Ranyw

Hi there! Sorry I don't remember. I looked at the time stamp from the camera when I snapped a photo on board the tender, it was 11:49am. However, I am not sure if that was ship time or port time? In previous experience dock time is never guaranteed. If the seas are rough it can be delayed, once it was a bit windy and they kept having to move the ship around which caused delay.

Hello, I can do one better, Here is a copy of our receipt. I believe at the time $1 US dollar was about 15.6 Mexican Pesos.

Hi! This was the largest ship we have sailed on. I've always said that my favorite are the Spirit class ships. My only gripe about this ship was the aft elevator bank. We waited upwards of 15 minutes for an elevator only for it to arrive packed, even though we pushed our selected floor 4 times to accommodate for our family.

That's a great idea turning them into ornaments. I agree that the port needs to expand, especially now that they will have 3 large ships sailing out of there. They need to consider putting in another parking structure.

4/1/2024 - Monday - Cabo San Lucas Cabo is a tender port. This means that the ship will anchor away from the shore and smaller ships will help shuttle the passengers back / forth from the pier. ADVICE: Check the Fun times to see when they will distribute the free tickets to board the tender boats. Normally, the VIFP Platinum and higher will go first, then faster to the fun purchasers then Carnival Excursion ticket holders will be allowed to depart initially. Then they will start calling our the ticket numbers. Once all the tickets numbers are called it is then all the rest of the passengers that didn’t have any of the above. TIP: Before leaving the boat, take a moment to look at your fun times and take a picture of the contact information for the port agent. God forbid you have an emergency or are late running back to the ship you can reach out to the port agent for assistance. No guarantee the ship will wait, but at least you have an ally there. We were able to get ticket #23. This would put us on shore at an estimated 10:30 - 11:00am. It seems like we do the same exact thing in Cabo every time. AND WE LOVE IT ! Once we get to shore, I use my broken Spanish to find us a glass bottom boat to take us on a quick tour of Los Arcos (The Arch). After our tour we have the boat drop us off at Medano Beach for lunch. Carnival does sell an excursion like this at the cost of $74.99 per person. I was able to negotiate a tour for all four of us for $50.00 ($12.50 pp). There are dozens of vendors and all are ready to negotiate on their prices and offer different packages. Sometimes some will say that there is a $1 or $2 pier tax. Just ask when your negotiating the ticket price if this is included. I just don’t like to be nickeled and dimmed. We boarded a small boat with another part of 5. Turns out they were just being dropped off at another pier so our tour was a private tour FOR ONLY $5O ! After we had our photo opp. We headed to Medano beach. Medano can be a lively place and we were in the heart of spring break. There is no dock at Medano beach so our floating limo just pulls up into the sand amongst the waves and lowers a little ladder for you to climb down into the water and work your way onto the beach. It’s an awesome experience. There are some men on the beach that will help you by the hand and if your so inclined you can tip them a buck or two. Once we exited we made our way to “The Office”. The office is a on beach restaurant. It’s been getting busier and busier with all the Social media attention it gets. Your dining table is placed right into the sand with a blue umbrella overhead. The service is great and the food more amazing. Do set aside an hour or two for the whole experience, really you don’t want to rush. There was some loud music coming from the place next door, the kids had a blast and felt grown up and on spring break. The office does a smart thing and places a “rope” around the perimeter to limit the peddlers so you don’t have to constantly say no thanks. We started with some chips / guacamole / salsa. Kids had chicken strips and fries. The wife got a whole fried red snapper. They guarantee the fish to be at least 1 kilo or 2.2 lbs before cooking. I got a mixed fajita of chicken and steak. We ended with a flan for the adults and vanilla ice cream for the kids. We aren’t big drinkers so me and the wife got one strawberry margarita for the photo opp. Once we were done, we browsed the peddlers on the beach for a couple of trinkets. I feel like the best value is here. I got the wife a silver cross about an inch and a half long, made of silver for just $20. The shops along the pier asked for $80 for something similar. Once we were done, we found an awaiting water taxi that took us back to the Marina for $5 a piece (I thought it was expensive, i have had fares for just $2) but still being in a food coma we just wanted to head back. Once back to the Marina we browsed a couple of shops, souviners seemed pricey this time around. I noticed that most of the shop owners were more interested in browsing their phone than tending to customers. I was surprised. We walked back to the pier and piled into a tender back to the ship. Every time you re-enter the ship you do pass through an airport style security screening where your bag is screened in an x-ray machine and you walk through a metal detector. After a nice day in the sun we headed back to the cabin to shower / change and rest a bit before heading to dinner. One last photo of Cabo. A couple of food pics from Dinner. The wife opted for the Lamb from the steakhouse menu. She asked for a Medium well, and they had brought a rare. No problem, it was fixed right away.

Hi! We were on the same sailing as you guys! I’m going through your pictures and it’s like Deja vu! We even stayed at the same hotel pre-cruise! Great review so far!

3/31/2024 - Sea Day #1 Easter Sunday (Elegant Night). Our first day at sea was our typical sleep in a little and get to the late risers Breakfast. We always intend to try the sea day brunch but its just easier for the kids to see what they want then make a decision off of a menu. To Lido we go! My son’s go to breakfast is a Cheese Pizza at Pizza D’ Capitano, Why not? It’s vacation time! The pizza joint actually opens at 9:00am and closes at 4:00am on our sailing. Unfortunately it was pretty chilly outside to the point you needed at least a hoodie. The Sky Ride was closed due to high winds as well as the Ropes course. The pool was ice cold, surprisingly there were some kids in it? I am assuming they are our friends from the Midwest. Another thing that surprised me was for a ship of this size there were only 2 hot tubs available. The special Havana area have their own pool and hot tubs but are not accessible unless you have a Havana cabin. I was told that all guests must be 13 years or older and most of the rooms cap at 3 passengeners. The wife opted to rest in the room while me and the kids explored the ship. We stopped at the arcade. Here is a late photo of the Sea Bass from the seafood shack. A tip for the parents, when you do your online check in you can set a limit that your kids can spend on their sail and sign card. You can go through $50 in 15-20 minute at the arcade. You simply swipe your sail & sign card and spend $1.50 - $6.50 per game. I initially set $25 for each of the kiddos. Later, you can go to the Sail & Sign kiosk onboard the ship and increase the amount as you see fit. After the Arcade we saw that they have a Sky Zone Bounce area available for the kids. There is an extra charge for this of $15 per kid. Because the kids are different ages, they would not let them play together and asked them to come at different times. I opted to leave this for later in the cruise as other options winded down. I am not going to bore you will pictures of the venues as they are plenty of them available. I will show you our gift shop haul. I am referring to the Carnival branded products. Each ship seems to have completely different stock of items you can buy. There was a backpack that I was on the fence about buying, I didn’t end up buying it and I totally regret it. Reason to go on another cruise so I can buy it! On our last cruise on the Radiance they had this nice Lanyard and pin set. They did not offer it on the Panorama. Also, I kept checking on ship models and was told they were sold out since the previous 2 cruises. New for me on this cruise I noticed that they now offer reusable shopping bags offered for $1.95. They also had these little wrist purses that were marked on clearance from $24.99 to $3.77. We bought my daughter a birthday hat which she was too embarrassed to wear, no problem because I’ll wear for my birthday cruise god willing. I can embarrass her that way LOL. That was also marked down from $24.99 to $10.77 We bought a Gold Carnival Spinning ornament cleared from $32.99 down to $14.49. A bucket hat from $26.99 to $18.77 A mini Freddy the Funnel head doll with keychain from $12.95 to $9.77. A set of Carnival Towel Clips. A nice lady in the shop said she buys them for her towels but once home, she uses them as a photo stand. She clips the photo in there to prop it up. Those weren’t on sale but $14.95. Lastly they had these Rubber ducky Lanyards at Cherry on top marked down to $1.75. I bought one for each of us. Not to sound old fashioned but, I’m not into the new lanyard styles that have the boat wheel at the bottom, makes the lanyard feel too bulky for me. Here are a couple of our photos from the ships photographers. I always guess wrong how people will dress on a sailing. On the elegant nights on this sailing men were mostly in suit & ties or slacks / shirt / tie. I felt underdressed especially being on Easter, but on previous cruise’s when I did have a suit and tie I felt like I was over dressed. It’s okay, I think the wife did great coordinating our outfits. Kids were comfortable that’s more important.

3/30/2024 - Embarkation day - Saturday. Like a little kid waiting for Santa Claus I woke up early trying to get a glimpse of the ship. Our room had a view where you would normally see the port. Unfortunately it was raining and a little foggy. I tracked the ship online at 6:45am and i used a port camera to get a better view of the ship. The ship did seem to arrive late into the port. Our embarkation time was 12:00-12:30. I picked this time as the check out time is at 11:00 so we can transition without having to wait around too long. Now, remember I said that the drive time should have been 7 minutes ? Well it took us about 40 minutes. The passenger cruise terminal at Long Beach has a few bottle necks. There are normally 4 lanes to get into the passenger port. The far right lane is for the trucks that are delivering food / supplies and the left 3 lanes have ticket machines for guests. One of her machines was out of order leaving only 2 machines working. Once you pass the ticketing machine you have a choice to make an immediate left to go to the parking structure or you can go straight. If you are driving yourself I recommend driving straight. This leads you to a drop off area where the porters are ready to collect your bags. You simply pull over unload your bags, tip em a few bucks and then when you exit the drop off area you can go back to the parking structure. This will save you the headache of having to lug the bags from the car to the elevator back to the porter area to hand them your bags. Let me tell you, this port was stretched to the limit with this sailing. This sailing had about 4,900 passengers. Plus the late arrival of the ship didn’t help. This port is also used by the Carnival Radiance and soon the Carnival Firenze. So parking can be limited. I’ve heard at times if the parking fills up, they will redirect you to the Long Beach Convention center for parking and shuttle you back. Yet another reason its good to drop off your bags before parking. We parked on the 3rd floor and there was a line for the elevator that took about 15 minutes. The port itself is pretty simple. The queen Mary ship is permanently docked adjacent to the port and you can actually spend the night there. We don’t as the local news has previously reported outbreaks of lice and bed bugs so we choose not to stay there. Your mileage may vary. If you get to the port early, you can pay for entrance to the queen Mary and do a self guided tour. This Carnival port doesn’t have many amenities, however there is a food truck that parks to the right of the building (when your looking at it). There is also a wheel chair and motorized scooter rental office just before the you enter the building. There are public restrooms and a couple of vending machines just past and behind the scooter office. Lastly, a tiny gift shop that sells hats, shirts, pool cover ups and cheap sunglasses in case you need something. A good tip : there is a Amazon locker inside the parking structure on the ground floor near the porters. If you don’t know what that is. Amazon has these these machines that look like computerized post office boxes. In case you forget something. You maybe able to order it and have it shipped there prior to your sailing. You then get a code and it will dispense your item. Once you enter into the passenger area (into the dome) and pass security the only amenities are restrooms and a water fountain. There are ship photographers inside the dome area to take embarkation photos. We are suckers for the pictures, you can forget many things but when you look at a photo it unlocks so many memories. From there you go up a ramp that zig zags a couple of times with modest elevation gain. There is also an elevator that can take you up, but you must ask for it as it isn’t obvious. Before this was the Passenger Cruise port, this dome building actually housed Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose boat plane. Sort of a museum you could visit the plane and the queen mary on the same day. The plane has since moved to a aviation museum in Oregon. When inside the terminal, you’ll see a small replica of the plane hanging from the ceiling as a nod to the original resident. Once you have gone up the zig zag ramp your photo and boarding pass is checked one more time. There is a long walkway that connects the dome building to the ship. It has a covering from top, but if its windy or raining you definitely will get wet. Thankfully the rain had stopped long enough for us to cross without getting drenched. There is a great photo op when you first step onto the walk way. Once you cross the walkway and take your first steps onto the ship you didn’t immediately enter the atrium. Instead you have to walk along the outside of the ship until the front elevator bank on deck 4. From there we made our way to the limelight lounge where our muster station C4 was located at. As usual the muster presentation was fast and easy. Our daughter was given her green bracelet. My son is 15 but is autistic so we ask for a bracelet for him also, just to be on the safe side. Since staterooms were not ready yet, we made our way to the lido deck to get some lunch. It was a typical embarkation day, a little bit of crowding as people settled in. The fact it was raining didn’t help, the sail away party was moved to the main atrium. To me it doesn’t have the same flair as standing on an open deck trying to do the wobble with the moving scenery behind you. However a rainy day on a cruise is better than a sunny day at the office. After lunch we walked around the Lido deck to get our bearings. This is the first time we have sailed on a Vista class ship. Kids had to take a picture with the towel animal elephant. Does anyone know if the mascot has a name??? We eventually made it to our Balcony room # 7385. The room was set up as a king bad. The sofa was converted into a single bed for my son and an additional bed was lowered from the ceiling for my daughter. She absolutely loved it. My PVP recommended this room because we are actually surrounded by suites on either side of the cabins. The idea behind this is that the hallway would be less crowded. I have to agree with her, i only heard a hall runner one time during the 8 days. Prior to the sailing I purchased room decorations for my daughters birthday. They only had a “deluxe package”. Which included two banners that said Happy birthday. A separate magnet sign with ballon images printed on it. A round magnetic sign with a dry erase marker, a happy birthday lanyard for your sail and sign card and lastly a Blue happy birthday pillow case. I think the package was about $65. We also opted for a half case of bottled water to begin with. Speaking of water: I understand that everything increases in cost but the half case used to be a modest $4.95. I believe we paid like $14 for it this time. Since we are all gold this sailing we are all entitled to to a free 1.5L bottle which we redeemed. My daughter turned gold on this sailing. She was so excited, she felt like the only 10 year old to turn gold. I didn’t want to break her heart and tried to keep the momentum going. I had dropped John Heald a line to see if he could send her a note but he is a busy man and my attempts didn’t get anywhere. As a backup I had went to eBay and purchased someone’s VIFP fanny pack they had for sale (new in plastic bag). I snuck it onboard the ship and gave it to her and told her it was in recognition of her turning gold. Our bags arrived shortly after sailing away. Some tips for the room. We buy a cheap “pop-up hamper” from the store. Really helps to keep the room organized. We try to unpack our luggage’s into the closet’s when the bags arrive and we place the empty bags under the bed. There was enough room for 4 large bags under the king bed. Then as needed we slowly empty the hamper into the bags. So by the last night our bags are almost done packing (re-packing?) One thing that was a little different on this sailing was that the life vest’s were not in the closet, instead they were in a black plastic / canvas bag under the bed. I suppose it frees up room in the closet for other things. We snuck up to Lido to grab another snack. The wife really likes the Sea Bass at the Sea Food Shack. Seems like the price went up a couple of dollars since our last cruise. It was $17 for a whole deep fried sea bass with a side of crinkle cut fries. We opted for the late dining. Looks like the late dining is a little earlier on this sailing at 7:45pm. I remember it being like 8:15pm previously? We had table 125 in the Horizon dining room. Our waiter was Luis. Great guy / Great team.

Thanks for all the kind words! On we go.

3/29/2024 - Friday Once upon a time, we actually missed embarkation due to two accidents on the drive down to the port. So that we don’t have to go through that anymore we just book a room nearby the port the night before so that its more of a stress free start to the trip. We can leave the house anytime and it adds an extra day to the vacation. This time we booked a room at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach. This hotel is normally a 7 minute drive to the port (more on that later). For an 8 day sailing we ended up with 5 bags for 4 people. Plus each of us had a small backpack or bag with essentials for embarkation. After playing a game of Tetris trying to get the bags into the trunk, we made it work. We left the house at about 10:15pm making our way through the rain to the hotel. Since we left so late, I called the hotel to tell them that we would be a late check in. I was told that we HAD to check in before midnight or we may forfeit the room. I’ve never been told that at any hotel, we do spontaneous trips to Vegas and at times check in at 1 or 2 AM and never had a problem. It’s ok, we’ll make it work. We arrived at the hotel about 11:40pm , checked in and were offered free bottled water. Once in the room the kids wanted a snack. Well the only snack bar / cafe at the hotel closed at 10:30pm and they do not offer room service at all. I asked the front desk if there was any vending machines and they said no. I asked if there was anywhere walkable from the hotel to grab something and I was told “I wouldn’t walk out there at this time”. Take that as you will. Food delivery services were estimating 1hr to 1 hr15 min for delivery. The hotel does have a CVS vending machine that has pharmacy essentials like antacids, Tylenol , feminine products etc. It happened to have 2 boxes of animal cookies. By the time I finished my little safari for snacks the kids had fallen asleep so me and the wife dined on our animal crackers. The hotel offers a single king bed room or a room with two doubles. The two double room ran $300.29 on a higher floor with an ocean view, they also add a $29 “resort fee” and parking was $35.00. We had room 1520. The hotel itself is in a great location with plenty of dining just across the street. There was a chilis, outback steak house a seafood place and a BBQ spot. These were all closed by the time we were there. The bed was comfy and the sheets were clean, unfortunately the hotel does show some wear & tear. There were scrapes on the walls and the carpet needed some attention. Also I noticed that the hotel has done away with the small bottles of shampoo and have shifted to a wall mounted bottle inside the shower.

Background: Hello, My name is Ron. Our family tries to take a cruise or two every year. We are a family of 4, me (45) the wife (46), my son (15) & Daughter (11). We live in Santa Clarita, Ca. (About an hour and 20 minutes North of the Port of Long Beach. This year my daughter asked to cruise for her 11th birthday. Who am I to say no? As i did my research, we found a one off cruise on the Carnival Panorama during the kids spring break that was 8 days long. Normally the Panorama does 7 day Mexican Rivera sailings to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan & Puerto Vallarta. This time they added the port of La Paz making this an 8 day cruise I always enjoy following along on peoples cruise reviews and always wanted to do one myself, but I get so taken in the moment of being on a cruise that I never take enough pictures or notes to remember what happened. So here is my contribution to the community.

I would recommend against Lyft/uber. It took us 43 minutes from the Hyatt Long Beach to get a parking ticket. That is without the Grand Prix in town. Also on debark day people were saying that it was taking the Uber drivers upwards of 30 minutes to get thru the traffic and many were just cancelling the fares.

I think they sell an actual Lego model on MSC cruise lines gift shops.

So lets see how I can insert an image here. I just attached image and then inserted it here. Lets try this for real !

Lets try posting a photo for the first time.