Nieuw Amsterdam
Our cruise on Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam passed through the Panama Canal on Easter Sunday. Although it was Easter, most people spent the day canal watching and there wasn’t a lot of Easter activities on the ship. There probably wouldn’t have been anyway even without the distraction of the canal that day. There were Easter decorations in the Lido buffet and some special Easter food items throughout the day. Some passengers put up their own Easter decorations on their stateroom doors. There was also both a catholic mass and a non-denominational service scheduled for the day. They had those throughout the cruise so they weren’t specifically scheduled just for Easter, though I assume they would have had Easter themed services that day.
For our part some of the ducks we brought to hide during that cruise were Easter themed ducks. Little bunny ducks, some hatching out of Easter eggs, that sort of thing. I also made some Easter themed duck tags for them. I neglected to take any photos of the ducks, but these are the ones from the internet that I used on the tags.
Easter cake and baskets
The most Easter decorations were in the Lido Buffet at breakfast. They had little Easter baskets decorating all the different food stations.
Easter Cake in a jar
Lunchtime in the buffet brought Easter desserts with a couple different Easter cakes and some Easter cupcakes.
Easter dessert in the dining room
The dinner menu in the dining room included a ham option and an Easter dessert.
Easter chicks
Holland America has art classes on its ships, which include watercolor painting. There were no classes on Easter since everyone was busy canal watching that day, but close to Easter there were a couple Easter themed classes with one painting bunnies and the other painting chicks. My bunny did not turn out well at all, but I thought my chicks were cute. I thought sister’s bunny was actually better than the sample that the instructor painted. Its head was shaped more like a real rabbit’s. The art instructor mentioned in one class that some of the crew would dress as bunnies on Easter and hand out candy eggs, but if they actually did we did not find them because we never saw anyone dressed up as bunnies or handing out any candy eggs. Perhaps they did that in the children’s club.
Gatun Locks
We started the day on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal, first passing under the Atlantic Bridge and then through Gatun Locks, which is the old original lock on that end of the canal. The newer, larger, and more technologically advanced one Panama built that opened in 2016 on that end of the Canal is called Agua Clara. Our ship was of original Panamax size meaning it fit in the old locks and that is what we went through so we did not get to see the new ones since they are in a separate lane that was made at the same time the new locks were during the Panama Canal expansion project.
Culebra Cut and Centennial Bridge
The ship moves through 3 chambers in Gatun Locks, each one rising it a bit higher until it has risen from the Atlantic Ocean up to Gatan Lake. It’s a manmade lake created by damming the Chagres River. Regardless of which locks a ship came through they all end up in that lake, then separate again at the other end near the other locks. Islands in the lake used to be hilltops. Ships follow a channel through the lake along the original route of the river. The Culebra Cut on the far end of the lake is a narrow manmade passageway with tiered sides where the land was dug away. It often experiences slides. Dredgers are based at Gamboa, a town alongside the canal. The dredgers are kept busy keeping the canal passable for ships whether there are any landslides or not. One was blocking the entrance to Gatun Locks when we first got there. We had to wait quite awhile for it to get out of the way before we could proceed.
Barbara in the Panama Canal
Usually when I take sister cruises both of my sisters are there, but this one was just me and Linda. While we were in the Panama Canal we saw a container ship go by named Barbara, which is the missing sister’s name so we did see Barbara in the Panama Canal. Of course I texted her a photo of her namesake ship and she replied that it was much bigger than the Lady Linda fishing vessel we had seen in Alaska when we all took a cruise there.
passing under the Centennial Bridge
The ship passed under the Centennial Bridge shortly before entering Pedro Miguel Locks, then passed through Miraflores Locks and under the Bridge of the Americas before exiting the canal. It took all day to go through the canal, starting in the morning and not ending until dinnertime that evening. Pedro Miguel has just one chamber per lane and Miraflores Locks has two. Ships in the new lane don’t have locks where Pedro Miguel is so that lane is up above the old one until they reach Cocoli Locks at the end. It has 3 chambers.
Miraflores Locks
Panamax ships can fit into the old locks. The maximum size is 965 feet (294.1 meters) long, 106 feet (32.3 meters) wide, and a draft (depth in the water) of 39.5 feet (12 meters). Ships that are too big for the old locks, but can fit into the new ones are called Neopanamax. These ships can have lengths up to 1,200 feet (366 meters), beams (width) up to 160 feet (49 meters), and drafts up to 50 feet (15.2 meters).
towel Easter bunny
When we got back to our cabin that evening we found a towel bunny that the steward had made for us on the bed. That was my most memorable Easter ever. Transiting the Panama Canal isn’t something people do very often unless they happen to work on ships that go through there frequently.
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