Visiting Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal

I visited the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal during my four days in Panama City.

Facts About The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is more than just a simple channel hacked through Panama.

Miraflores is one of three lock systems on the Panama Canal.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, ships enter the channel at Limón Bay and proceed to the Gatún Locks. A series of three locks lifts them 85 feet to Gatún Lake, which was formed by the building of the Gatún and Madden Dams on the Chagres River.

At Gamboa, vessels enter the Gaillard (Culebra) Cut, passing through the Continental Divide, the mountain chain that runs the length of Panama.

The Cut is 8 miles in length. The locks at Pedro Miguel then lower them 30 feet to Miraflores Lake.

Ships then pass through a channel almost 1.2 miles long to the two-stepped locks at Miraflores, where they are finally lowered back to sea level.

The Panama Canal was built under US supervision and was completed in 1914.

In 1979, control and ownership of the Panama Canal was passed to the Panamanian authorities.

It is one of the two most strategic waterways in the world. The other is the Suez Canal in Egypt, which I was lucky enough to see in 2015 while travelling from Cairo to Cape Town.

Miraflores Visitors Center

Miraflores makes a great half-day in Panama City. I went there around two in the afternoon and watched about five ships pass through from the Caribbean Sea into the Pacific Ocean.

There are plenty of other people there too, so you’ll be jostling for position to get the best, almost bird’s-eye view.

And it’s not just container ships that can pass through the Panama Canal. You can take a sailboat through, too. Would love to have seen that.

Here is the website of the Miraflores Visitors Centre.

Since this website is for travellers, backpackers and foreigners, I show a screen grab of the ticket prices for non-residents as of 2025:

Here is my ticket from 2022:

Plaque commemorating the British West Indian contribution to the construction of the Panama Canal:

A HMM (the largest in the world) container ship passing through the Panama Canal expansion lock, which was completed in 2016:

Johnny Traveller, sounds like a blogger, actually a Liberian registered chemical/oil products tanker passing through the Panama Canal en route to Australia:

Seamaid, an LPG tanker registered in Malta:

Looking out to the Pacific Ocean:

Ships entering the Miraflores Locks:

Miraculous ACE, a Japanese-registered vehicle carrier:

Getting a shout-out for Mexico:

One of the engines that steer the ships through the locks with only a few meters to spare:

Nomadic Backpacker at Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal, Panama City. September 23, 2022:

How to get to Miraflores Locks:

Getting from ​Panama City to Miraflores Locks is very easy and cheap using a combination of the Panama City Metro and the bus for a cost of 60 cents US.

Albrook is the main bus terminus in Panama City. It’s also a big shopping mall and the terminus of Linea #1 metro, the only metro network in Central America.

And it’s from Albrook where you can take bus #C810 directly to the Visitors Centre at Miraflores. If you can find it, that is.

There are no bays, no numbers and no signs. I found the #C810 literally by chance.

I used my Metro Card. Each ride on the bus costs 25 cents US:

Coming back, I walked to the main road as more buses were passing there, and of course, it being rush hour, progress was slow.