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

[deladane]

After lunch, we went to Ocean Plaza at 12:45pm for the Q and A with the production cast.  I always find these kinds of things so interesting, giving guests a chance to get to know the crew a little better and learn something about life on the ships.  The production cast usually has 8 performers in total: 2 female singers, 2 male singers, 2 female dancers, and 2 male dancers, but the dancers also know how to sing, and the singers can also do some dancing.  Apparently they were down one of the female dancers but I couldn’t tell anything was missing from the shows I saw.  They said someone had a new opportunity come up so she left her contract early, but it happened during the time the ship was in dry dock so they had time to re-block the shows and practice with a cast of 7.  They said it helped that everyone in the cast can both dance and sing so that gave them more flexibility to distribute the parts that had been performed by the girl who left.

 

 

The “bat phone” rang at 1pm during the Q and A.  Ian was upset in camp because he was hungry.  We knew that they do not feed the kids lunch on sea days, and we had planned to pick him up after the Q and A, hoping his big brunch would hold him over, but I guess not!  We left the Q and A early and immediately went upstairs to get Ian.  He ended up eating a whole margarita pizza on his own, so I guess he really was hungry!  While Ian ate his pizza, I tried some of the options from the antipasto section.

 

 

We went back to the cabin at 2pm to do some more packing and put Ian down for a nap.  He was finally getting the hang of napping on the ship and went down without a fight, and he slept for 2 hours.  Yay!  When he woke up, we got ready for the evening and noticed another pretty sunset outside.

 

 

 

We went down to the atrium before dinner for one last attempt at getting a photo of the 3 of us dressed nicely for dinner, but of course, Ian had other plans.  We tried to pose him in front of the stairs, but he kept running up and down and wouldn’t stay still for a photo with us.  This was the best we could get… oye, so much for the nice collection of family photos I was hoping to accrue this week!

 

 

Eventually, he did settle down enough to take a photo by himself!

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

Tonight’s appetizers menu didn’t really appeal to me, so I opted for the always-available and always-tasty caesar salad.

 

 

I got the penne mariscos for my entree, but Ian stole most of my penne haha

 

 

Before dessert, the waiters paraded around the dining room with platters of Baked Alaska, and then sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”  Unfortunately for us, we were seated in a section of the dining room that had no view at all of the show, so we could hear it but we couldn’t really see what was happening.  Ian didn’t seem to mind… he was having fun clapping to the music!

 

 

I don’t care for Baked Alaska, so I ordered the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake for dessert.  As perfectly well cooked as it was earlier in the cruise, tonight, my serving was completely liquidy and I only ate the top layer of crust and left the rest behind.  It’s funny how the photos look identical, but the insides of the dish were completely different.  You win some, you lose some!

 

 

[deladane]

Unfortunately, tonight’s dinner was extremely slow and took way too long, so we missed the 7pm comedy show we were planning to attend.  We didn’t even leave the dining room until 7:10pm and we still had to run Ian upstairs to Camp Ocean.  That was a bummer because we wanted to see another one of Jaylyn’s shows, but it wasn’t meant to be.  When we got up to deck 11, there was a long line to drop off Ian at camp.  It ended up taking 15 minutes, and I wondered if more people brought their kids to camp tonight than earlier in the week in an attempt to enjoy their last night on the ship?

 

Once Ian was checked in, we ran downstairs to the Liquid Lounge for the 7:30pm show called “The World Works Here.”  Deon explained that the Panorama has 1800 crew members from over 60 countries, and they announced each one and someone came out carrying that flag.  He also said that we had 4700 guests on board this week, which is mind-blowing since it honestly never felt THAT crowded.  I guess there are just enough different areas for people to hang out on the ship so no one place ever felt too congested.

 

 

After the flags part was done, the production cast came out and sang songs about love. Sure enough, there were only 7 of them on stage.  I totally wouldn’t have noticed that without the Q and A earlier this afternoon.

 

 

The kids from the 2 older groups in Camp Ocean came out to each sing a song, but the penguin group must have been too young so we didn’t get to see Ian on stage.  Funny enough, Ian loves singing the songs he learns in daycare at home, and he literally wakes up in the middle of the night to sing!  But I guess the counselors on the ship didn’t want to take on the task of teaching the young kids a new song in just a few days, so that was understandable.

 

After the show, we exited into the atrium to see colorful marbles falling through the funnel.  I think this was my favorite of all the designs we saw in the funnel all week.  This was such a fun feature on the Panorama and I really loved seeing something totally different every time we were in the atrium.

 

 

Earlier this afternoon, I remembered that I never got the loyalty pin from the VIFP program.  I am used to them leaving it for us in the cabin, but then I remembered we have to pick it up from Pixels now.  I have a collection of all my sign and sail cards and all my VIFP pins from prior cruises, so I definitely wanted to grab the one for this sailing.  Even though it was now 2024, they gave us the 2023 pin.  I guess that’s okay because technically this cruise did start in 2023, and maybe we will take another Carnival cruise this calendar year so we won’t end up with a duplicate (not that we have anything booked at this moment, but you never know!)

 

 

[deladane]

We started to walk back towards the elevators to put our luggage outside the cabin, but then I remembered that I had to redeem my free drink for having Gold VIFP status.  Every time I cruise with Carnival, this perk becomes less and less convenient.  At first, they had a big party for us in the main theater with unlimited drinks, then they stopped throwing the party and just gave us a coupon that we could redeem for a free drink.  Now they don’t even give you the coupon anymore!  You just have to remember on your own that you can get a free drink on the last night of the cruise between 5 and 10pm.  It’s like they are hoping you will forget about it and never redeem your free drink.  Well they don’t know me that well because I will never pass up a chance for a free drink!

 

 

Errands completed, we could now go back to the cabin to put our checked luggage outside.  This was actually trickier than it has been on prior cruises.  Usually, I just leave out pajamas, tomorrow’s clothing, and a few toiletries, and I only need a little space in my carry-on bag for what I’m wearing on the ship on the last night.  This time around, I had to make sure there was enough space in our carry-on bags for Ian’s black out curtains, extra diapers, panda stuffie, pre-packaged snacks for the drive home, and a  bunch of other stuff that we’ve never had to deal with before.  Once that was all sorted out, we put the bags in the hallway so we could get back to enjoying our last night onboard.

 

 

We decided to give Mat in the Piano Bar one more chance, but honestly, he just wasn’t doing it for us.  Maybe it was because it was during the open entry hour and not the 18+ adult show, but we just found Mat to be very low-energy.  

 

 

We were originally considering leaving Ian in camp late and paying for Night Owls so we could see the vibe after 10pm, but Mat took a 15 minute break at 9:45pm, so we just decided to leave then and get Ian from camp before they started to charge.

 

Ian came out of camp wearing a medal around his neck.  They said it was because he won the dancing competition, but that was a shock to us because dancing isn’t exactly Ian’s forte LOL  Maybe they secretly gave out medals to all the kids on the last night?  Ian also got to keep his name tag, and they gave us a drawstring backpack to take home.  

 

 

 

Back in the cabin, we all got ready for bed to rest up for a long day of travel tomorrow.

 

Up next:  Debarkation and driving home

[Jeafl]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:20 AM, deladane said:

Camp closed at 3pm, so we picked up Ian and took him back to the cabin for a nap.  The starboard side of the ship is in the shade in the afternoon sailing north on the last 2 sea days, so I needed a jacket to sit out on the balcony while Ian napped.  

 

 

Ian woke up from his nap at 5pm, so we all got ready for the second formal night.  I tried to get a photo of the 3 of us together, but of course a little someone wouldn’t cooperate.  At least Jason and I got a nice photo of the two of us!

 

 

And I was able to sneak this photo of Ian in the elevator going down to dinner.

 

 

Tonight’s dinner menu:

 

 

I ordered the calamari and the beef carpaccio for my appetizers.

 

 

 

Of course, I ordered the lobster tail for my entree.  I probably should have ordered 2 of them… I forgot how small they are!

 

 

Wow, I hope you were able to finish that huge portion of broccoli they gave you! 🤣

[john91498]

Did you try the frog legs? Hate to say it, but they tasted like chicken...🤪🤣🤣

[deladane]

15 minutes ago, Jeafl said:

Wow, I hope you were able to finish that huge portion of broccoli they gave you! 🤣

 

Hahaha at that point, it's really more of a garnish!  But actually, Ian probably ate it because he stole our broccoli pretty much every night.  Of course, now that we've been home for a month, he is right back to not wanting to touch the broccoli, so I gotta wonder what Carnival does to make it so tasty 🤷‍♀️

[deladane]

4 minutes ago, john91498 said:

Did you try the frog legs? Hate to say it, but they tasted like chicken...🤪🤣🤣

 

No, I've never tried it!  Maybe it really is chicken disguised as frog legs?? 🤷‍♀️ 

[mitsugirly]

2 hours ago, deladane said:

Earlier this afternoon, I remembered that I never got the loyalty pin from the VIFP program.  I am used to them leaving it for us in the cabin, but then I remembered we have to pick it up from Pixels now.

 

I didn't realize we get loyalty pins! ...or do I? I'll have to make sure to remember. 

 

We made brunch reservations on the app and got the alert that our table was ready as we were walking down the hall to the elevator. 

 

 

Do you always have to make a reservation?

[john91498]

4 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

 

We made brunch reservations on the app and got the alert that our table was ready as we were walking down the hall to the elevator. 

 

 

Do you always have to make a reservation?

On sea days, yes, you have to make reservations.

[deladane]

31 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

 

I didn't realize we get loyalty pins! ...or do I? I'll have to make sure to remember. 

 

We made brunch reservations on the app and got the alert that our table was ready as we were walking down the hall to the elevator. 

 

 

Do you always have to make a reservation?

 

According to the Carnival website, they only start giving out the pins when you reach Gold.  I think you can pick it up starting on the first day of the cruise, so maybe make a note to take care of it on embarkation day so you don't forget!

 

And yes, for sea day brunch you had to make a reservation because they assign you a specific table.  Maybe reservation isn't the right word... you just check in on the app when you are ready to eat.  It's not like you need to tell them in advance that you want to eat at 10am or whatever time.  

[NikiPinkston]

Thank you so much for your excellent review! Your little munchkin is adorable and I loved all of your photos and the great info about the ship and hearing what you did in port. We're Platinum on NCL and have only sailed on Carnival once before, but I've had my eye on this cruise as we've been looking at Carnival again as it seems like there's more to do than on NCL. Even though we've already done the Mexican Riviera a couple of times, L.A. & Long Beach are ports that are an easy drive for us, and the Panorama sounds like it would be a great choice to try something new! You have a lovely family and I really appreciate your time in doing this!

[ninjacat123]

4 hours ago, deladane said:

 

No, I've never tried it!  Maybe it really is chicken disguised as frog legs?? 🤷‍♀️ 

 

Edited February 5 by ninjacat123
My family calls it "Jumpy Chicken" ;)

[mitsugirly]

Question...did they have you set the clocks back before getting to La Paz? If I have a tour scheduled at 9am will the ship be on that time as well? If not, what time would the ship time be do you know?

 

[deladane]

4 hours ago, NikiPinkston said:

Thank you so much for your excellent review! Your little munchkin is adorable and I loved all of your photos and the great info about the ship and hearing what you did in port. We're Platinum on NCL and have only sailed on Carnival once before, but I've had my eye on this cruise as we've been looking at Carnival again as it seems like there's more to do than on NCL. Even though we've already done the Mexican Riviera a couple of times, L.A. & Long Beach are ports that are an easy drive for us, and the Panorama sounds like it would be a great choice to try something new! You have a lovely family and I really appreciate your time in doing this!

 

Thank you!  I have never cruised on NCL, but I can say that I like how much there is to do on a Carnival cruise, especially at night with the comedy shows and piano bar in addition to whatever is happening in the big theater.  And of course, they always have tons of things going on during the day so there's never time to be bored!  

[deladane]

2 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

Question...did they have you set the clocks back before getting to La Paz? If I have a tour scheduled at 9am will the ship be on that time as well? If not, what time would the ship time be do you know?

 

 

We set our clocks forward one hour on the night before La Paz so ship time matched port time.  

 

Funny enough, that probably won't happen on your cruise because your cruise is after we change our clocks for daylight savings time.  They don't observe DST in Mexico (just like we don't observe it where I live in Arizona).  Today, Cabo/La Paz is the same time as Arizona, but California is one hour behind us.  After DST clocks change, California and Arizona will be on the same time, meaning California will also be on the same time as Cabo/La Paz so I don't think there is a need to change your clocks.

 

Puerto Vallarta is currently one hour ahead of me in Arizona, so you might change your clocks the night before Puerto Vallarta on your cruise.  I'm sure people on the sailing before you can clarify on how the captain handles it.

[mitsugirly]

9 hours ago, deladane said:

 

We set our clocks forward one hour on the night before La Paz so ship time matched port time.  

 

Funny enough, that probably won't happen on your cruise because your cruise is after we change our clocks for daylight savings time.  They don't observe DST in Mexico (just like we don't observe it where I live in Arizona).  Today, Cabo/La Paz is the same time as Arizona, but California is one hour behind us.  After DST clocks change, California and Arizona will be on the same time, meaning California will also be on the same time as Cabo/La Paz so I don't think there is a need to change your clocks.

 

Puerto Vallarta is currently one hour ahead of me in Arizona, so you might change your clocks the night before Puerto Vallarta on your cruise.  I'm sure people on the sailing before you can clarify on how the captain handles it.

Thank you so much! I didn’t think about DST and us going after that. So that will work out great!

[EllieinNJ]

Is there an Imax theater on board?  I thought I read that Vista class had Imax but couldn't find it on the ship's floor plans.

[edspec]

58 minutes ago, EllieinNJ said:

Is there an Imax theater on board?  I thought I read that Vista class had Imax but couldn't find it on the ship's floor plans.

On Panorama the Imax theatre was replaced with the trampoline area.

[NikiPinkston]

14 hours ago, deladane said:

 

Thank you!  I have never cruised on NCL, but I can say that I like how much there is to do on a Carnival cruise, especially at night with the comedy shows and piano bar in addition to whatever is happening in the big theater.  And of course, they always have tons of things going on during the day so there's never time to be bored!  

We do love the "freestyle" dining on NCL as well as the Broadway production shows - we've seen Jersey Boys, Six, Choir of Man, Kinky Boots, etc. - in fact, all of their production shows have been pretty amazing. However, we've never been inspired to attend a comedy show onboard, so we're looking forward to doing that on Carnival, and the Panorama also seems to have more included dining venues. Your review was so helpful and I felt like I was right there with you! Hope that Ian is adjusting to life at home; he was a very good cruiser for such a little guy and, boy, is he is a cutie!

[deladane]

4 hours ago, EllieinNJ said:

Is there an Imax theater on board?  I thought I read that Vista class had Imax but couldn't find it on the ship's floor plans.

 

3 hours ago, edspec said:

On Panorama the Imax theatre was replaced with the trampoline area.

 

That's a bummer!  I would have loved to check out the Imax if they had it.  The trampoline area was very popular and I saw a lot of older kids going there as it was right where the forward elevators opened on deck 7.

[deladane]

1 hour ago, NikiPinkston said:

We do love the "freestyle" dining on NCL as well as the Broadway production shows - we've seen Jersey Boys, Six, Choir of Man, Kinky Boots, etc. - in fact, all of their production shows have been pretty amazing. However, we've never been inspired to attend a comedy show onboard, so we're looking forward to doing that on Carnival, and the Panorama also seems to have more included dining venues. Your review was so helpful and I felt like I was right there with you! Hope that Ian is adjusting to life at home; he was a very good cruiser for such a little guy and, boy, is he is a cutie!

 

Aww, thank you! 🥰 I got him a little toy cruise ship before the cruise so he would know what it was, and he still loves playing with it.  Every time he catches me reading someone else's review with photos of a cruise ship, he comes running over to look at the pictures of a "crew sip!" so I think he's hooked!  

[deladane]

Sunday, January 7, 2024 ~ Debarkation

 

So you know the 1.5L water bottles left in the cabin on embarkation day that they want you to buy?  We bought a 12 pack of smaller bottles of water and had no use for the big bottles, so we put them on the top shelf next to the vanity mirror to keep it out of the way for the week.  There were some rough seas coming into Long Beach this morning.  At 6:35am we heard a loud crash!  We jumped out of bed not knowing what happened.  Jason panicked and ran over to the crib, thinking it somehow collapsed and Ian was hurt.  Then we realized what actually happened… The bottles of water had rolled off the shelf and tumbled onto the vanity, and then down to the floor.  Ugh!  That was a very rude awakening!  There was no chance any of us would fall back asleep after that, and we had to wake up soon after that anyway, so we just got up to get dressed and finish packing. 

 

I peeked out on the balcony to see a beautiful sunrise as we sailed into Long Beach.  I really must say that the sunrises and sunsets on this cruise were so pretty!  

 

 

 

 

As excited as I was to see this dome last Saturday morning, I wasn’t nearly as thrilled to see it right now.

 

 

The shipping container cranes welcomed us back to Long Beach.

 

 

[deladane]

We had to leave the cabin by 8:30am so the steward could clean up for the new guests embarking today.  We were done packing and ready to go by 7:45am, so we just decided to get an early start for the day.  Getting an elevator to go up one deck to Lido proved to be rather challenging.  By this point in the cruise, most people seemed to figure out how to operate the “smart” elevators, but I don’t think anyone realized that they needed to account for their luggage when typing in the number of people in their party.  Several elevators were packed beyond their limits and it took a few minutes to get one with space for our party of 2 adults, one stroller containing a toddler, one carseat, 2 big backpacks, one diaper bag, and 2 rolling carry-on suitcases.  We weren’t in a hurry or we would have considered just dragging all our stuff up the one flight of stairs.

 

We wanted to have one last Blue Iguana burrito and an arepa for breakfast.  Of course the line was long, but that was to be expected.  Luckily, it went pretty fast because there were 2 guys working behind the counter. 

 

 

Finding a table proved to be another tricky task because people were just camping out at tables even after they finished eating.  Fortunately, Jason spotted one couple getting up and he snagged their table so we could sit down to eat.

[deladane]

According to our debarkation paperwork, FTTF was supposed to meet at the casino on midship deck 4 at 9:15am if you had left your checked luggage outside the cabin last night.  We finished breakfast at 8:40am, but we didn’t want to hog the table, so we figured we’d just go down to the casino and hang out there until it was our turn to get off the ship.  We went over to the mid-ship elevators, but the touchscreen wouldn’t let us select deck 4.  After trying for a while, we gave up and decided to go down to deck 5 to see if we could figure out what was happening.  Jason left me and Ian with our carry on bags and went to investigate.  From what he could tell, there were definitely people down on deck 4, but neither the forward nor the midship elevators were letting us select deck 4.  By this time, it was 9:10am and he could see people on deck 4 were getting off the ship, so we took Ian out of the stroller and took turns carrying all of our stuff down the stairs to deck 4.  There were 2 ladies in motorized scooters who were very frustrated that the elevators weren’t allowing you to get off on deck 4.  Obviously they eventually got it sorted out because it’s not like Carnival would trap them on the ship forever, but we were curious how long it took for them to allow you to select deck 4 on the elevator touchscreens.

 

Once we were down on deck 4, we joined the line of people walking off the ship.  It started from the mid-ship casino entrance, went all the way down the hall to the aft of the ship near the comedy club, then it went out the door onto the outside deck below the lifeboats, and back up to near the midship elevators.  It was a loooong line and a really far distance to walk with all our bags, but at least the line did keep moving forward, albeit very slowly.   At one point, the line split into 2 lines and they told us to keep right because we had a stroller.  The weird thing was, once we bing bonged our sign and sail cards for the last time and stepped onto the bridge, the lines became one line again to walk across the bridge into the terminal building.  I’m still not really sure why they separated us into a separate line, but oh well, at least we were officially off the ship. 

 

Once we were back in the terminal, we had to walk down the long zig zagging ramp (so there was no need for an elevator with our stroller).  Again, they split us into 2 lines, with passports to the left, and birth certificates to the right.  Since Ian only had a birth certificate, they told us to take that line and they could process our passports with him.  That meant we could fly down the ramp and bypass everyone else in the passport line.  Not that I would recommend traveling with a birth certificate just so you can cut the line, but that definitely did get us down the ramp faster.

 

At the base of the ramp, we went into an open warehouse to find our luggage.  Ours was right there in front and very easy to find as we entered the room.  We knew we needed a porter because there was no way we could manage 2 large suitcases, 2 carry on bags, a pack n play, a car seat, 2 backpacks, a diaper bag, and a stroller with just the two of us.  Once again, I got the feeling that it was everyone’s first day of work and no one knew what they were doing.  We could see a few porters at the far side of the warehouse, but we couldn’t get to them because there was a barricade set up around the checked luggage.  I caught someone’s eye and he said I had to speak to this other guy because he’s in charge.  Ooookay.  The guy in charge said we had to wait for the porters to get cleared by customs.  Shouldn’t that be something they take care of before passengers start debarking and entering the warehouse?  And then once they did get clearance, the porters couldn’t get to us with their dollies because the barricades were blocking them!  It was just so disorganized and really felt like none of these guys had ever done this before, when I know that can’t really be the case.

 

Once we finally got a porter, he piled all of our stuff onto his dolly and we went to the far exit to have our documents checked.  Again, this saved us some time because we were the only ones down at that exit whereas everyone else went to the passports exit.  It took us less than a minute for the lady to look at Ian’s birth certificate and Jason and my passports, and then we were on our way outside to the ride share pick up location.  The porter unloaded our stuff, we gave him a tip to thank him for his help, and our cruise was officially over.  The timestamp on this photo is 9:41am, so it took us just half an hour from the time we joined the line to start leaving the ship to the time we were outside the cruise terminal.  Not too bad at all!