Cruise Ship Shore Excursions from the Port of Colón/Panama

Experience the best of Panama on a day trip!

Guaranteed experienced, English-speaking guides
Excursions in small groups
Especially for guests of the ships Aida, Mein Schiff and MS Europa 2
Tours for other ships available via the inquiry form

English-speaking shore excursion Embera Quera port of Colon

Experience the highlights of Panama on a fascinating shore excursion!

Stroll through the alleys of Panama’s colonial old town, take a boat trip on Lake Gatún, visit an indigenous Embera village or hike in the footsteps of the Caribbean pirates along the Camino Real. Every shore excursion is timed precisely around your cruise ship’s port call. Small groups. Guaranteed experienced, English-speaking guides!

The shore excursions from the port of Colón are designed especially for guests of the ships Aida, Mein Schiff and MS Divina. For other ships calling at Colón, please give the ship’s name and port call time in the inquiry form. For excursions from the port of Amador in Panama City, see the page on excursions from Panama City/Port of Amador.

Port info and general information

Port info Colón

Most ships in Colón dock at the Colón 2000 cruise port. It has two berths: the older Terminal 1, also called Colón 2000, opened in the year 2000 (what a surprise!). Terminal 2 was built only in recent years and often goes by Homeport. Your ship always docks at one of the two berths, and you’ll only find out which one when it arrives. To avoid any confusion, you’ll always find us at the same meeting point between the two terminals.

Adjoining the old part of the port is the colourful, Caribbean-style Colón 2000 Mall, a shopping centre with souvenir shops, restaurants, a casino, a hotel and a supermarket (Super 99). The supermarket is handy for anyone who needs everyday items, easy to find here and at normal prices (batteries, toothbrush, toothpaste, and everything a supermarket usually has). It also has ATMs that dispense US dollars, Panama’s national currency.

At the port you can enjoy a beer after an excursion, shop at the supermarket or just browse what a Panamanian supermarket has on offer, withdraw US dollars, or grab a photo at the Colón sign!

The new Terminal 2 adjoins an area with duty-free shops.

shore excursion colon panama

Information about the city of Colón

The most important note first: the city of Colón is sadly run-down and a social hotspot with high poverty and crime, so exploring it on your own is not recommended. This doesn’t mean every visitor falls victim to a violent crime, but there are many places and times where it could happen. Safe and unsafe areas often sit right next to each other and are hard for visitors to tell apart.

Now for a general description of the city: Colón is the largest and economically most important city on Panama’s Caribbean coast and the capital of the province of the same name. It owes its standing to its position at the entrance to the Panama Canal. Around 120,000 people live in the city’s catchment area, about 40,000 of them in the centre. Its key economic sectors are the free trade zone, the ports, tourism and the Panama Canal, and many workers commute daily from Panama City to jobs there, especially in the free trade zone.

A bit of history: The California Gold Rush of 1848 sent hundreds of thousands of gold prospectors through Panama on their way to San Francisco, at first via the Chagres River and the Camino de Cruces. This prompted New York investors to begin building the first transcontinental railway line from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1850, and in the course of that work the city of Colón was founded on 27 February 1852. The completion of the Panama Railroad in 1855 did away with the arduous overland journey and, with it, the role of Portobelo and Chagres (near Fort San Lorenzo) as transport hubs.

The city was originally called Aspinwall, after one of the founders of the railway company. The Colombian authorities, however, disliked this American name and renamed the city Colón in honour of Christopher Columbus (the Spanish spelling of Columbus, who had sailed along this coast on his fourth and final voyage). With construction of the Panama Canal from 1881, and again during the US construction phase from 1904 to 1914, the city boomed once more. Many of its now-decaying historic buildings date from this period, among them the Hotel Washington near the waterfront promenade.

For decades, Colón’s wealth earned it the nickname Panama’s “Golden Cup” (La Tacita de Oro), but its decline set in during the second half of the 20th century. The city centre in particular sank into a slum and has yet to recover. That’s why we recommend not spending the day on the ship or in the city, but joining a guided excursion with us instead!