I Wish We Knew This Before Our Panama Canal Cruise
In this travel vlog, hosts Josh and Rachel document their Panama Canal experience aboard the Celebrity Beyond cruise ship and a subsequent ferry excursion. They begin with an early‑morning Panama Canal Day, describing the staging area, the breakwall, and the sight of numerous ships and a historic shipwreck. They explain the canal’s history— the failed French attempt, Roosevelt’s intervention, the original 1914 locks, and the 2016 expansion (Aqua Clara locks)— and note the massive water usage and the cost of transiting. The duo details the Celebrity‑organized excursion: tendering from the ship, a short boat ride to shore, a bus transfer to a ferry that traverses the old locks, and the timeline of events (tender at 10:45, bus departure around noon, ferry arrival 1:30, lock passage beginning 2:48, completion around 5:15, then under the Bridge of the Americas to Panama City). They compare the new lock’s sliding‑gate design with the old lock’s massive swinging doors, noting dimensions and the water level changes (≈27‑31 ft per lock). Practical advice is offered: best viewing spots on the Celebrity Beyond (front of the ship, Magic Carpet, gym/spa), need to book the Celebrity excursion, early arrival, dress code for dinner, and limited food options on the ferry. Personal reflections highlight favorite moments— the final lock into the Pacific, sunset over Panama City, and the engineering marvel of the canal— while also noting drawbacks such as long wait times, sub‑par ferry lunch, and the overall time‑consuming nature of the experience. The vlog ends with a teaser for upcoming Aruba content and calls to subscribe and follow on social media.
Chapters
Hey everybody, I'm Josh and I'm Rachel. Come along with us as we show you going through the Panama Canal on a cruise ship and on a ferry all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Let's go!
Good morning and welcome to Panama Day.
Panama Day.
Panama Canal Day, that is. So it is like 10:15. We've been up for 4 hours already.
Yeah.
Because when the Panama Canal day starts, it starts early. Or at least on this ship it is, which we're on Celebrity Beyond. And so at 6 AM we got up and went upstairs.
Yeah, we thought we were gonna walk the walking track for a little bit till we got closer and people were already lined up against all the railings. So we found a spot and set up camp.
For about 3 hours.
Yeah, for a long time.
Yeah, so when we, when we got up there, there was already— it's like we were in a staging area basically.
Yeah.
Where there was probably about 20 to 30 ships around us.
Yeah.
But luckily we were able to go straight on in.
I think that's a payment thing.
Yes, apparently we pay extra on a cruise ship. And so with that we were— we went past the breaking— no. Breakway?
Breakwall.
Breakwall. So you'll be able to see where it tries to like slow down all the ocean current going into the like almost a bay area.
Yeah.
And then you see more ships in there. We did have a pilot ship where they came over and dropped off at least a couple people.
Yeah.
Like a couple different ships came up to ours, dropped somebody off, and went away. For a while we were just cruising along and And then ended up where we could see a shipwreck on the far side, which was kind of cool and terrible.
Well, I mean, that's a super old shipwreck.
Yeah, it's been there for a while.
Yeah.
And then we went to the Bridge of the Atlantic. I believe that's what it's called.
Yep.
Apparently $366 million to build.
So there's 2 sets of locks, the older locks, which were the original part of the Panama Canal, and then the newer locks, which were finished in 2016. I believe it's Aqua Clara Locks.
Yeah, and the older locks I think were completed around like 1914. We were able to go to an education center or education session 2 days ago, which was really good and gave us a lot of background and history on it. So if you get the ability to do that, I highly recommend doing it so you can understand why they picked this location. I guess apparently there was talks about doing it in Nicaragua until Teddy Roosevelt came in and said nah.
Yeah.
But it was originally started by the French, which they wanted to basically just dig a trench all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. But there's mountains.
Yeah, they didn't realize there was mountains.
Or they didn't care.
Or they— yeah.
And that's why like 20,000 people died while trying to do it. So this is why the lock system is so important, because you're basically going over mountains.
Yeah.
To get from one ocean to another. And because of that, you're also cutting off 8,000 miles of a trip.
Yeah, around Cape Horn.
Which is at the bottom of South America.
Yeah.
So what's really cool is that you just come in, they close these gigantic doors. I want to say they're 100 feet tall.
I think that's it.
And they look extremely wide as well. And they just come out on rollers. There's 2, 2 sets of them, so that probably holds the water back enough.
It must.
It works somehow. Yeah, I don't know. It's crazy, but it is not a super fast process.
So we're about an hour delayed. We have an excursion too once we get into Gatun Lake, and we're about an hour delayed because we were waiting on someone else coming out of the locks.
Right.
So yeah.
Yeah, so we're gonna be able to get to see it from a cruise ship point of view and from a ferry point of view that's gonna go all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Yeah, I think it's quite interesting is the fact— and they're very transparent about it when you're booking a Celebrity excursion— but the excursions The only people allowed off the ship in Gatun Lake are those who have booked a Celebrity excursion.
Yeah.
Otherwise, you're not getting off this boat. You're going into the lake, hanging out for a little bit, turning around and coming back. So that's pretty impressive, but it's also— they're very clear when you book it that it is a dependent on the traffic kind of thing through the canal. It could take a very long time.
Yeah, and like our Port day of this is going to be in Cologne for 2 hours.
Yeah.
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. They even say it on the app, they don't recommend that you go outside of the port area because it's such a short time window.
Yeah.
So, but for us, we are doing an excursion that we will be tendered from after we anchor in Gatun Lake. We will then be tendered to shore. Shore, we'll take a bus to a different boat. That boat is then going to go through the rest of the locks. That gets us to Pacific, and that's what you're gonna see after this.
Yeah, we'll find out.
I should mention that our guide did say that the best way to see this is gonna be at the very front of the ship and at the highest level. Unfortunately, on this ship, there's not great spots. There's no window. Yeah, the only really front area would be either the gym, which, you know, you're gonna have glass, or the spa area, which you have to pay extra for, but then there's not doing narration out in that calm area. They do have it on your TV in your room, as well as there's a big screen I think in the theater and up on the top deck.
Yeah.
Yeah, so for this one you can see in other areas, but if you're doing Celebrity Beyond or a Celebrity ship like this, the best possible spot I would say is on the Magic Carpet in the very front. But you're gonna have to get there before 6 AM.
Yeah.
And you're gonna be standing there for 4 to 6 hours.
Yeah, it was a long time. There you go.
Make sure to hit that subscribe button if you want to see our full experience on Celebrity Beyond. We will have daily vlogs showing 15 different food venues, world-class entertainment, and a stunning resort deck. We also make stops in Colombia, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, and take you completely through the Panama Canal in the old and new locks. It's like 28 hours later.
Yeah.
Because yesterday kicked our butts.
It was a long, long day.
Yeah, I think you got to be prepared if you're going to do this excursion. I think there's a selling point and also a drawback to the amount of time that you're going to spend. We're gonna give a timeline of events of what happened. When we had last spoken to you, it was like 10:30 in the morning. We were just getting back to our room after watching the locks upstairs. We didn't get back to the ship until 8:15, ran to our room, and had to be at dinner at 8:30. So then we promptly passed out, and now you're getting us many hours later.
Refreshed.
Refreshed, yeah. But lots to talk about. Let's start. 10:45, we had to be in the theater.
Yep, we met in the main theater at 10:45, and we headed off for the tender at Yeah, tender was great.
The ships are— or the tender boats that come right off of the cruise ship is awesome.
They're amazing.
Yeah, they're better than airlines. So we took about a 2.5 to 3 minute ride over to the shore and then we ended up getting on a bus at about noon. We take off from the parking lot.
Yes. So it took about 20 to 25 minutes to load up the bus. And then as Josh said, about 12 o'clock we left the parking lot from the boat tender and arrived at our ferry at about 1:30. Yeah!
So you're already— I mean, we're already almost 3 hours in. And then once we get on the ferry, it is about 2:15. They do serve lunch and they served lunch before we even took off.
Yeah!
Lunch was not very good but it's the only food you got on there. We were hoping that there would be snacks and beers for sale. There was not. There was an unlimited amount of water, Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. And we definitely took advantage of that and even brought some water back to the room.
Yeah, we did!
But yeah! Yeah! The lunch was not something that we would ever recommend or eat again but— No!
It was rice, chicken— rice, shredded chicken and veggies with this little banana bread thing.
It was bread pudding!
And a cheese sandwich.
Which had just like a slice of cheese and a little bit of sauce on there. We didn't do the excursion for the lunch though!
No, we didn't! It was to go through the Panama Canal locks.
Yes!
Which we did get to do!
Yeah! Which I did end up looking at the map after we got back because I did have a little video from when we had the presenter talk to us the day before showing the locks. And so what we end up doing with that bus ride is it takes you from the Agua Clara Locks around Gatun Lake to right before the next set of locks. So we ended up going through all of the locks. We went through 8 locks in all total yesterday. So we went through all the locks. We just skipped by a lot of the lake driving.
Yeah.
Lake boating.
The ferry itself started at Century Bridge. So yeah, if you're finding a map Or maybe Josh is putting one up now. Started at Century Bridge and then worked its way through the old set of locks into the Pacific Ocean.
Which is a really cool thing. And we talked about this at the end, is that by doing it this way, we were able to do the cruise ship through the brand new set of locks to get in from the Atlantic side. And then we took the old set of locks through the— over to the Pacific side. So we really got a feel of everything. And so like our very first set of locks, we are there by like 2:48. So about 30 minutes after the boat starts riding. We did learn that it takes a large amount of water and that water is not all reusable. And so they have to like make you go with other boats. They don't just let one ferry go by itself.
Yeah, so we ended up with a car carrier and a sailboat and a catamaran in our lock.
Yeah, and it was interesting because the sailboat and the catamaran, so we would have to go up, we would tie off to the side, the sailboat would come in between and they'd tie up to us and then the catamaran would tie up to the sailboat. Because the water is very turbulent, so they can't just like sit still in the water. So they need something to anchor to. And right behind us was this car carrier, which is huge.
Yeah, huge, huge.
Yeah, like it filled almost the entirety of the old lock system.
Yeah.
So the really cool thing about the old locks compared to the new locks— the new locks, it's just a giant metal slab that rolls across like a door. Yeah, like a sliding door. Whereas this It opens. I think of it like a dungeon or an old castle.
Yeah, it was really cool to see that opening.
Yeah. And we were right— I think we were like within, I don't know, within 100 yards for certain. If not even closer than that. I thought it was really cool to see because you could just see those doors opening slowly. Allowing the water in or like once you're at the point where you can go out. And so each one, I believe it was around like 27 feet.
Yeah.
That it either took you up or all of these ones took us down in water.
That's what I was I was gonna say, so on the cruise ship we went up, we stair-stepped up. We had to go up about 29 feet, 29 to 31 feet I think each lock.
Which was 3.
Yeah, so each of those to get to the same level of the lake, Gatun Lake. And then to get from the lake down into the Pacific Ocean, we had to go down that. So we went down 27, 27, and 27 each time.
And then 2 more after that.
Yeah. So it was really neat to see that because you— from the cruise ship part, seeing that go up was not as visible as What we get to see on the ferry.
Yeah, it was not very noticeable because we were up on deck 15.
Yeah.
For the majority of that. And you can, you're like, I think we're going up. I think we're going down. I don't know.
Yeah, but we really got to see it up close and personal on the ferry.
Yeah.
Going down.
So I thought that was one of my, like definitely one of my favorite pictures was being able to do it once we had just those doors there and it looks like we're almost in prison or something.
Yeah, it was really cool. We got done going through all 5 sets of locks at like 5:15 at night.
And then we have about an hour and a half that we have to go under the Bridge of the Americas And around the world's longest peninsula, it felt like because at this point in time we're pretty tired.
Yeah, I mean it did, but we we went all the way to Panama City. So again, if you're looking on the map, we started around Cologne and ended in Panama City.
Agreed.
And then had to go back to Cologne to catch our ship.
Yeah, so we go around this giant peninsula that to then get to the harbor, get back on our bus. It's an hour and fifteen minute ride on our bus.
Like before we even get off the ferry, we get to see it. They say it's the only Panama is the only country in the world where the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic. And we got to see the sunset.
Yes, that was awesome. That was really cool. And so we got to see that as we were coming upon the skyline of Panama City.
Yeah.
Which is insane.
It is so beautiful. But they said that shouldn't start building up until the year 2000.
Yeah.
Which if my timeline remind is correct, I need to verify that. I believe it's when the US handed over the control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
Yeah.
It was about 1999, 2000.
Because Jimmy Carter signed it off in 1979, there was gonna be 20 years of like dual control. And then 1999, Panama got it. And it seems like they are getting some money for this. They make $12 million a day, they said. And the most expensive— because they said nobody ever gets a discount. Everybody pays money to go through there. And I think the most expensive was a Norwegian cruise ship, which was almost $900,000 just to go through the canal once.
And the cheapest was someone who wanted to swim the canal, and they charged him 36 cents.
I thought it was 38, but it's probably between 36 and 38 cents. And that was back in the '40s. So you might want to like adjust to inflation and bring $2.
And supposedly there's alligators in there, so you may not want to swim in there.
Yeah, I wouldn't do it. But all in all, it was a great experience.
It was.
I would never do it again.
Never.
No. We were having flashbacks to our Chichen Itza one where we just spent so much time in a car. This was better than that. Yeah, but it was so long. Yeah, there's so much time that you spend getting to it. And then it's not a fast process going through the locks.
No, it's not. And we arrived at the harbor about what, 6:45? So yeah, as Josh said, about an hour and a half after finishing through the locks to arriving at the harbor and then getting on our bus from in Panama City about 7. Oddly enough, that was the fastest loading of buses I've ever seen.
It was shocking.
We were moving.
I think everybody was ready to get back home.
And then at 8:15, we finally arrived back to the ship.
So then to wrap up our night, we ran back to our room, had to put on some clothes because Celebrity doesn't let you go to dinner with flip-flops and shorts.
Yep.
So, and then ran down to Tuscan where we had an awesome dinner.
We did have a really good dinner. Tuscan's their Italian?
Yeah, it's a main dining room, so it's free, but it's an Italian theme.
Yeah, and we got some really good stuff. The other thing which I was really excited to see last night, and I hadn't seen it the night before, Is they offer a chef's special. So the chef just—
Yeah.
Makes something. And so our waiter told us about it. It was pork schnitzel. I really enjoyed it. I really liked it.
I thought the carbonara was good. I thought your pumpkin salad was good. I thought the cannolis were good.
I think what we learned after 2 times in the main dining room is we may not have to buy specialty dining on Celebrity.
It's true.
Yep.
All right, on that note, what was your favorite moment of the day?
My favorite moment of the day was truly sitting there. I think it was the last lock. I took a couple pictures of it and Seeing that we were now in the Pacific Ocean.
Yeah, that was really cool.
Mind blown. It's not anything that was ever on my bucket list, honestly. I mean, like, Panama Canal, cool. It is one of the engineering wonders of the world, um, and now I can see why. And I'm glad it made it to my bucket list, and now I can check it off. But just seeing that, like, the ingenuity that had to have been gone through For— from the 1900s.
Like, early 1900s, right? Well, the first guy that wrote how to do it was the 1800s. Yeah, and then it— I can't comprehend how somebody 150 years ago said, you know what, we can do this. Let's just raise up the water, build a dam, add a man-made lake, and we can just allow the water to go back and forth.
That's true, because he was the— his original plan is what they ended up using, right? It was like 1880 or something.
Yeah, the original plan.
Yeah, so I think that to me was my moment of the day of like, Wow, how blessed are we that we get to see this?
Yeah.
Because it— not everybody does. And we talked to quite a few people that that's why they're on this cruise, for one.
Yeah.
And that a couple of them had done the Panama Canal before and they're just like, you'll be so excited about it.
And I'm like, yeah, I love—
I didn't think I was gonna be.
There was a man I spoke to at the end and he said this was his 3rd time through the Panama Canal. And the other times he had just done it on a cruise ship all the way through. And so I said, how does this compare to that? And he said, this is so much better because you can get up close. You can see everything. I mean, hell, you're at water level!
Yeah!
Like our ferry was not more than 5, 10 feet off of the water.
Yeah.
And so you're getting so low. I think that was my— what I enjoyed the most right away was just when the water dropped that 25, 30 feet.
Mm-hmm.
And you're just looking up at these massive doors. In the lock system. And then yeah, the next one was the final one that opened up to the Pacific Ocean. And it was like, we just went from the Atlantic to Pacific today.
And we got to see all 3 of the bridges. Um, the Bridge of Americas, the Century Bridge, and then Bridge of Atlantic. And I didn't realize until yesterday, is like, Bridge of Americas is the first bridge that connected South America to North America. And you can drive from South America all the way to Alaska.
Yep, it's gonna take you 27 days. We heard that a lot.
4 or 5 times. So it finally clicked, but I didn't realize that there was such a thing until yesterday. So I thought that was really, really cool.
All right, what was your favorite bite of the day?
Oh, that freaking pasta.
I thought the pasta was good.
The carbonara was delicious.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if you were gonna say the cannoli, the pasta, or the schnitzel.
Yes, all 3, but—
I think the carbonara stands out.
The carbonara stands out.
All right, on that note, our next day is in Aruba. Today is a sea day, and we are truly taking advantage of the most relaxing sea day we've probably ever had.
Yeah, it's rainy out. They canceled our pickleball, or they moved our pickleball to the next day. So yeah, we're good for just reading and napping today.
But we have a long day in Aruba the next day, so hopefully you'll come along for that, uh, as we continue on board Celebrity Beyond. If you're enjoying our videos, don't forget to hit that like and subscribe.
You can also follow us on social media— Facebook, Instagram, and X. All our links are down below.
Later.
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