You are here :: Panama Real Estate » About-panama » Panama-crystal-cruise

Crystal Cruises has just announced that when you book one of their 14 to 16 day cruises between Los Angeles and a Florida port (Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, or Palm Beach) that Crystal Cruises will pay for your return trip by air to Los Angeles or to Florida. Departures for this offer are January 6, February 16, and May 7 of 2009. Base cruise prices start at $3,595 per person for this offer. Each of these cruises features a day long passage through the Panama Canal.

Panama Canal Cruise

A Panama Canal Cruise is the best way to see the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is the system of man made channels, locks, dams, and artificial lakes that connect the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama. Come see one of the greatest engineering feats in the world and have a great trip to boot.

Cruises through the Panama Canal traditionally start from either coast of the United States, pass through the Panama Canal and end up on the other coast. On each end of the Panama Canal are channels dredged from the sea bed. Then there are the Panama Canal locks, two sets on the Pacific end and one set on the Atlantic (Caribbean) end. In the middle you pass across artificial Lake Gatun formed by the damming of the Chagres River and through the Gaillard Cut, a ditch dug through what was a mountain ridge before they created the lake. The passage takes about 9 hours. Other boats on your route will include pleasure craft, giant container ships, tankers, and anything else that carries cargo. On occasion the US Navy sends a boat or submarine through although these are usually nighttime passages.

Panama Canal

The building of the Panama Canal was and still is one greatest engineering projects in the history of the world. Built between 1904 and 1914 the Panama Canal has provided passage for over 800,000 boats between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. United States engineers and doctors had to excavate over 240 million cubic yards of earth of rock and dirt, and find a place for it, as well as overcome tropical diseases that had killed over 20,000 workers in the French effort to build a canal.

Panama Tourism

A Panama Canal cruise such as Crystal’s gives you a day in the Panama Canal. There are also cruises with day visits to Panama, usually to the Colon Free Zone or into the rain forest along the canal. Once you have seen the Panama Canal come back to see the rest of Panama.

Panama Tourism

There is a lot to do when you come to visit Panama. Panama tourism is attracting well over a million people a year to thriving Panama City, tours of the Panama Canal, hotels in the rain forest, as well as world class sport fishing, eco tourism in Panama’s comarcas and much more.

For more information regarding Panama tourism opportunities visit Tours Panama. Then come to Panama for the visit of a lifetime.