Call it a new era for Panama Canal cruises.
The official opening of the 48-mile-long waterway's massive new locks on Sunday will add a new twist to what long has been a bucket list item for cruising fans.
Princess Cruises, which offers more voyages into the canal than any other line, recently announced its 3,080-passenger Caribbean Princess would operate partial transits of the canal using the new locks starting in late 2017. The experience will be part of 10-day Panama Canal cruises out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. scheduled through the winter of 2017-18.
The sailings will be notable as, at 118 feet, the Caribbean Princess is too wide for the waterway's original, smaller locks. Barring a last-minute announcement from another line, it'll mark the first time a "post-Panamax" cruise ship -- one too big for the older locks -- has entered the canal.
Disney Cruise Line also plans to use the new locks during its twice-a-year voyages through the canal starting in 2017, a spokeswoman tells USA TODAY. Disney's canal sailings in 2017 are scheduled to take place on the Disney Wonder, which can fit in both the old and new locks.
Viewing the marvels of engineering that are the existing locks at the Panama Canal long has been a core appeal of canal sailings, and the chance to see the new locks in action could give cruisers who already have sailed through the canal a new reason to book one of the voyages.
Still, many ships operating Panama Canal cruises will continue to use the original locks -- at least for now. Princess said three of its vessels -- Coral Princess, Island Princess and Pacific Princess -- will operate canal sailings during the 2017-18 season using the smaller locks. A spokeswoman for Norwegian Cruise Line also said its ships would be using the canal's smaller locks.
Other lines that offer canal sailings are unsure about which set of locks their ships will use when transiting over the next few years. In response to queries from USA TODAY, spokespeople for Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Crystal Cruises and Silversea Cruises said their vessels would use whichever locks they were assigned by local authorities. A spokesperson for Celebrity Cruises did not respond to a request for information.
There are two new sets of locks at the Panama Canal, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides. The locks were added as part of a massive, nine-year canal expansion project that also included excavating channels to the new locks and expanding existing channels.
Begun in 2007, the expansion was designed to allow bigger cargo ships to transit the 102-year-old waterway. But it also could be a boon for the cruise industry. Though the smaller locks at the canal are large enough for many of the world's cruise ships, they can't handle a rapidly growing number of mega-vessels from the likes of Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival. When moving between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the biggest cruise ships must travel around the tip of South America, adding 8,000 miles and many days to their journey.
At 180 feet wide and 1,400 feet long, the canal's new lock chambers should allow such massive new vessels as Norwegian Getaway and Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas to enter the waterway. But some of the biggest cruise ships still will be unable to cross the Panama Canal due to height restrictions. The passage requires sailing under the Bridge of the Americas near the canal's Pacific entrance, which has a clearance of just 201 feet at high tide. The world's biggest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's one-month-old Harmony of the Seas, rises 236 feet above the waterline as do its slightly smaller sisters Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas.
Most major lines offer canal cruises. Many, such as Royal Caribbean and Norwegian, operate just a handful of the sailings each year as they reposition vessels between winter homes in the Caribbean and summer homes in Alaska. Others, such as Princess, offer regular trips into the canal from late September through April.
In general, canal voyages are long and leisurely, with lots of sea days. A typical "full transit" is a one-way trip from Florida to California, or vice versa, that lasts about 15 days. Some lines, most notably Princess, also offer a partial transit — a shorter, round-trip voyage to the canal from Florida that only includes a passage through the locks on the Atlantic side of the canal and a sailing as far as Gatun Lake.
For a first-hand look at the experience of cruising through the canal's smaller locks, scroll through the carousel at the top of this story. For a deck-by-deck look at a Princess ship, see the carousel below.
