Fred Olsen Celebrate 100th Anniversary Of Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is going to be much in focus this year as it prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary in August, and various lines are offering cruies to mark the centenary occasion with some special voyages. 

The latest offer to take in one of the world’s most spectacular engineering feats comes from Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, who are offering the chance to commemorate the occasion on style aboard their flagship Balmoral. The 31-night ‘The Americas & Caribbean’ fly-cruise starts with a departure from London Gatwick on March 19 and sails all the way from San Diego, through the Caribbean and back to Southampton.

This exotic fly-cruise is one of the sectors of Balmoral’s 104-night World Cruise, which departed from Southampton back on January 5.

The obvious highlight of this trip, though, is a scenic cruise along the awe-inspiring Canal itself. Listed in CNN’s rundown of ‘11 places to go in 2014’, Panama is a tiny, but diverse, country of volcanoes, rainforests, coffee plantations and beautiful beaches, on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which is also home to one of the most important trade waterways on the globe.

The ‘Big Ditch’, as the Panama Canal is known, lifts Balmoral with a fascinating system of mechanics, along the three great locks – Gatun, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores – aided by on-shore ‘mule’ locomotives, and passing under the iconic ‘Bridge of the Americas’.

More info: 0800 0355 242 www.fredolsencruises.com.

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