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Grand cruise canals: long or short, these marvelous manmade waterways add wonder to any cruise itinerary.

Article Excerpt
Canal digging dates back to the Ancient World, providing the means to move crops, building stones, and people. Wheeled transport, where it existed, was hobbled by poor road surfaces, and loads carried could not approach what a canal barge transported. One of the earliest canals, connecting the River Nile to the Gulf of Suez, dates to the reign of Ramses II in the 13th century B.C.

By the 18th century, Europe was heavily investing in canal building, substantially lowering the costs of moving heavy bulk items such as coal for making iron and clay for manufacturing bricks. England's fine china industry took off when smooth canal transport almost eliminated the breakage previously prevalent on the rough roads. Canals joined navigable rivers, creating thousands of miles of interconnecting inland waterways, still used today by commercial traffic and large fleets of cruising riverboats, hotel, and charter barges.

In the United States, early 19th century canal construction in the East and Midwest linked the Hudson River, Great Lakes, and the Mississippi River system into thousands of miles of continuous water highways. When the railway era arrived, passenger traffic withered away; but by continually enlarging and deepening the principle canals, commercial traffic prospered. Today's inland cruise lines, such as the Delta Queen Steamboat Company, RiverBarge Excursion Lines, American Canadian Caribbean Line, and Clipper Cruise Line, make significant use of these waterways.

Saltwater canals for ocean-going sailing ships were considered long before the technology existed to make them a reality. Then in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the fast steamships sailing on regular schedules

prompted numerous canal-building projects to expedite passenger and freight traffic. While the Cape Cod Canal might cut 135 miles off a trip from New York to Boston, the Panama and Suez canals could cut weeks off a long inter-ocean voyage.

The cruise industry uses saltwater canals for economy, convenience, and creative itineraries. In the case of the Panama Canal, a daytime transit may be the lure to choose to that cruise in the first place, while passing through the Kiel, Corinth, or Suez canals will provide a bonus on any itinerary.

Although a canal across the Isthmus of Panama had been contemplated long before its actual completion in 1914, it was the opening of the Suez Canal on November 17, 1869--a French construction project followed by British financial control--that revolutionized trade routes and passenger travel between Europe, Asia, and Australasia. Sea journeys from England to India previously made via South Africa's often stormy Cape of Good Hope were shortened by nearly...

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