We had some time obligations, but had a little bit of time, so we headed towards the Miraflores locks. Those are the first set of locks on the Pacific side of the canal, and were only about 5 miles from the edge of Panama City. We toured the exhibits and watched their short movie (10 minutes). The exhibits were a very short version of what we had seen at the Canal Museum in the old town (San Felipe). So they weren't terribly fascinating to us.

The movie was a very quick overview on the canal and the immediate future. Panama voted 'yes' to upgrade the canal with a new set of locks at each end. That will allow ships larger than 110ft to use the canal system. We were a little disappointed that none of this was in the video- it was polished and had the pro-canal spin one might expect. At least they talked about the problems of the Canal Zone and the US occupation.

We went out onto the 4th floor observation deck, but the ships don't run in the middle of the day. Basically, they go into the canal system in the morning (from both ends), transit the lake and center of the system, then exit the system in the evening.