Detailed Photo Review of Carnival Panorama 8 Night Mexican Riviera New Year’s Cruise 12/30/23

[deladane]

Hi everyone! My name is Dana, and I just returned from an 8-night cruise on the Carnival Panorama (December 30, 2023 - January 7, 2024 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I used to take one cruise every year for a decade, but then, you know, the world shut down.  With all the uncertainty and variability in cruising for the last few years, I wasn’t really tempted to book another cruise and stress about cancellations, testing, and getting sick.  I always knew I’d eventually return to cruising, but I preferred to wait it out until things settled down a bit and life was somewhat back to “normal.”  

 

I always used to write a detailed photo review when I returned home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format. This cruise will be no different! If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere... I tend to write like I talk, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you!  I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give myself a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way… I welcome your feedback!  All of the posts for the review will be in this larger purple font so it stands out if you just want to read the review and skip the comments and other posts. 

 

It may take me a little while to get all of my photos sorted and loaded onto my computer, so please be patient with me. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip as a little something to hold you over until it's time to post the rest!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

Background Info:

 

Since you last heard from me, I’ve had a few changes in my life.  Around 2 years ago, my husband Jason and I moved from San Jose, CA to Phoenix, AZ.  Jason’s parents have lived here for 20 years and we wanted to move closer to them, partly because of the other major change.  I would like to formally introduce to Cruise Critic the newest member of our family, our 2 and a half year old son, Ian.

 

 

 

Needless to say, we have had our hands full for the last couple of years!  Another reason I have stayed away from cruising was that I didn’t think it would be much fun to take a baby on a cruise.  When Ian turned 2 this summer, I started to get the urge to consider a cruise again.  His daycare schedule came out for the next school year and they would be closed for 2 full weeks at the end of the year.  It’s been getting pretty hard to keep him entertained during the weeks of school vacation, so going on a cruise with endless options of fun things to keep him happy and entertained sounded very tempting.  

[deladane]

To cruise, or not to cruise…:

 

I was daunted at the idea of flying to a cruise port with all of Ian’s “stuff”... his car seat, stroller, pack n play, 3 different kinds of diapers (for daytime, nighttime, and swimming!), all of his favorite snacks (because of course, a cruise ship full of wonderful food options isn’t good enough for my toddler… he prefers to live on a diet of Goldfish and pretzels *eyeroll*), a puddle jumper, the list goes on and on.  If flying to a cruise port were our only option, we would need to wait a few more years before I’d even consider cruising.  Luckily, there are several cruise ports about a 6-hour drive from Phoenix, plus a little more time to make a few stops along the way for gas and food and whatnot.  This seemed a lot more doable with a toddler, so I started researching our options.

 

There are a handful of cruise lines that sail from Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego.  Our options were severely limited when I learned that nearly every cruise line requires children to be at least 3 years old AND potty trained to use their camp programs.  Luckily, Carnival allows 2 year olds in diapers to participate in the camp program (and thankfully they are willing to change diapers as needed!).  The only glitch was that since he still uses swim diapers, he is not allowed to use the pool, splash pad, or any of the public water features on the ship.  That wasn’t a deal-breaker for me… we would be cruising in the winter on a route that tends to be cold for the sea days, so I doubted any of us would want to use the pools those days.  Plus, we live in Phoenix and have year-round access to a splash pad and heated resort-style pool at our community center.  If Ian wanted to go swimming, he could do it while we were off the ship in port, or he could wait until we got home.

[deladane]

Picking the perfect itinerary:

 

So now that I knew we were cruising with Carnival, it was time to pick a ship and itinerary.  There aren’t many options from Southern California, so it was a pretty easy decision.  The Radiance and the Miracle have some 3 and 4 day itineraries to Ensenada and Catalina Island, but there was no way I was going to pack up all the stuff entailed with traveling with a toddler, and drive 6+ hours each way, to take a cruise that short.  The Miracle also has a few 5 and 6 day itineraries to Cabo, but that was also too short for my liking.  That left the Panorama.  I loved the idea of sailing on a newer ship, although I was a little nervous about sailing on such a big ship.  Panorama’s capacity is just over 4000 passengers with 2 people per cabin, and I would be cruising during school vacation when many cabins would have 3 or 4 passengers.  I am more used to having around 3000 passengers on the ship, so I kept my fingers crossed that it wasn’t too crowded to enjoy the ship, and I just hoped the benefits of a new ship with lots of amenities would outweigh the possible negatives of a big ship.

 

Most of the time, Panorama sails 7-day itineraries, leaving Long Beach every Saturday, and visiting Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo.  I considered the cruise leaving December 23, but then I noticed the following week would be an 8-day cruise, including New Year’s Eve, with an extra port stop in La Paz.  Once I found this itinerary, there was no turning back!  I’ve always wanted to cruise over New Years, and I liked the idea of having 4 port days at places I’ve never been (aside from Puerto Vallarta… we spent a week there in December 2018).  

 

Now, it was time to pick our cabin.  In the past, we have cruised in inside, oceanview, and balcony cabins, and there was usually a specific reason I chose that cabin for that cruise (inside cabin on a port-heavy cruise, a great promo where the balcony was the same price as the oceanview, etc.).  Now that we are cruising with a child, I wanted a balcony so Jason and I would have somewhere to hang out while Ian was sleeping.  There were still plenty of cabins available, so I opted for a balcony just aft of the forward elevators on deck 9.  Checking the deck plans, it lined up to be under one of the cabins on deck 10 (I definitely did not want to be further aft where the lido pool would be above us and we would hear lounge chairs scraping on the ceiling, and noise from the DJ by the pool while Ian was trying to sleep!), and this would put us just 2 decks below Camp Ocean, and one deck below the Lido buffet.  I also liked that deck 9 had passenger cabins for the whole length of the ship so we could easily access any of the 3 sets of elevators (forward, mid-ship, or aft), and we could leave our cabin and go across on deck 9 to the elevator nearest our destination, then go up or down.  

 

With the perfect cabin selected, I officially booked the cruise on Carnival’s website.  We were officially going on a cruise as a family of 3!!  I booked with a rate that included price protection, so of course that meant I spent nearly every day until the cruise checking the prices of our cabin to see if I could get some money back.  As it turned out, the price remained surprisingly consistent, going up or down by only a few dollars here and there, but there was never a drop big enough to be worth submitting the price drop form.

 

 

I debated whether or not I should purchase Faster to the Fun.  We had it on our 2019 cruise and it definitely had its benefits, but they have since raised the price drastically and I wasn’t sure it was worth it.  Then I started thinking… We would be traveling with our toddler for the first time, and that comes with its own set of challenges.  Wouldn’t it be nice to go straight to the cabin upon boarding and drop off all our carry-on bags?  I don’t know how we would manage chasing after a toddler who wants to explore every square foot of this huge cruise ship, while also schlepping our carry-on bags, backpacks, bottles of wine, and cases of soda for the cabin.  It would also be nice to have early access to the cabin and have our checked bags arrive early so we could quietly unpack while Ian took his afternoon nap.  Another benefit would be that we would have priority tendering in Cabo.  We don’t arrive until 10am that day, so it was already going to be a late start and it would be nice not to stress about what time we’d actually make it off the ship in a non-priority tender.  That seemed like enough good reasons to me, so I went ahead and purchased FTTF for $130 for the cabin.

[ASR1996]

Congratulations to you and your husband on having your son.  I am so looking forward to reading your review!  Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed report.   

[vanislandcruisers]

Congrats on the addition to your Family....looking forward to following along!!!

[edspec]

Great start. Looking forward to hearing your experience on the eight day.

[dukenmelo]

Thanks!  I'm excited for this review!

[Drazil65]

Great start to your review.  Back in the day when DS was young we always purchased FTTF for the same reasons, the priority boarding and need to drop things off.  That and a balcony (where mom would go with a glass of wine and good book once he fell asleep 🙂) cabin for naps, wouldn't've cruised without them back in those days.   

 

Cant wait to read the rest of your review!

[john91498]

What a cute kiddo!!!! 🥰

[Butterbean1000]

Good start.  I'm looking forward to your review.  We also used to sail 1 or twice a year before the shut down.  We are going on our first cruise since 2019 this coming May.  I can't wait to get back on a ship.

[Jamman54]

Great start to your review! Looking forward to the rest. 😃

[pinto18]

Looking forward to this as well. in a month we will be on the Panorama doing the same 8 day itinerary 

[AKR2011]

What a great start to your review! I'm excited to follow along! Thank you for sharing with us ❤️⚓️

[SenatorsFan]

It's nice to see another one of your reviews! I still remember how much I enjoyed your Paul Gauguin review.

Your little boy is so cute. 😊

Edited January 10 by SenatorsFan
added info

[jerseygirlinAZ]

We were on this cruise as well! Was going to do a review myself, but I'll let you have at it!  We, too, live in AZ.  Missed our flight home since we booked too early.  Rented a car and drove home.  No big deal, but something for others to consider.  The debarking and embarking on this cruise were both a bit of a mess.

[TeresaJ]

Thanks for sharing your cruise! An 8 day cruise is always nice with the extra day! We were one of the cancelled cruises in December so we didn't get to go. Someday we will try again!

[deladane]

16 hours ago, ASR1996 said:

Congratulations to you and your husband on having your son.  I am so looking forward to reading your review!  Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed report.   

 

Thank you! And thanks for following along!

[deladane]

16 hours ago, vanislandcruisers said:

Congrats on the addition to your Family....looking forward to following along!!!

 

Thank you! And thanks for reading the review!!

[deladane]

16 hours ago, edspec said:

Great start. Looking forward to hearing your experience on the eight day.

 

Thank you!  I'll be sharing lots of experiences!

[deladane]

16 hours ago, dukenmelo said:

Thanks!  I'm excited for this review!

 

Thank you! Glad to have you following along!

[deladane]

15 hours ago, Drazil65 said:

Great start to your review.  Back in the day when DS was young we always purchased FTTF for the same reasons, the priority boarding and need to drop things off.  That and a balcony (where mom would go with a glass of wine and good book once he fell asleep 🙂) cabin for naps, wouldn't've cruised without them back in those days.   

 

Cant wait to read the rest of your review!

 

Thank you!  Spoiler alert: circumstances aligned that I'm not sure FTTF was worth it for us on this cruise, but more details on that later...

[deladane]

15 hours ago, john91498 said:

What a cute kiddo!!!! 🥰

 

Aww, thanks!

[deladane]

15 hours ago, Butterbean1000 said:

Good start.  I'm looking forward to your review.  We also used to sail 1 or twice a year before the shut down.  We are going on our first cruise since 2019 this coming May.  I can't wait to get back on a ship.

 

Thank you!  It was crazy to think it had been nearly 5 years since our last cruise, but it was definitely nice to be back on a ship!  

[deladane]

14 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

Great start to your review! Looking forward to the rest. 😃

 

Thanks Jeff!  So glad to see you are reading along!  I actually thought of you and Patti on the last sea day... I sat in the seats I know you prefer at the back of the theater for the towel animal demonstration to use the table when making my animals.  You do get a great view of the stage from back there, but I don't think I could watch a whole show there as the bar stools don't have back rests (at least not in the theater on Panorama).