Thread: Colon panama tours - please help

Hello , I need your help on what are the best tours/tour operators in Panama.

My family arrives for a day to Colon city.
I would like to tour mostly the Panama City, some beach location to swim, one of the Canal locks.

It is overall tour that I'm after not just the Canal.

Please advise

Thank you all in advance.

Sofia

Originally Posted by sdel65

Hello , I need your help on what are the best tours/tour operators in Panama.

My family arrives for a day to Colon city.
I would like to tour mostly the Panama City, some beach location to swim, one of the Canal locks.

It is overall tour that I'm after not just the Canal.

Please advise

Thank you all in advance.

Sofia

Not sure if you'll be able to do all of that in one day. We just came back from Colon and did a partial transit of the Canal through the Mira Flores and Puerto Miguel Locks and it was an all day excursion. We left the ship at 8 am and didn't get back until 4:30 PM. You could probably do a tour of the city and some time at the beach, but there would not be time to transit a canal lock.

We used My Friend Mario for our excursion. We had a total of 66 people on our Partial Transit, and it was the highlight of our cruise. His staff is VERY professional and you would not be disappointed.

Hello, thank you for advise. I did reconnect with Mario and it seems that it is not enough of the timeframe to cover anything but Panama city and some highlights of the Canal.
I am also wondering if perhaps you may heard of any other tour operator. It seems that there is no other tour agencies in place. I did find the prices from Mario very close to the ship prices ( i guess as the result). Thank you. Sofia

This port is an amazing sight, we will be going our second time in March. I recall the sun coming up and fog rising off the water and seeing many, many, many ships waiting in their assigned queue to make the entrance into the transit. It was a beautiful sight and our ship was waiting a bit to work within the confines of the traffic. There had to be 20 ships withing our sightlines.

Having said that, with the number of ships all daylong in and out the area is very industrial and I don't know where one would swim so that they are in waters that are good enough to swim in.

This may be my own ignorance from not porting there enough to know, so I welcome the corrections, but if my impression is right, that there is not a suitable location to swim in, perhaps this will help the OP in their planning while in this port.

The only areas I saw was what was available from the bus, as I spent the whole day doing the excursion, but I have to agree with you. I did not see anything that would be considered beach areas.

To the original poster - Mario's prices are very close to the cruise lines prices, but you get soooo much more for your money. On our recent partial transit (we were a group of 66 people), we did the Private Yacht transit. We had an open bar, food (sausages, chicken, corn, empenadas, cheeses and fruit), and LOTS of space to roam and view. You will not get that on a ship sponsored excursion. We saw the ship's excursion while on the canal. They were squeeze in like sardines and when talking to someone later in the day, they got a water and a muffin. I will take my experience any day of the week.

Hello guys!

Does Anyone know any other tour agencies except Mario.
I did communicate with Mario for a while and I have to admit was very disappointed in the way how he treated the responses to me.
He just knows that he is the only one tour agent in Panama??
Any other names please?

thank you in advance
Sofia

Check this out---it's from Shore Trips :

Colon Panama

Originally Posted by sdel65

Hello guys!

Does Anyone know any other tour agencies except Mario.
I did communicate with Mario for a while and I have to admit was very disappointed in the way how he treated the responses to me.
He just knows that he is the only one tour agent in Panama??
Any other names please?

thank you in advance
Sofia

I agree, Mario's communication is sporadic, at best, but it appears he is the only operator offering partial transits of the canal (with the exception of the cruise lines).

If you are not interested in doing a transit of the canal, I would definitely go with Char's recommendation of Shore Trips. I have used this company on many occastions, including most recently in Costa Rica (on the same cruise I used Mario in Panama) and have nothing but good things to say about them. Their operators are very professional and you would not be disappointed.

I want to add a few pieces of info, not only for you Sofia, but also for anyone else interested in excursions in Panama.

First: Panama City is on the Pacific side of the Canal and Colon is on the Atlantic. Even though the distance is not very far, there is only one main road between the two, plus a train, so that limits your time to do other things. Some cruises spend a day at Panama City and a day traversing the canal. Most though do a partial crossing (go half way in and turn around), or stop on one side, drop people off for excursions, and stop on the other side for shopping and picking up those who left in the morning.

Second, the city of Colon is not a place to go on your own, due to the very high crime rate. There is an area on the dock with duty free shopping, and it is gated off from the rest of town. There are usually native dancers to entertain passengers in the gated area, but otherwise, the port is simply for dropping people on and off.

This might explain why the guide you have contacted is very cavalier about his prices.

One more thing. The state dept website has warnings about using the beaches there.
Panama
There are very strong currents that would be dangerous to swim in, so keep that in mind when deciding how to spend your day.

When did our Canal cruise, we stayed on the ship the whole time. We had great views of the "donkeys" - the trains that help pull the ships along, and got to experience being in a lock as the ship was moved up or down to go to the next stage of the Canal. It was a lot of fun! I think if we went back, we might do a close up tour of one of the locks, now that we got to experience being in one, but we were very happy to see the canal as a user. You can still see the cuts made in the rock over 100 years ago to make this possible.

Thanks for the info, Mindy. Since the State Department has a warning out I would certainly take heed!