Daniel5390 Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 I was sitting at the dinner table on Vision of the Seas and someone asked, "Who has plans for a future cruise?" so I told everyone that I'll be sailing on Radiance of the Seas in October. The next evening, everybody seemed knowledgeable about my pick and I realized that they must have visited the Next Cruise help desk and asked about it. It felt promising that all of these seasoned cruisers at our diner table were interested enough to gather some more information about it. They were a little critical of it though because it's a "repositioning cruise" and because it "goes through the Panama Canal backwards". I have no idea why those are supposed to be bad things. Any ideas? We'll be flying from our home in Nashville to Los Angeles, cruising from Los Angeles to Tampa, and then we will fly from Tampa back to Nashville. Two things that I appreciate about this cruise is that when you're cruise is over, you just want to get back home and our "long haul" flight to Los Angeles is done and over with on day one. The second thing is that on my previous cruise is that we had five port days back to back and I thought that was too much too fast. I think this one has a sea day in between each port day. Awesome. Radiance of the Seas Maiden voyage 2001 Capacity 2,501 passengers Crew 859 Radiance of the Seas 16 Night Panama Canal Cruise October 4th to 21st 2024 Day 0 - Airplane ride Day 1 - Los Angeles, California Day 2 - Cruising Day 3 - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Tender Day 4 - Mazatlan, Mexico Day 5 - Cruising Day 6 - Cruising Day 7 - Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala Day 8 - Cruising Day 9 Puntarenas, Costa Rica Day 10 - Cruising Day 11 - Panama Canal, Panama Day 12 - Colón, Panama Day 13 - Cartagena, Colombia Day 14 - Cruising Day 15 - George Town, Grand Cayman - Tender Day 16 - Cruising Day 17 - Tampa, Florida SweetPea and ChessE4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattycruise Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 I'll be on this sailing. Looking foward to it. "Backwards?" As long as it's not upside down I am good. Maybe someone can elaborate what backwards means, I did a google search and couldn't find anything Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FionaMG Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 Maybe they're referring to the fact that you lose a couple of hours sailing west to east as opposed to gaining when you go the other way? Anyway it looks like a great itinerary to me. An ocean to ocean Panama Canal cruise is way up at the top of my bucket list. I'd just prefer Miami/Fort Lauderdale over Tampa but that's purely because, for us, Tampa is much more difficult travel-wise. SweetPea and WAAAYTOOO 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 I have done Northbound and Southbound transits of the Panama Canal. There is no forward or backwards to the canal. It has always operated in both directions. Shari, Pattycruise and SweetPea 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditchdoc Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 It is a great cruise either way. Should be moderate weather in October. Locking through is pretty exciting and most of the day will be spent traversing Lake Gatun. Puntarenas and Cabo were my favorite ports. You can spend all day just walking the waterfront in Cabo and if you are adventurous, there is an active volcano you can hike in Costa Rica. Due to the long trip, we had the opportunity to meet some really nice people on the cruise and would spend time with them playing trivia, having pre dinner cocktails and so on. A smaller ship, good companionship ... it all hearkened back earlier days of cruising without all the noise and blare of the current mega ships. My only disappointment was seeing the ship depart after the cruise. I wish I had done a B2B. That would have been over a month on board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FionaMG Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 2 hours ago, twangster said: I have done Northbound and Southbound transits of the Panama Canal. There is no forward or backwards to the canal. It has always operated in both directions. Did you find you preferred one direction over the other? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FionaMG Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 13 minutes ago, Ditchdoc said: It is a great cruise either way. Should be moderate weather in October. Locking through is pretty exciting and most of the day will be spent traversing Lake Gatun. Puntarenas and Cabo were my favorite ports. You can spend all day just walking the waterfront in Cabo and if you are adventurous, there is an active volcano you can hike in Costa Rica. Due to the long trip, we had the opportunity to meet some really nice people on the cruise and would spend time with them playing trivia, having pre dinner cocktails and so on. A smaller ship, good companionship ... it all hearkened back earlier days of cruising without all the noise and blare of the current mega ships. My only disappointment was seeing the ship depart after the cruise. I wish I had done a B2B. That would have been over a month on board. I would have loved to do that round trip that Serenade just did before setting off for the world cruise. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffmw Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 Whoever you were talking to was either smarter than all of us or far dumber than all of us. The Panama Canal does flow from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the elevation does drop about 85 feet in that time. But I'm not sure if it has any effect on the ship or that the passengers would notice one way vs. the other. Cactus527 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Last2Know Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 This is an awesome cruise itinerary. We did a similar cruise on Serenade for 13 nights in Oct 2022. We enjoyed it so much that it's on our wish list to do another Panama transit in the future. Tendering in Cabo was our only issue. The swells while at anchor made tendering dangerous and the Captain suspended passengers from going ashore. We also stayed for a B2B after arriving in Tampa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Traveling Mike Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 If the ship is going through the canal in reverse the entire way I want to go on that cruise. I have only seen ships going through the canal going forward. steverk, WAAAYTOOO, Cactus527 and 2 others 1 2 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steverk Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 If "backeards" means from the Pacific to the Atlantic, it's not a problem. I did that once and it was a great cruise. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SweetPea Posted January 7 Report Share Posted January 7 I'm with @FionaMG. They are probably thinking they would have 3 23-hour days. I'm also with you, @Daniel5390. I want the long haul flight over at the beginning of the cruise, so we too have an Eastbound Panama Canal booked from LA to Miami. The loss of 3 hours is washed out by having a 2.5/3 hour flight home v. 5.5/6 hour flight home. You have a wonderful 16 night cruise; losing 3 hours is nothing for a more convenient return flight. Plus, with Radiance, you might get to go through the old locks? Now, if you're talking about Transatlantics, we will only do Westbounds because 6 25-hour days is awesome but 6 23-hour days is a bit too much. Cactus527 and FionaMG 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FionaMG Posted January 7 Report Share Posted January 7 3 hours ago, SweetPea said: I'm with @FionaMG. They are probably thinking they would have 3 23-hour days. I'm also with you, @Daniel5390. I want the long haul flight over at the beginning of the cruise, so we too have an Eastbound Panama Canal booked from LA to Miami. The loss of 3 hours is washed out by having a 2.5/3 hour flight home v. 5.5/6 hour flight home. You have a wonderful 16 night cruise; losing 3 hours is nothing for a more convenient return flight. Plus, with Radiance, you might get to go through the old locks? Now, if you're talking about Transatlantics, we will only do Westbounds because 6 25-hour days is awesome but 6 23-hour days is a bit too much. Unfortunately, for me, having the long flight first on a transatlantic means having 6 23-hour days. We've only done one so far and was westbound resulting in a veeery long homeward flight from Brazil. One day we'll try it the other way. SweetPea 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted January 7 Report Share Posted January 7 On 1/5/2024 at 8:26 AM, FionaMG said: Did you find you preferred one direction over the other? Not really. Both are memorable. I'd more likely consider the departure and arrival ports as it relates to flights and hotel stays versus doing the canal in a specific direction. FionaMG, WAAAYTOOO and Cactus527 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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