On our trip through the Panama Canal in April (see old blogs), our singular regret was that we weren’t able to disembark in the country that hosts the Canal. Our daughter and son-in-law had spent some time in Panama and, while we sometimes have — what shall we say? — different tastes when it comes to accommodation, their impression of the Isthmus and its grounds was flattering.
Maybe next time our accommodation should be a Princess ship.
It seems that Princess is the Panama Canal leader, in part because its ships have been at this for three decades. Starting tomorrow, there will be 38 Princess sailings through the Canal this season and — most importantly — three itineraries include two days in Panama. That’s one day sailing from ocean to ocean, and one day in a port, either Fuerte Amador near Panama City, or Colon near the Atlantic side. And a chance to visit the country from somewhere other than the deck of a cruise ship.
The ships with the stopovers are the Coral Princess (above on Gatun Lake between the Canal’s locks) and the Island Princess (below). 
The workhorses of the Panama fleet were built specifically for Canal crossings, they will take passengers (on what for first-timers is pretty much guaranteed to be an unforgettable adventure) 17 times between now and New Year’s Day.
Of the other major cruise lines crossing the Isthmus of Panama this year — Celebrity, Carnival, Disney and Royal Caribbean — only Celebrity has stopovers and nobody comes close to Princess in how many times ships make this 51-mile traverse.
Since one of the people in this family who’d like to see Panama City is called the Travel Queen, why not Princess?