juanarcin

Hello all! DW and I are going to be cruising on the Carnival Panorama in December. This will be our 9th cruise, however we are taking our parents and it will be their first, Excited for everyone involved! One thing though is that our parents have never really "hung out". Mostly focused on our mothers for this post. They have met about 3 times during small events, and have been very friendly with each other however they are both the timid type and are mostly polite with each other. One thing to note is that they are both immigrated to the US as young adults and basically spent their lives struggling and working to provide for us. This means they never made many friends outside of their family, and sadly neither of them drink lol! They both have so much in common but if left alone would probably stick to smiles and small talk about the weather lol! However, we strongly believe they can have a blast together if they open up! We have no doubt that by the end of the cruise they will be very comfortable with each other, but we are wondering what we can do on the first day to make sure they start enjoying fully from day one as opposed to a few days in, after all this will be their first vacation ever! The environment is right so we know that no matter what they will have fun, but hopefully we get some ideas so they get the most out of this experience. Thanks!

Maybe see if you can hire a task rabbit to just meet you at the airport or port with the drinks 😋 might be cheaper than multiple ubers.

I always fly out for cruises since most have been European or Asian (I've only done 9), but right before the pandemic, I had some time off. I decided to take a solo cruise and skip the flight since I live in Los Angeles and have a port at driving distance. I booked a cruise to Ensenada on the Miracle and I was shocked at how bad of a time I had! The ship seemed like it was falling apart, the food was steps below other ships, the people were rude and aggressive... I didn't let it ruin my trip, but was just shocked as this single experience had tainted my idea that all cruises were amazing. I took another one about a year later on the Radiance and it was the same thing! I learned that booze cruises are not what I'm into. Now here we are years later and my wife and I decided to introduce some of our family to cruising. We were thinking of taking a small group somewhere like New Orleans, or New York and doing a cruise from there. But as we asked who would be interested we were surprised to see how many signed up...now with 15 people on board, we decided we should keep it simple and just have everyone drive down to Long Beach... you can see where this is going LOL! So obviously the Panorama is much newer and larger. But I have been hyping up cruises to my family and now that I will be taking 15 of them on one, I'm starting to get nervous. I'm concerned that the issues are more based on itinerary, locals (I'm from LA so I understand how "animated" we can be), or maybe even Carnival (most of my cruises have been RCL). But to be fair the other two ships were short 3-4 day cruises on old smaller ships. Our upcoming one will be 7 day on a newer larger ship. So I'm 95% positive it will be a closer experience to what I'm used to on my 11 day RCL cruises, but wanted to hear from others who have sailed out of long beach on these ships. I just need help going from 95% to 100%! LOL Either way I'm sure we will make the best of it and enjoy ourselves.

I don't drink tea or coffee (never been a fan of hot drinks). But I am taking a cruise and convinced my mom to join us, and she loves coffee and tea. I was debating getting her the unlimitted bubbles package for these items but see that it only includes soda and juices. I saw unlimited tea under the cheers package, but that seems like overkill just for tea since she doesn't drink alcohol and limits sugary drinks. I also saw specialty coffee under the cheers package but no sign of regular coffee. So it sounds to me like regular coffee is free? I read you can bring your own tea bags, is it easy to get hot water through out the ship? I've been on a little under 10 cruises but never pay attention these things since I dont drink these items! Please show me the ropes so I can let my mom know! 🙂

Good idea thanks!

How easy is it to find authentic Mexican food while in the ports the panorama stops at? Mazatlan and Cabo specifically. We are doing these ports on our own and we are Mexican American, we aren't fans of the Mexican food served near ports because they are heavily catered to American tourist, meaning they cook with items that aren't used in most authentic Mexican meals... salsa on the milder side (not as hot), American cheeses that melt, ground beef, etc. Im sure there's authentic food if we hunt it down, but wondering how common it is if you're on your own near the port?

We found a tour that can accommodate a small private group of up to 19 people in PV! I was concerned about this as well but luckily it worked out on this one port. Even better is that broken down per passenger, it still works out to a much better rate per person than any of the ships excursions. And for a much longer time. This is great for us because we can take advantage of the full 8 hour day offered since we will be in Port for 12 hours that day. Thanks!

Thank you for this! And for letting us have the bench! 😂 This actually sounds like a great plan, so much so that we may skip the tour and just do it on our own with the golf carts. I believe we are in Mazatlan from 6:30 am to 3pm so the amount of time we would be out would depend on how early everyone eakes up. As for your advice in PV, I believe we saw a 3rd party excursion service that can accommodate a private group of ip to 19 people. So that may turn out to be the only port where we do an excursion since everything else sounds so doable. Your replies truly answered so many questions for me and now I'm even more excited! One last question (I feel like now I'm Taking advantage lol.. Sorry). We are actually Mexican American and all speak Spanish fluently, so that helps but it also means that we many of us will be very picky about eating americanized Mexican food made for tourist... Especially when we are aware of the great local flavors. If we stick to those recommended locations in mazatlan and cabo, how likely are we to find authentic food? I figure with a private guide in PV doing a custom tour we have a greater chance of eating authentic... Though I'm very much aware of the possibility of them taking us to restaurants that pay them per customer. But that's something we can discuss with them. Once again thank you for all your help, it was more info than I was expecting and I'm grateful that you practically planned out everything for us! You laid out a great road map for us to follow, my family and I all thank you!

Thank you so much for the detailed info! This sounds doable, I believe getting in the tender will be fine but if course I won't speak for them. Once they see it, they can decide, snd if they can manage the rest should be fine. Thanks again!

anyone know if King David Tours is till available? We were really excited about the Jungle tour (which we cant find from any other vendor), but when we fill out the form to purchase it just says the total comes out to $0.00 and once its calculated $0 selecting any other date just says nothing is available...but I am talking about any date for the entire year! Hope its still an option.

My wife and I are doing the Panorama in December. We are taking 12 first time cruisers with us. among them are my in-laws and my mother. One concern of ours is that we will be focusing a lot on our parents who, while arent using any type of mobility assistance (scooters, walkers, canes etc) they still have a bad knee or need a rest after a block or two They can keep walking but will have to stop for about 5 minutes every 2k steps or so. With that in mind, I have a few questions regarding these ports. For Cabo, we are interested in a boat ride to the arch. However, Carnival has one for 45 min. We're not excited about getting dropped back onto the ship after 45 min in port. Would we be allowed to opt for staying out there and wondering on our own, then taking a cab back? Or are there private boat tours within a short walking distance of the port? For Mazatlan and PV, just wondering how easy it is to get to the port to meet with third party excursions. Thanks!

I saw someone posted the Fun Times and it does show 2 formal nights. I thought there would only be one, but that was helpful to learn. Thanks for keeping an eye out, I'm curious to see what you find out on your cruise, I'm envious, wish i was going this week haha, have fun!!

I've sailed with carnival and am very familiar with how laid back they are! I dont go all out on formal nights, I just have a regular button up shirt. but I was surprised to learn many in my group were very interested in dressing up, so I thought I'd get some info for them. thanks

Thank you so much! this shows 2 casual nights. I think this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Going on the Panorama in December for a 7 day cruise with a group of 14. My wife and I are the only ones who have cruised so 12 first timers are looking to us for advice and questions. The subject came up of formal night and white clothing (on a recent cruise on the Oasis), and we were asked how they could learn of the different themes that might happen during the cruise so they could prepare. We have no idea as we rarely participate in formal night or the white theme, so we dont prepare for those nights. Any idea how those in our group who are interested can get info on upcoming dress themes?

Thank you all, I think that's what I'm going to do, just check him in and have him be a no show

Thanks for this info. I did spend a long time on the phone with the carnival agent when making the swap and she had to get a manager to speak to me as well so they could properly swap me from my TA to Carnival. So It seems like they may have handled this already. When my TA called me earlier they said they needed me to fill out a cancellation form for them. So I believe this should take care of everything, but now I'm wondering if I should call Carnival again just to double check...

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Hi, I booked a few rooms for a family cruise. One room has both my parents on it, but now my dad can't go. I emailed my TA to change it to be just my mom but they emailed me saying the price would only drop by $50.00, which doesn't surprise me, but what did surprise me was that there is a $150.00 dollar fee to update the paperwork! so it will actually be an extra hundred dollars to remove him! So I'm wondering, what happens if he's just a no show? We would likely avoid those fee but will we still have to pay his gratuities, taxes and fees?

TA finally reached out to us on their own. Still havent responded to our actual request for a callback. Since we couldnt get ahold of them we rebooked the same rooms with Carnival directly. So today TA calls us and appologizes because our rooms "have been lost" they want to help us rebook our cruise but unfortunately can't be in the rooms we originally chose (they still didn't know that WE WERE THE ONES THAT REBOOKED THEM!) This whole thing was a mess. We told them we were still in those rooms and at this point we just wanted to understand why we were cancelled. This is the reason, in case it happens to anyone else: We booked our cruise before the pandemic. When it was cancelled due to the pandemic, we were offered cruise credit (amount included our deposit). the issue was that TA used that credit as our deposit, but carnival wanted actual cash as deposit. Apparently they had some back and forth between them and never included us. Carnival gave a deadline for us to put actual cash down on our cruise, TA figured we met that because our account had cash in it (from previous credit) so everyone just sat back and did nothing (including contact us to let us know). eventually the clock ran out and we were just cancelled. Oh well. now things are fixed so who cares, on with the fun!

Still no answer or callback. It really doesn't matter what time you call, I'm convinced they are just putting everyone in permanent holds and only doing callbacks. It's been this way since covid started. Maybe it worked better for them and they left it that way? Either way I was able to work it out with carnival after speaking to them and explaining the situation. They gave me the same credit, the same perks, and the same rooms. Only bad part of it was that the TA had just informed me that prices dropped and was able to drop my price by 200.00. Carnival couldn't match that. But small price to pay to avoid the headache and waiting for TA to call. After 8 years of booking every single cruise through this site, they have finally lost me as a customer. I know it won't affect them at all, but it'll give me piece of mind. Only part that'll suck is that prepaid gratuities was an awesome perk to most cruises I've bought through them. That part I will miss.

I have a cruise booked on the Panorama for Dec 10th. I booked several rooms for me and my wife's family, it will be a group of 14. Today while trying to log onto my account it said it was cancelled. I called Carnival and they said my travel agent cancelled it! Said I had to get information from them. Turns out all our rooms are cancelled and refunded, I have no idea why. We purchased through a popular CRUISE website, which I'm sure I can't name but all they do is CRUISE related sales... I've used them for every cruise I've ever had, and never had issues. However, everytime I call them they are experiencing higher than usual call volumes (yeah right), and say I can leave a call back number, then they call me back about a day or two later. I just did that but a day or two is a long time to wait while freaking out. wondering if anyone has had this happen? We set up this cruise pre pandemic, then it got cancelled, now we had a certain amount of time to use our credit or get it refunded with penalties. So we rebooked. I'm really concerned that they cancelled it and will give us back our money minus penalty fees. I'm also concerned that not everyone will go on this cruise if given the option again. it went from an exciting trip for everyone to a nightmare of not knowing if we would get our money back (during pandemic), to a very unenthusiastic "fine lets go before we loose the credit". My wife and I are super excited, but everyone else is a first timer and it just hasnt been an easy vacation planning experience for them. Now I'm just venting. hope this is a mistake as I havent seen the money refunded into our account, but I guess I have to wait a day or two to find out.

Thanks, I'm even more excited now lol!

I know RC does the new muster drill you can do from an app or from your state room. I've asked if this is done on other cruise lines and it seems some princess/Carnival ships are doing it. wondering if the Panorama is one of them as i will be on it i n December 😄

is this across all lines or just RC? I have a cruise on the Carnival Panorama in December with 14 first time cruisers and am hoping they get to experience this new version.