First Time Through the Panama Canal: A Queen Victoria Journey I'll Never Forget

I'd been cruising for years—Caribbean loops, Mediterranean jaunts, even that one Alaska voyage where I got seasick—but I'd never done a transatlantic crossing through the Panama Canal. When my husband Mark suggested celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary with Cunard's Queen Victoria, I was skeptical. Wouldn't it just be a bunch of old people in tuxedos? Wasn't the Canal just a quick passage everyone rushes through? I was so wrong about both counts, and I'm kicking myself for waiting this long to experience it. We boarded the Queen Victoria in Fort Lauderdale on a Tuesday morning, and I immediately felt the difference between this ship and the mega-vessels I'd cruised before. There's something graceful about her—she has actual character. The crew greeted us with genuine warmth, not the choreographed efficiency I'd gotten used to elsewhere. Our cabin attendant, Jorge, knew our names by the afternoon and had already turned down our beds with perfect hospital corners. The ship itself felt more intimate, more refined. Walking through the Grand Lobby with its soaring atrium made me feel like I was stepping into a floating palace rather than a shopping mall with engines. The first few…