Monday, March 19, 2018- Cruise Day 55; Panama Canal Transit

Monday, March 19, 2018- Cruise Day 55; Panama Canal Transit

We set an alarm for 6:15AM because we were supposed to arrive at the Bridge of the Americas outside Panama City at 6:20AM.  It was still before dawn, and a building in the downtown of Panama City was lit up light an enormous jumbotron.  The sun was rising as we cruised past the Museum of Biodiversity, designed by Frank Ghery.  We crossed under the Bridge of the Americas right on time.  There were 20-30 people on the bow of the ship on deck 10, but it wasn’t crowded, or difficult to get a good picture.  

We had breakfast in the buffet as the ship approached the Miraflores locks.  It was easy to see our progress since this ship’s buffet is situated on Deck 14 at the front of the ship.  We could see the entry to the new 3rd lane of the Panama Canal to the left of the Miraflores locks.  The new locks are 70 feet wider and 400ft longer than the original Panamax 110 ft x 1000 ft. A huge freighter was making its way into the new locks as we approached the Miraflores locks.  The new locks raise the ships the full 85’ to the level of Lake Gatun, bypassing the Miraflores locks, Miraflores lake and the Pedro Miguel Locks.  The new locks have sliding gates and water saving intermediate reservoirs, so they are state of the art.  

The Island Princess is a Panamax vessel, designed specifically for the old Panama Canal locks, so we used the classic route.  Aside from replacing some 85 year old electric motors powering the lock doors with new hydraulic pumps and cylinders, the working mechanism for the Panama Canal locks has not changed since they were built in 1914.  It’s a tribute to the engineering and worksmanship of the day that everything still works and has been working 24/7/365 for over 100 years.  I doubt the new 3rd lane will be able to boast that same service record.  

Our ship entered the western lane, so our balcony looked directly at the median between the two lane, where lots of activity occurs.  We also were able to see all the action occurring around the container ship in the east lane.  Ben set up his iPhone to do a time lapse animation of our passage through the locks.  We had a great vantage point from our balcony, which was eye level with some of the control towers.  It was sunny and 86 degrees outside so it was nice to be able to duck in and out of our air conditioned cabin.  It was certainly more comfortable than our prior passage on a small passenger ferry as an excursion on our last partial Panama Canal transit on the Coral Princess in January 2015.  We would recommend anyone who is interested in seeing the Panama Canal to book a cruise with a fulll transit.  It did take all day to make it from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, but we did it all in comfort and style.

After breakfast, we watched our transit through the Miraflores locks at  7:00AM both from our balcony, and then from the bow a short walk up the hallway from our cabin on deck 10.    We then went through the Pedro Miguel locks at 8:40AM.  We passed under the Centennial Bridge and the Culebra cut at 9:40AM.  We then could take a bit of a nap, and then have lunch as the ship worked its way through the passage between the Culebra cut and Lake Gatun.  We arrived at the Gatun locks at 1:00PM, and finished our transit down to sea level and into the Atlantic Ocean by 3:00PM.  

We had an afternoon trivia game where we scored 15/20.  The winning teams tied 3 ways with 17/20 and answered a tie breaker of how many islands, shoals and reefs make up the Hawaiian archipelago?  The answer was 132. 

We had an early dinner, featuring their Surf and Turf, which is probably the best menu item we had on this itinerary.  The shrimp were larger than the lobster tails they served when the did offer lobster, and the meat came out of the shells easily.  The petite filet mignon was also perfectly prepared and very tender.  

We attended the early showtime performance of Michael Minor, who was booked as a one man variety show, but who turned out to be a pretty decent club singer, who happened to learn ventriloquism and sang half his acts through his puppets.  To be honest, he could have done the show better without the distraction of the puppets and ventriloquism.  

There was an evening TV Themes trivia.  We teamed up with Roger, Erica and her Mom.  We ended up 16/20, but one team managed a perfect 20/20.  That was hard to believe because most of the people on that team weren’t even old enough to have seen half the shows that were featured. Someone must own the K-Tel album of TV Themes that the trivia quiz writers are using.  

Tomorrow, we arrive in Cartagena.  We had visited both Cartagena and Aruba in January 2015 on our first Panama Canal cruise, but we booked slightly different excursions, so we’ll hopefully see some new things.