Panama Canal & Central America Expedition Cruises Reviews

Overall this cruise was great. Our cruise was at the end of December/beginning of January and most people on the cruise were traveling as members of various multi-generational families. There is little in the way of onboard activities but the expeditions and naturalist team are great! Before the trip we were picked up at the airport and taken via shuttle to the ship, during the bus journey a ...

This review is primarily for people contemplating Viking Expeditions Panama and Scenic South America cruise. This is only my opinion. We are frequent cruisers and habitual Viking Ocean customers (1 river and 7 Viking Ocean cruises). We booked this one as it was relatively inexpensive for a lot of days (18) on a new Expedition class ship. We wanted to experience it and decide if we would invest in ...

We chose this trip from Santiago Chile through the Panama Canal to Ft. Lauderdale because we wanted to try an Expedition ship and I don't like cold weather. Everything is geared towards the Arctic however and there really wasn't much to do on the ship. We had a nature lecturer and a historian but the talks were mostly on the Arctic. The "toys" on board are only licensed to be used in Antarctica ...

This was our 14th cruise, the second on Ponant, and we sought it out because we are tired of the large ship cruises. Ponant offers expeditionary experiences, rather than the traditional "rest, relax and party" cruise, so we approached our time with that expectation. We were incredibly impressed. The ship is graceful, beautiful and very comfortable. Appointments are sophisticated and of the ...

We are on this cruise now via a Tauck trip. Our room is spilled with sewer gas. We finally figured out that if we run the shower constantly over 24 hours, at a low rate, it keeps the trap from allowing sewer gas into the room. The concentration of sewer gas was really bad, only 2ppm can cause bronchial construction in people with asthma, 10-50ppm you get headaches. Higher concentrations you get ...

This was our first Lindblad and first cruise of any kind. Ships was a nice size with <100 guests. Easy to get around it. I would put the median age at 70+. The canal was the draw for us and we were not disappointed. It was an amazing process! Bottom Line: we really liked the trip met some nice people and enjoyed the wildlife Pre-Trip - Easy to book, some back and forth on air travel. ...

We wanted to see Maya sites and wanted to try Ponant. We have sailed on Cunard, Celebrity, Oceania, Windstar, Seabourn, Holland America and Viking - 20+ cruises in all, 6 on Seabourn. I would say 80-90 percent of the passengers spoke French as their primary language. We enjoyed that. The officers are French, the staff Indonesian or Filipino. We were rather taken aback to see the captain ...

We have been on a couple other Viking cruises, and they ran like a Swiss watch. This trip was not like that. Weather forced many changes to excursion schedules. The excursion planners did not get this info to the front desk team in a timely or consistent manner. They also chose to go "paperless" on the Viking Daily that week. The front desk team did not know how to tell passengers where to find ...

This cruise was a repositioning cruise which commenced from New York. We boarded in Rio De Janeiro. Therefore, many of the excursions were not available due to guests boarding in NY (being able to access excursions online much earlier and for kayaks and submarine trips in Antartica) as well as the "class system" perpetuated by Viking. (We booked Nordic Penthouse). We were due to stay in Port ...

My husband and I have been strong advocates of Viking and I have personally been so pleased that Viking Cruises has been able to launch its seasons with new and tried and true itineraries. Sadly, however we were disappointment with the Octantis sailing that commenced on November 5th from Rio de Janeiro. We expected a more seamless adventure given the cost of the cruise and our high expectations ...