Carnival Panorama July 1-8, 2023 Trip Report: Bar Takeovers, Bangin' Breakfasts, & Bucket Worshipping

[TaraLynne]

Okay okay okay the title of this post is a combination of personal jokes and my need for catchy alliteration 😉 It's also not going to start making sense until at least part 2 of this trip report but I'm whipping up this first entry between my first day back at work and a Taekwondo class later tonight 😄

 

So we booked this cruise back in early February of this year, when I suddenly found out I had a 4-day weekend over 4th of July...which also happened to fall on my 2-year [legal] wedding anniversary with my current partner. We wanted to do a family vacation and cruising out of Long Beach - which is 90-ish minutes from my current location - was a perfect option because it meant an awesome trip without having to pay current flight prices for 4 people (even if I was never very excited about the port itinerary). We ended up being a group of 7 - myself, my partner Dean, my two step-kids (B, 22, and C, 16), my in-laws (P & F) and my brother-in-law (K). The combination of paying for two rooms (one for Dean and I and one for the step kiddos), doing so on a holiday week cruise, and not caring so much about the scenery we'd be able to see from the ship led to us choosing inside cabins this time around. For a cruise like this I just preferred to save that money for other things during the cruise, and didn't regret it at all.

 

I was a bit lazy about checking us in two weeks prior (didn't do so until late in the day when they opened check-in) and got a boarding time of 12:30-1 PM, which was also totally fine because I didn't want to get to the ship too early anyway. However, I *am* glad we splurged on Faster to the Fun, and I'll get into more detail on that throughout this report.

 

We got to the port right around 12:30, and WOW was it nice that the garage was literally just across the street from the entrance. We dropped off the bags we wanted to check and headed into the dome, and were on the ship by about five minutes after 1 thanks to FTTF! The main line looked to be about a 20-25 minute wait, so not too bad, but we were able to walk right up to get checked in, which is extra nice when you have a bunch of carry-ons in addition to checked bags 😉

 

Side note: it was neat seeing the Queen Mary as we boarded, and going through the dome where Howard Hughes's plane used to be...though Dean had his phone out while we were walking through the line and one of the security people (or maybe a general check-in person?) got after him, being kinda snippy as he called out for people to put their phones away because it was a "no blogging zone". I guess maybe that's a problem they have on a regular basis, so ya know, not MAD about it, but...just having one's phone in one's hand doesn't mean you're blogging, lol. Oh well...at least we got a fun family joke out of that experience.

 

First things first, we needed to grab lunch, so it was up to the Lido for us. The lines for food were practically nonexistent (there were only 2 people ahead of me in the deli line when I got in it) but the seating areas were VERY crowded. We were honestly lucky to snag a table that was in the middle of being cleaned off, and had to go to the very back of the restaurant to even find that.

 

My lunch of a caprese sandwich and couscous salad was awesome, at least 🙂

 

We also got a kick out of the little hurricane handwashing stations they have on the Panorama. Not sure if this is a fixture on all Carnival ships these days, but I honestly wish they had these things everywhere!

 

By the time we were done eating it was after 1:30 which meant our rooms were ready - another great FTTF perk! So we dropped off our carry-ons with the plan of going off in search of drinks (for us 21+ folks) and fun (for all)...only we hit a couple snags - one, the bed configuration in mine & Dean's room was wrong (no one was answering the phone when we tried calling), and two, younger step kiddo C's sign and sail card wasn't working. This meant a trip to guest services instead, and another FTTF perk experience - that being, not having to wait in the fairly long line and instead getting to use the dedicated platinum/diamond/FTTF guest line (which was barely a line at all, thankfully).

 

I also ended up just grabbing my first drink of the cruise at the Atrium Bar - the Ultimate XO, a vodka/"'Orchata"/patron cafe concoction that was pretty darn delicious 😄

 

Eventually we were able to make our way up to the sports square area and spend some time playing mini golf, ping pong, and foosball (at the super EXTRA foosball table, in fact).

(PS, one of my regrets about cruising on this ship is that we never made time to play on the "life size" pool table they had up there)

 

We didn't want to hog the tables, so eventually we headed off to explore the ship a bit more before the sail away party...

 

^upper atrium view

^Looking into the Pig & Anchor from the Parched Pig bar area

^sitting in one of what I call "the cove chairs" for the one and only time on this cruise, ha (it was always either too cold or they were all taken, go figure)

 

...And that's where I'll leave my trip report/review for now, in hopes of being able to finish out day 1 tomorrow when it's not my first day back at work after an entire week off 😉

[lazydayz]

Thanks for doing this.  l am enjoying it.  We disembarked once in Long Beach and I loved that port.  It is so different than the ones we have in Florida.  

[TaraLynne]

27 minutes ago, lazydayz said:

Thanks for doing this.  l am enjoying it.  We disembarked once in Long Beach and I loved that port.  It is so different than the ones we have in Florida.  

Oh yeah for sure. I don't recall too many issues at Port Canaveral the two times I sailed out of there, but Miami was a NIGHTMARE. Long Beach was a total breeze (though I will say that a lot of that - especially at debarkation - was thanks to FTTF)

[Jeafl]

We've been on Panorama twice and really enjoyed it.  Hope you did as well!

[princess76021]

17 hours ago, TaraLynne said:

Okay okay okay the title of this post is a combination of personal jokes and my need for catchy alliteration 😉 It's also not going to start making sense until at least part 2 of this trip report but I'm whipping up this first entry between my first day back at work and a Taekwondo class later tonight 😄

 

So we booked this cruise back in early February of this year, when I suddenly found out I had a 4-day weekend over 4th of July...which also happened to fall on my 2-year [legal] wedding anniversary with my current partner. We wanted to do a family vacation and cruising out of Long Beach - which is 90-ish minutes from my current location - was a perfect option because it meant an awesome trip without having to pay current flight prices for 4 people (even if I was never very excited about the port itinerary). We ended up being a group of 7 - myself, my partner Dean, my two step-kids (B, 22, and C, 16), my in-laws (P & F) and my brother-in-law (K). The combination of paying for two rooms (one for Dean and I and one for the step kiddos), doing so on a holiday week cruise, and not caring so much about the scenery we'd be able to see from the ship led to us choosing inside cabins this time around. For a cruise like this I just preferred to save that money for other things during the cruise, and didn't regret it at all.

 

I was a bit lazy about checking us in two weeks prior (didn't do so until late in the day when they opened check-in) and got a boarding time of 12:30-1 PM, which was also totally fine because I didn't want to get to the ship too early anyway. However, I *am* glad we splurged on Faster to the Fun, and I'll get into more detail on that throughout this report.

 

We got to the port right around 12:30, and WOW was it nice that the garage was literally just across the street from the entrance. We dropped off the bags we wanted to check and headed into the dome, and were on the ship by about five minutes after 1 thanks to FTTF! The main line looked to be about a 20-25 minute wait, so not too bad, but we were able to walk right up to get checked in, which is extra nice when you have a bunch of carry-ons in addition to checked bags 😉

 

Side note: it was neat seeing the Queen Mary as we boarded, and going through the dome where Howard Hughes's plane used to be...though Dean had his phone out while we were walking through the line and one of the security people (or maybe a general check-in person?) got after him, being kinda snippy as he called out for people to put their phones away because it was a "no blogging zone". I guess maybe that's a problem they have on a regular basis, so ya know, not MAD about it, but...just having one's phone in one's hand doesn't mean you're blogging, lol. Oh well...at least we got a fun family joke out of that experience.

 

First things first, we needed to grab lunch, so it was up to the Lido for us. The lines for food were practically nonexistent (there were only 2 people ahead of me in the deli line when I got in it) but the seating areas were VERY crowded. We were honestly lucky to snag a table that was in the middle of being cleaned off, and had to go to the very back of the restaurant to even find that.

 

My lunch of a caprese sandwich and couscous salad was awesome, at least 🙂

 

We also got a kick out of the little hurricane handwashing stations they have on the Panorama. Not sure if this is a fixture on all Carnival ships these days, but I honestly wish they had these things everywhere!

 

By the time we were done eating it was after 1:30 which meant our rooms were ready - another great FTTF perk! So we dropped off our carry-ons with the plan of going off in search of drinks (for us 21+ folks) and fun (for all)...only we hit a couple snags - one, the bed configuration in mine & Dean's room was wrong (no one was answering the phone when we tried calling), and two, younger step kiddo C's sign and sail card wasn't working. This meant a trip to guest services instead, and another FTTF perk experience - that being, not having to wait in the fairly long line and instead getting to use the dedicated platinum/diamond/FTTF guest line (which was barely a line at all, thankfully).

 

I also ended up just grabbing my first drink of the cruise at the Atrium Bar - the Ultimate XO, a vodka/"'Orchata"/patron cafe concoction that was pretty darn delicious 😄

 

Eventually we were able to make our way up to the sports square area and spend some time playing mini golf, ping pong, and foosball (at the super EXTRA foosball table, in fact).

(PS, one of my regrets about cruising on this ship is that we never made time to play on the "life size" pool table they had up there)

 

We didn't want to hog the tables, so eventually we headed off to explore the ship a bit more before the sail away party...

 

^upper atrium view

^Looking into the Pig & Anchor from the Parched Pig bar area

^sitting in one of what I call "the cove chairs" for the one and only time on this cruise, ha (it was always either too cold or they were all taken, go figure)

 

...And that's where I'll leave my trip report/review for now, in hopes of being able to finish out day 1 tomorrow when it's not my first day back at work after an entire week off 😉

Thank you for taking us along!

Hugs from Texas!

[TaraLynne]

9 minutes ago, Jeafl said:

We've been on Panorama twice and really enjoyed it.  Hope you did as well!

We definitely had an awesome time! There were a lot of things I loved about this ship (which was the biggest one I've been on so far - previous Carnival ships were the Valor, Dream, and Liberty) but I do have some thoughts on how the higher number of people might have affected other things (that I'll probably get into closer to the end of this trip report)

[havanadaydreaming]

loved the panorama.  

 

didnt love walking up the ramps at long beach.  i had tweaked my ankle the day before and i finally felt a little bit of my age hiking up the walkway.  ha! 

 

 

[weezal]

3 minutes ago, havanadaydreaming said:

loved the panorama.  

 

didnt love walking up the ramps at long beach.  i had tweaked my ankle the day before and i finally felt a little bit of my age hiking up the walkway.  ha! 

 

 

there is option for elevator and escalator, at long beach embarkation.

[csm5986142]

Great review so far.  We were also on this sailing and really enjoyed it.  The Panorama is such a great ship - whoever is responsible for maintenance/cleaning on this ship deserves to be commended!  The ship looked and smelled clean the entire time and we were well over capacity (at check-in I was told just under 5,000).  I was recently on sister ship Vista and the difference was significant (it is not nearly as clean and well maintained as Panorama).

[weezal]

panorama was a new ship just before pandemic shutdown, so it's still fairly new.
but i agree, the staff do a great job of cleaning and maintaining the common areas.

[mkcurran]

1 hour ago, havanadaydreaming said:

loved the panorama.  

 

didnt love walking up the ramps at long beach.  i had tweaked my ankle the day before and i finally felt a little bit of my age hiking up the walkway.  ha! 

 

 

Next time go straight through the doors. There's an escalator beyond the elevator for people who can walk, just not far.

[EllieinNJ]

Enjoying your review.  Ours is in April and seems so far away but we are on the Venezia in February. Soa little closer 

Edited July 11, 2023 by EllieinNJ

[TaraLynne]

So we made it up to deck 12 for sail-away just in time, and it was crowded but we were still able to get spots at the railing. Granted, I stepped back for a few seconds to take a picture and people immediately crammed into my spot (kinda not cool considering I was obviously with 3 other people and we were already packed pretty tight, but what can you do I guess) but it was nice to be up there for the first 15 minutes or so as we truly left Long Beach 🙂

 

We had to meet up at the Havana Bar at 5 PM for a cruise crawl kick-off. This turned out to be a pretty big event that we ended up participating in on our own...aaaand then forgetting to turn our little cards in Thursday night anyway, oops! It was organized by a very nice woman who apparently goes on a LOT of cruises and probably my other main regret about this cruise is that we didn't make it to the second and third meetups - the second because we were busy with the kiddos, and the third because I chose a nap over going to see the people who actually DID turn in their tally cards on time, ha).

 

Thankfully we were a bit early for the cruise crawl meetup and were able to get some drinks before the Havana Bar got hectic - I had to have an espresso martini!

 

There were a LOT of people signed up for the cruise crawl (the Facebook event said about 100 people, I think, though you also had to actually sign up (for free) via Eventbrite so I'm not sure if it was actually that many - or if everyone who signed up even showed up. Either way, they were handing out both the little cards that listed the bars/drinks/activities that could earn you points on the crawl *and* t-shirts that some people had pre-purchased...so the bar was packed and we only stayed long enough to pick up our little cards (see pic below) and finish the drinks we'd ordered.

 

Some of these things were more difficult to check off than one would think...namely the "Casino Bar" because there's not actually a walk-up bar IN the casino, so we had to find a casino server and then wait quite a bit for our drinks...and for the bonus items, as far as we could tell, the Liquid Lounge bar is only open close to and during showtimes...not to mention the timing to get your name in to sing karaoke (more on both of these later in my report 😉 )

 

The worst part though? If I hadn't had a few too many Thursday night of the cruise and turned our scorecards in on time (they had to be delivered to a specific stateroom before 9 AM Friday morning)...we would have won the cruise crawl game. Sober post-vacation me is VERY frustrated with drunk vacation mode me, lol.

 

That said, as we were already a couple drinks in we decided to immediately try to check off one of the bars that had a specific drink listed...

 

That's the Twilight Zone drink from, you guessed it, the Tides Bar! (Midori, rum, Blue Curacao, coconut cream, crushed pineapple - aka NOT my type of drink at all and would never have ordered it outside of this game, haha)

 

Oh, and along the way I found a duck, which reminded me that I also had a whole lotta ducks to hide!

^the duck I found

^the first round (of several) of ducks that I hid 🙂

 

Now, it was sometime after my first trip to Alchemy that things got a little fuzzy. I blame the Deal Closer (vanilla vodka, Disaronno, Irish cream, chocolate liqueur):

 

....buuuut to be honest it could have been one of the vodka sodas w/lemon that I had between that awful (IMO) fruity drink and this yummy chocolate-y one, ha.

 

Seriously, on past cruises I have been a stickler about making it to the MDR as many times as possible (read: every night) for dinner. We had your time dining so we could have gone whenever, but as I'm usually a throughout-the-day-snacker in everyday life and I'd had what was for me a big lunch at like 1:30, followed by quite a few very strong drinks...let's just say that because I was the only one who was going to push for us all to sit down to dinner, and I wasn't quite in the mood to do so, everyone else in the party opted for the buffet, so I just snacked a bit from there too.

 

We (myself, partner Dean, older step kid B) then decided to check out the stand-up comedian who was performing that night...BIG mistake. I don't want to mention his name because as a creator/performer myself I don't love shitting on the work of other creatives, but this comedian barely wrenched a single chuckle out of any of us. An example of the worst """joke""" we heard: just stating that women shouldn't wear granny panties and should always wear thongs is not a joke, or a good punchline, or anything. (Seriously there was almost no lead-in to that bit, it was just a statement he was making about an ex - maybe an ex-wife? Either way that bit wasn't funny at all and nothing before or after it was decent comedy either, and even though there were other comedians on the ship, we didn't feel like bothering to check them out after this.)

Okay okay, I really wanted to finish day 1 in this post but it's already SUPER long and IMO what happened after the comedian deserves it's own entry 😉 To be continued...

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by TaraLynne
(removed pic that belonged with next entry)

[skrufy]

FYI, Reading your review and it appears you did not take full advantage of FTTF. You could have arrived earlier than 12:30. FTTF allows you to check in as early or as late as you want to. You could also have dropped your carry on baggage off in your cabins as soon as you boarded.  

[TaraLynne]

3 minutes ago, skrufy said:

FYI, Reading your review and it appears you did not take full advantage of FTTF. You could have arrived earlier than 12:30. FTTF allows you to check in as early or as late as you want to. You could also have dropped your carry on baggage off in your cabins as soon as you boarded.  

Hmm. I knew about the arrival time thing, we just didn't care to get up and drive in any earlier (ha). But they checked our cards (which had the FTTF sticker on them) when we walked onto the cruise ship and told us our rooms wouldn't be ready until 1:30...which is why we lugged our bags up to lunch. I wonder if it had something to do with the ship being later into port than most because of its propulsion issues (we didn't have to be out of our rooms until 9 AM on debarkation day)

[skrufy]

1 minute ago, TaraLynne said:

Hmm. I knew about the arrival time thing, we just didn't care to get up and drive in any earlier (ha). But they checked our cards (which had the FTTF sticker on them) when we walked onto the cruise ship and told us our rooms wouldn't be ready until 1:30...which is why we lugged our bags up to lunch. I wonder if it had something to do with the ship being later into port than most because of its propulsion issues (we didn't have to be out of our rooms until 9 AM on debarkation day)

Let me clarify. We are platinum and have dropped our luggage off early in the cabin many times. You are correct. The cabins are not ready for everyone until 1:30 but you are able to go to your cabin, open the hall doors, go in and drop you luggage off and then leave.

[TaraLynne]

2 hours ago, skrufy said:

Let me clarify. We are platinum and have dropped our luggage off early in the cabin many times. You are correct. The cabins are not ready for everyone until 1:30 but you are able to go to your cabin, open the hall doors, go in and drop you luggage off and then leave.

ahhh gotcha, yeah sadly I am a lowly gold (kidding 😉 ) and this was everyone else's first cruise. I thought 1:30 was the FTTF cabin time though...on past cruises the earliest I've been able to get into my room (for ships that debarked way earlier than this one) was like 2:40 or so.

[TaraLynne]

3 hours ago, EllieinNJ said:

Enjoying your review.  Ours is in April and seems so far away but we are on the Venezia in February. Soa little closer 

I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Though as a warning....I would highly suggest bringing pants/closed shoes/long-sleeved shirts or a light jacket for an April cruise if you're doing this same one out of Long Beach to the Mexican Riviera (and those are the 'at the very least' items, if you're from somewhere warmer you might need more layers). We did NOT pack for the chilly weather we had Saturday evening through Monday morning and again all day/night Friday, heh

Edited July 11, 2023 by TaraLynne

[TaraLynne]

5 hours ago, csm5986142 said:

Great review so far.  We were also on this sailing and really enjoyed it.  The Panorama is such a great ship - whoever is responsible for maintenance/cleaning on this ship deserves to be commended!  The ship looked and smelled clean the entire time and we were well over capacity (at check-in I was told just under 5,000).  I was recently on sister ship Vista and the difference was significant (it is not nearly as clean and well maintained as Panorama).

Oh nice! I did so many searches on here for Panorama trip reports and didn't really find that many so I knew I had to write one. That said, the Facebook group for this sailing has been SUPER active, which has been really neat 🙂 I agree, the ship was VERY clean, with the exception of the last night/morning when for some reason there seemed to be a lot of food spillage on the stairs (at least at the aft end of the ship). Not complaining though, if I were them I'd be waiting to clean the final night's leavings up until most of us were gone, haha

[SunshineOnTheBrain]

On 7/10/2023 at 5:17 PM, TaraLynne said:

 

We also got a kick out of the little hurricane handwashing stations they have on the Panorama. Not sure if this is a fixture on all Carnival ships these days, but I honestly wish they had these things everywhere!

 

 

 

 

Great review so far!!! These rolled out shortly before the pandemic on some ships. I agree they need more and they should be used more by cruisers!!!!

[Jeafl]

16 hours ago, TaraLynne said:

I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Though as a warning....I would highly suggest bringing pants/closed shoes/long-sleeved shirts or a light jacket for an April cruise if you're doing this same one out of Long Beach to the Mexican Riviera (and those are the 'at the very least' items, if you're from somewhere warmer you might need more layers). We did NOT pack for the chilly weather we had Saturday evening through Monday morning and again all day/night Friday, heh

I totally agree!  We did this same cruise in March and October, and on both cruises those last sea days were cold and windy.   We were not prepared at all for that.

[red lobster]

I'm so happy you are doing a review, I'm booked for the November 11th sailing and I have no idea what to do in Mazatlan. The ports for Mexican Riviera board barely has any recommendations. I love reading up on here about tips ect. before we go. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

[Kingsmom]

Yes, thank you so much for taking the time to write a review. We’re on her in February for the 6 night Cabo/Ensenada cruise and we’ve never sailed Carnival before. It will be my husband and I and two 17 year old boys. I have been devouring Panorama posts and videos for months!  Lol. 

[csm5986142]

38 minutes ago, red lobster said:

I'm so happy you are doing a review, I'm booked for the November 11th sailing and I have no idea what to do in Mazatlan.

 

We did a Carnival excursion that I would highly recommend if you like an active excursion – the Panoramic Hike to El Faro Lighthouse.  It’s considered “difficult activity level” but we didn’t think it was that bad.  It’s very similar to climbing Diamond Head in Hawaii. 

It is the world’s highest, natural, working lighthouse.  It's a fun workout and we thought the views were beautiful.

Edited July 12, 2023 by csm5986142

[Drew B 58]

38 minutes ago, csm5986142 said:

 

We did a Carnival excursion that I would highly recommend if you like an active excursion – the Panoramic Hike to El Faro Lighthouse.  It’s considered “difficult activity level” but we didn’t think it was that bad.  It’s very similar to climbing Diamond Head in Hawaii. 

It is the world’s highest, natural, working lighthouse.  It's a fun workout and we thought the views were beautiful.

If you decide you want to do this, it’s very easy to do without paying for an excursion. You can either take a cab or walk there (we walked and it took 20-25 minutes, I believe).