Cruise ports in Cruises in Panama

Panama connects cruise ports on two coasts with a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific. A transit through the canal is a distinct leg of the route; a call at a terminal, by contrast, takes passengers ashore and concerns only the coast where it is located.

Pacific, canal and Atlantic

At the Pacific entrance are Fuerte Amador and Balboa; on the Atlantic side, Cristóbal is in the Colón area. Colón 2000 and Cristóbal refer to different cruise facilities there, so the names do not refer to the same berth.

The Panama Canal Authority describes the canal as a waterway around 80 kilometers long. Locks raise ships from sea level to Gatun Lake, about 26 meters above sea level, and lower them again on the other side. The locks are called Gatun on the Atlantic side and Pedro Miguel and Miraflores on the Pacific. The water used to raise and lower vessels comes from Gatun Lake and flows into the locks by gravity. The passage connects successive lock flights with a section of elevated lake.

A distinctive stretch of the waterway is the Culebra Cut, which crosses the central mountain range. The excavated passage is around 13.7 kilometers long. It runs from the southern end of Gatun Lake near Gamboa to the northern end of the Pedro Miguel locks. Gamboa lies on the Chagres River. More than a hundred million cubic yards of material were removed to create the Culebra Cut, equivalent to around 76 million cubic meters. Some of the excavated material joined the islands of Naos, Perico, Culebra and Flamenco in the Bay of Panama. This created a breakwater with a road link extending from the coast into the Pacific. In this way, the history of the canal also shapes the coastal landscape near Panama City.

Opening and expansion of the canal

The original canal opened on August 15, 1914. On that day, the SS Ancon made the passage from the Atlantic toward the Pacific.

The expanded canal opened on June 26, 2016. The container ship COSCO Shipping Panama transited the new Agua Clara and Cocolí locks for the opening.