Cruise Port Guide · 39 cruises visit Gatun Lake →
The bucket-list things to do — and who runs each one.
Here’s the bucket list for your day ashore: the most extraordinary thing to do at each stop, who runs it, and how to book it direct — so you can weigh it against your ship’s excursion and pick what suits you.
Glide through the world's largest artificial lake on a private boat, encountering howler monkeys, three-toed sloths, toucans, and caimans in their natural habitat. This is Panama's most iconic wildlife encounter — intimate, unhurried, and utterly unforgettable.
Combine a deep-jungle rainforest hike in Soberania National Park with a small-boat eco-cruise on Gatun Lake, led by one of Panama's most celebrated naturalist guides. It's the full Panama experience — canopy, creek, and canal — in a single extraordinary day.
Board the legendary Panama Canal Railway for a 47-mile crossing of the isthmus that changed world trade forever, travelling through Gatun Lake's mirror waters and cathedral rainforest in a beautifully restored heritage train. One of the world's great short rail journeys.
Cast for ferocious peacock bass — one of freshwater fishing's ultimate trophies — on the legendary waters of Gatun Lake, where they thrive in the warm, flooded rainforest. A private charter with a specialist guide is the most exhilarating way to spend a morning on the canal.
Journey by dugout canoe up the Chagres River to an authentic Emberá village deep inside Chagres National Park for a living cultural encounter — traditional dance, plant medicine, handcrafted molas, and a jungle lunch. One of the most genuinely moving encounters in all of Central America.
Stand at the edge of the Gatun Locks — the largest flight of canal locks in the world — and watch colossal Panamax and Neo-Panamax ships squeeze through chambers just inches to spare, with a private historian guide explaining the greatest engineering feat of the 20th century.
You know what to do on the day. Here is the trip it belongs to — each one opens as a whole plan, not a list: where to fly in, every port, what it runs.
Not sure when yet? Tell us the days you can get away and we will only show what fits.
⚓ Your bucket-list concierge
Tell us your sailing and we'll send the bucket list for every port — the most extraordinary thing to do at each, and the operator who runs it.
We send the plan to your account’s own address — never to one typed into a box. Free, and Google works.