Originally Posted by
freecia
You may want to look for an itinerary that stops in Colon, Panama to take a tour of the locks. It is neat to check the out the locks from land in addition to doing the full transit. I'd advise an independent tour operator like Robtards to visit both Gatun and Agua Clara locks.
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I took a repositioning cruise through the locks on Celebrity Infinity and was fine in one of the newer oceanview cabins added during a refurbishment. The windows are larger than normal oceanview cabin and it was nice getting out of the humidity and heat. Speaking of, Celebrity opens the crew areas at the front of the ship for end to end canal crossing (a day long affair) and it can be really hot out there and quite crowded. There are usually a few people who faint and are taken out on stretchers. An officer recommended enjoying parts of the transit from the Promenade deck where there are lounge chairs to rest and you can actually get a pretty good sense of rising and falling through the locks. The view from the back of the ship towards the locks after exiting is also nice view if it is accessible (near aft buffet area on Celebrity Millennium class).
Our partial transit of the Panama Canal was on Celebrity in March. Living in south central Texas we weren’t bothered in the least by the heat and humidity though cruise friends from Portland, Oregon thought it was oppressive. We got several recommendations from the crew and staff to go aft on the same deck as the buffet for the transit through the locks. Since the ship lined up very early we were up by about 5:00 AM and out on deck by 5:30 AM for sunrise and the start of the transit. We staked out a table aft and stayed out there for the whole transit through the locks. It was easy to get coffee and eventually breakfast. Part of our party of eight tried to experience the locks from their veranda but discovered they were spending much of the time looking at the concrete walls of the lock so they eventually joined us. As I recall once we cleared the locks and took up a holding position in Gatun Lake around 10:00 AM we went back to bed for a couple of hours. We chose not to take a tour that day. For the return transit back to the Atlantic/Caribbean side we just kind of wandered around the ship with a couple of cool drinks in hand to catch the views. A great experience but still would like a full transit. Might add we did the full Suez Canal a year ago and it is very interesting but way different.