Caribbean Princess - Panama Canal from Fort Lauderdale

The port note above describes an ocean-to-ocean crossing; this sailing does not make one. Because it returns to Fort Lauderdale, Caribbean Princess enters through the Agua Clara locks on the Caribbean side, spends the day in Gatun Lake and comes back out the way it went in, then docks at Colon, so passengers see the lift and the lake but never the Culebra Cut, the Pacific locks or Panama City. Posters in 2024 noted that a ship this size uses the newer, wider locks, and that the tighter original chambers are only seen from a small-boat excursion or from the smaller Coral and Island Princess. The pace is unusual for a Caribbean itinerary: six of the twelve nights are sea days, two on the way out to Curaçao, one between Curaçao and Cartagena, and three in a row on the long haul back from Puerto Limon to Grand Bahama, where the beach day at Celebration Key serves as the finale rather than an opening stop. Anyone who wants the full transit has to go one-way instead, which in the catalog means Norwegian Bliss from Los Angeles to Miami over sixteen nights at a higher tier, or Oceania Marina's twenty-night double transit at several times the fare.

What people who have done this route on this ship report is that the canal day carries the trip. A 2018 post from a ten-night partial transit on Caribbean Princess called the lock operation mind-blowing and Cartagena the standout port, and a 2024 thread warned that the transit is hot and muggy even in January. The crowd skews older, but the 2018 poster counted a fair number of twenty- and thirty-somethings on a spring-break sailing, a 2024 reply said canal itineraries draw few children, and a 2022 poster who had done a Princess full transit found the dress code relaxed even on formal nights. Against the rivals, Rotterdam and Nieuw Amsterdam do the same twelve nights and the same three mainland ports a tier higher; a June 2024 thread asking Caribbean Princess or Rotterdam got Princess for the canal itself in its most-upvoted reply and Rotterdam for newer venues in the next. Celebrity Ascent's eleven nights skip Costa Rica, and the only cheaper option is Norwegian Jade's one-way repositioning. A 2022 reply about a solo inside cabin on this exact partial transit from Florida said the price could not be beaten, and it remains the cheapest round-trip canal sailing in the catalog: the pick for people who want the locks without a one-way flight and can enjoy six sea days, and the wrong pick for anyone after nightlife, which a 2019 reply summed up as an empty club and a lot of trivia.