Zuiderdam - Panama Canal from Fort Lauderdale

'Partial transit' is the phrase to read carefully. A full Panama Canal crossing puts a ship in the Pacific, and this one is back in Fort Lauderdale on the eleventh morning, so it enters from the Caribbean side and comes back out the same way; the itinerary lists two consecutive canal days without saying how they split. Around that centrepiece the ten nights are sea-heavy: four sea days, a tender call at George Town on the way out, Cartagena the day before the canal, and Half Moon Cay as the beach day on the way home. Zuiderdam has been running this loop for a long time - the archive has a 2015 review of the ship on the Caribbean-and-canal route, a 2020 poster mourning a cancelled March sailing on it, and a 2017 real-time video of the passage posted in reply - so it is a settled product rather than a new one.

None of the rivals sharing these ports go anywhere near the canal, which makes the comparison simple. Holland America's own Rotterdam runs a ten-night from Fort Lauderdale to Belize, Roatán and Mexico with a Half Moon Cay day for several hundred dollars less; the difference is the canal, and only the canal. The seven-night Nieuw Statendam and Eurodam loops give the George Town or Half Moon Cay days for half to two-thirds of the fare. Within Zuiderdam's own schedule, the fourteen-night Panama Canal Passage is the longer commitment for anyone who wants more of the waterway than a partial transit offers. Thread sentiment on the Half Moon Cay call is consistent: a 2025 poster weighing a Zuiderdam itinerary that visited the island twice was told it is a beach day and nothing more, worth a few hours unless a beach day is the goal. That frames who this suits - people for whom the canal is the reason to book, who are content with three real ports and four sea days around it - and who it does not: port collectors, and anyone for whom Half Moon Cay is the highlight rather than the decompression day.