The Itinerary

Picking a particular cruise company and itinerary was more difficulty than we had anticipated.

The criteria which we set for ourselves were:

1. A departure date this year (2012)
2. As much onboard flexibility as possible
3. A full transit of the the canal
4. A daylight transit of the canal.

I was surprised to find that many companies only offered a partial transit or an nighttime transit. As our objective to to see as much as possible of the Canal itself these cruises were eliminated immediately.

After much searching we were able to find only one that offered all of the above. Operated by Norwegian Cruise Lines.It is a 15 day trip that starts in Los Angels and ends in Miami.

Ironically, despite the name, the company is headquartered in Miami most of its ships are registered in the Bahamas and the companies owning the NCL brand are both US and Malaysian registered. What happened to the Vikings I don't know.

The itinerary is shown below:

 

As you can see this is not a “beach” itinerary but does offer some stops with interesting possibilities in the historical and ecological area. We have done the “beach thing” as we spent in total over 30 years living in or near Virginia Beach,Los Angeles, and Cabo San Lucas. In addition our walkers and wheelchairs get stuck in the sand!

The most awkward part of the itinerary are not on the map. From Home to the ship and from Miami to home!

Our best (and also least expensive) option from home to the ship is to catch an early flight from Ft. Myers to Los Angeles take a shuttle from LAX to San Pedro (LA Harbor) check into a hotel and use their free shuttle to the ship the next day. This option helps to mitigate the vagaries of flight punctuality and travel stress. We should be in the hotel, which is within sight of the cruise terminal, by early afternoon and will not have to leave for the ship until mid day the next day. Plenty of time for some good Mexican or sea food!

Upon return we should be off the ship in Miami by 10AM so a one way rental car should have us home pretty quickly. getting home from Charlotte Regional Airport – the drop off point for the rental car –is always a pain.

Why the Panama Canal?

 

Well as the mountaineers often say “because it’s there”. Not quite; but despite our years of roaming neither of us has been to Central America (Mexico dose not count as it is still North America) so, as the Canal is a fascinating destination,  this cruise, that combines a full transit and short visits to a handful of places we had not been to before, seemed a good idea.  Apart from that climbing into upper berths of  Indian trains and 20 hour flights in coach were getting a little beyond our old bones!

The history of the canal is fascinating and if you are not familiar with it, a pretty comprehensive version is available HERE so I will not detail . A few bullet points will give you the gist.

• Initially started by the French in 1882 under the direction of Ferdinand De Lesseps builder of the Suez Canal.Yellow fever, malaria,corruption, and the shear enormity of the project caused the  French to abandon the effort in 1988/9 .

                                         

• The US driven by its desire for domination of  world trade and domestic expansion needed an effective route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Colombia ( at the time Panama was part of Colombia) rejected United States’ plans to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The U.S. supported a revolution that led to the independence of Panama in 1903.
• 
• A treaty was signed between the new country of Panama and the US which ceded control , “in perpetuity”, of a 50 mile wide strip of land splitting Panama in two! 
• Between 1904 and 1914 the unbelievably difficult and dangerous civil engineering and organizational task of cutting the canal was done.
• In the 1960’s Panamanian nationalism lead to anti US riots. In view of the enormous commercial and strategic importance of the canal an agreement was negotiated that in 1979 60% of the ceded land would be returned to Panama. The remaining 40% was returned in  a very smooth transition in 1999.
• The 1977 treaty declared the canal as a “Neutral International Waterway”; even in times of war any vessel is guaranteed safe passage
• Defense of the canal is a joint responsibility of the US and Panama.

If you are interested in the extensive details of the politics and engineering involved in this project there is a prodigious amount available on it on the web (Google is your friend!) and your local library.