" means you will enter the Gatun locks, a set of three locks, which will raise your ship up to Lake Gatun, where you will cruise awhile and then the same set of locks will drop you back down to the Caribbean Sea. You then port at Cristobal, which is where the excursions will be available.

[chris 2486]

Hi nadine,
We have cruised through the gutan locks in panama.
we found that people going onto excursions got of the ship once through the locks then after a couple of hours we then came back through the locks on to cristobel pier were we met up with those who had been on excursions for the day.
We found the locks were amazing, But i thought cristobel pier was boring.

[Nadine]

Thank you for the replies! I really want to experience the Gatun Locks. I have been through locks before on a river, but to go through Panama Canal locks on a big ship will be special.

Nadine