Island Princess: 23-Night Panama Canal from Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades)

Fort Lauderdale cruise port, officially Port Everglades, is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world and the closest major competitor to PortMiami, just 25 miles to the south. It sits on the southeastern coast of Florida across the cities of Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Dania Beach.

Known as 'One Happy Island,' Aruba docks ships at the port in Oranjestad, just steps from the colorful Dutch colonial architecture and Royal Plaza Mall. Eagle Beach and Palm Beach offer powdery white sand, and the island sits outside the hurricane belt.

Stretched along Banderas Bay with the Sierra Madre mountains rising directly behind the shoreline, Puerto Vallarta draws about 290,000 residents year-round and far more during the winter cruise season. The city has managed to grow as a tourist destination while keeping its Mexican identity intact, particularly in the Zona Romantica and the malecon (boardwalk) areas where local life and tourism coexist on the same streets.

Los Angeles cruise port is in San Pedro, a harbor neighborhood at the southern tip of the city, about 25 miles from downtown LA and 18 miles from LAX. The port is called the World Cruise Center, and it's the main departure point for Mexican Riviera, Hawaii, and Pacific Coast itineraries.

San Diego is a major cruise port on the Southern California coast, about 120 miles south of Los Angeles and directly on the Mexican border. The B Street Cruise Ship Terminal and adjacent Broadway Pier sit in downtown San Diego along the Embarcadero waterfront, within walking distance of the Gaslamp Quarter, Seaport Village, and the USS Midway Museum.

San Francisco is a compact city of about 870,000 people on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, connected to the north by the Golden Gate Bridge and to the east by the Bay Bridge. The city's terrain is famously steep, its climate famously foggy, and its personality famously independent.

Victoria is British Columbia's capital city, situated on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. It serves as a regular port of call on Alaska cruise itineraries departing from Seattle, typically as the first or last stop before or after the Inside Passage.