Cruise Port Guide · 33 cruises visit Panama Canal/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.
Board a private boat on the Panama Canal and glide across Gatun Lake to Monkey Island — one of the world's most audacious feats of engineering, explored at your own pace with an expert guide and wild howler monkeys as your hosts.
Stand at the edge of the Gatun Locks — the largest set of locks on the Panama Canal — and watch supertankers and container ships squeeze through with just centimetres to spare in what may be the most jaw-dropping feat of civil engineering on the planet.
Paddle a sea kayak through the primeval rainforest edges of Gatun Lake inside Soberanía National Park — one of the most biodiverse patches of jungle on Earth — in an intimate small-group adventure led by a specialist naturalist guide.
Drift silently by private boat through the backwaters of Gatun Lake in search of three-toed sloths, caimans, Jesus Christ lizards, and a riot of tropical birdlife — an utterly serene wildlife encounter in the heart of the canal zone.
Ride the legendary Panama Canal Railway — one of the oldest transcontinental railways in the world, built during the Gold Rush — in a restored dome or panoramic car across the isthmus, with the canal and jungle flanking every mile of track.
Journey upriver by dugout canoe to an authentic Emberá indigenous village on the edge of the Chagres rainforest — a rare, respectful cultural immersion into one of Panama's oldest civilisations, culminating in a traditional meal and artisan market.
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.