“Panamá 🇵🇦 ~Traveling to Panamá City and Back to North Carolina”

• May 13, 2025
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

Panama or Bust!!!!!!

Traveling to Panama City, Panamá, from North Carolina…  How hard can that be? Wait! How did I end up in Texas?

Soooo I’m currently in Houston waiting for my flight to Panamá……

This was not my original route or reservation. I had five flights cancel, after I was rebooked on new flights; all within a few hours, on departure day…. It was a special kind of airport hell.

Strange message said Panamá had reduced the number of planes they would allow in airspace… the same message for the next three planes that cancelled. … so weird

Yes… I was suppose to be in Panamá by now. Oh well… life happens.

Luckily, United put me up in a hotel in Charlotte, and I appreciated that, since Charlotte airport is a hard place to spend the night…

My bestie, Tonya, is currently on her last plane out of Houston (our planes literally passed each other in the air) to Panamá. She had much better luck 🍀 than me 🙏 with her original flights; all a go, and I’m super happy for her!!!!

I had Angels and Miracles all the way through Day one and this Day two of this nightmare, though ….

Props to hubby Daryl who rushed me to the airport (1.5 hrs away) to try to catch another flight out of Wilmington that was leaving earlier, after mine got cancelled! We made it within 15 minutes…whew… but then the next two (rebooked) flights got cancelled, anyway, after I made it to Charlotte (45 min flight ✈️) 😂

Trip is done and I got back to the Tocuman Airport in Panamá …. Waiting for boarding time, for a night flight. Fortunately, my return flights went as planned. No drama!

Tonya and I had the best time and got around to everything we came to see.  We were quite busy and I took 600 pictures/kept 400….lots of deleting and sorting, then putting the blog together…Time just went too fast!!!!

I had a L O N G, 9 hour layover, on New Jersey, on the way back to North Carolina, but thankfully scored the United Lounge!

The Global Panamá Hotel 

We spent one arriving night here, in Panamá City, as well as a few nights at the end of our trip, between our San Blas Island adventure.

It was a great choice, if choosing the more modern city.  I especially appreciated the staff not charging me for the first booked night that I didn’t make it for, due to so many canceled flights, trying to get there! Thanks Tonya for going to bat for me, with them!