Spaniel Lover

The next day, with the ship docked in Anacortes, I went on a boat excursion exploring the area near the north side of Whidbey Island.

This is the Deception Pass Bridge that links Whidbey Island to the mainland of Washington.
I like the photo because it really captures how beautiful the scenery was in this area.

Another very scenic place the ship visited was Port Angeles, Washington.
You can see the Olympic Mountains in the distance of this shot.

With a big telephoto lens mounted on my Canon DSLR camera, I got this more detailed view of the mountains...

At the conclusion of our bus tour of Seattle, we were dropped off at the ship...  at the marina in Ballard, on the north side of Seattle.

Once everyone was aboard, the ship sailed north to our first destination of Anacortes, Washington.  There were a lot of interesting views along the way, and my favorite of all was this lighthouse...

Here's an aerial photo I shot of American Constellation once she was docked in Anacortes...

American Cruise Lines recently invited me aboard American Constellation to shoot photos and videos for them during a 7-day Puget Sound cruise.  I'm a professional photographer/videographer, as well as a licensed commercial drone pilot.  I thought I would share some of the photos & videos with the ACL fans here on Cruise Critic.  Hopefully, someday, some of the photos that I'm showing you here on this page will appear in brochures and other promotional material for American Cruise Lines.

This was my 57th cruise overall, but most of those have been on big cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers.  A cruise on a small ship like this (there were only 100 passengers aboard the week I sailed) is very different.  You get to know your fellow passengers much better, since there are only a small number of them.  Once you find someone you enjoy chatting with, you tend to share a table with them at meal times and get to know them much better than you typically do with passengers on the mega cruise ships.  It's a more social cruise than my big-ship cruises have been.

The other huge difference with a cruise like this is that it's not about the ship...  it's about the places the ship takes you to, and which you get to explore.  This cruise took me to several different small towns in the Puget Sound area that I'm sure I never would have visited if not for the ship taking me there.

An aerial shot I took of American Constellation as we approached Poulsbo, Washington.
You can see the Olympic Mountains in the distance.

The cruise began in Seattle, Washington.  American Cruise Lines flew me in to Seattle the day before the cruise began, and put me up in a nice high-rise hotel for the night.  This gave me a few hours to head down to Seattle's waterfront and get some aerial video and photos of the Seattle skyline from my drone.

There are very strict rules for drone pilots about where you can and cannot fly your drone.  The city of Seattle has specific rules that forbid launching a drone from any public property, including parks, walkways, streets, etc.  That means that you really have to launch from private property.  The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates airplane and drone pilots, forbids flying drones over people.  So, to stay legal, I launched my drone from the end of pier 56, and flew it over the water to get this next shot of the Seattle Great Wheel, the skyline, and (in the distance, on the left) the Space Needle.

There were about 50 of us who were staying in the hotel the night before the cruise.  This is part of what ACL calls the pre-cruise package, which includes a nice breakfast in the hotel the morning of the cruise, and a bus tour of Seattle as we made our way from the hotel to where the ship was docked.  During the bus tour, the bus stopped at Dr. Jose Rizal Park, which sits on a hillside with a fantastic view of Seattle.  This was one of several photo opportunities during the bus ride on the way to the ship.  I was able to get this photo:

Just to be clear, that was not a shot from my drone.  I shot that with my Canon camera from a viewing location in the park, overlooking the city.  Another stop during our bus tour was Seattle Center, the home of the Space Needle.  Because this entire area is city property, I could not launch the drone from here for an aerial shot of the Space Needle...  not to mention the fact that the area is crawling with people, and you can't legally fly a drone over people.  So, I had to settle for a shot of the Space Needle from the ground, looking up.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time during our bus tour for us to actually go up to the top of the Space Needle...  but that was okay, since I actually have visited Seattle before and been up to the top of the Space Needle.  If you've got a lot of time to kill and would like to watch a 33-minute long travelogue I made about that previous trip, click here.

One of the most interesting aspects of my recent cruise with Viking was that Viking's Chairman and CEO happened to be aboard the ship, and I got to talk to him.  He's very friendly and willing to talk to passengers.  You'd expect that he might be reclusive or be surrounded by handlers that kept people away from him, but no.

I saw him many times onboard the ship...  in the World Café, getting his haircut in the salon, and even just in the hallway near my cabin.  You'd think he'd stay in The Owner's Suite when he is aboard, but actually he was just down the hall from me in a Junior Suite.

A highlight of the cruise just may have been when I sat next to him at a cocktail party...  or perhaps the even more in-depth conversation we had the next day when I ran in to him again and had about ten minutes with him one-on-one.  It was a really interesting conversation!

Take a look at this video with the full story...
 

1 hour ago, famof4togo said:

OK this is a new one to me...what are the "magic buttons" ??????  TIA

Take a look at the video in the very first post in this thread...  it shows what the magic buttons are all about.

1 hour ago, mumofsons said:

We were on the Panorama the last week of February.  In the words of DH - it was not in our top 5 cruises.

If you ever do a cruise without the kids, you might try one of the Vista-class ships again...  but stay in a Havana Cabana.  You would probably have an entirely different appreciation for the ship.

12 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Coke has never been sold on Panorama. The ship launched with Pepsi products. 

I think you're right about this.  My memory was faulty on that issue.  Now that I've thought about it more, I'm starting to remember that Panorama was going to debut just shortly before all the rest of the fleet was scheduled to pivot to Pepsi...  so, they just went with Pepsi on Panorama from the start.

 I didn't have the drink package on my 2020 cruise, so I wasn't drinking much...  and that's probably why I had forgotten that there was Pepsi on the ship in 2020.  I was thinking back to all my previous Carnival cruises where the ships had Coke products.  Thanks for setting me straight!

1 hour ago, LincolnLog said:

We’re boarding the Panorama in 5 days and your videos are one of the things that convinced us to book it. I will be eating some Trash Can Nachos in your honor next week 😆

Excellent!  Also, if you ever go to Las Vegas, check out Guy's restaurant there...  where they serve a much larger version of the Trash Can Nachos.

A very interesting aspect of my recent cruise on Carnival Panorama was to see all the things that had changed since the last time we sailed on her.  It had been two years.  We did a cruise on Carnival Panorama in January of 2020, just before the pandemic shut down cruising.  (Side note:  I came home from that cruise with "the flu".  I think it may have been Covid, before my doctor even understood or had a way to diagnose Covid.)

Anyway, for the last two years I've been craving Guy Fieri food and waiting for the day we could sail on Carnival Panorama again.  The day finally came for us last month.  It was really interesting to be back onboard and to see all the things that had changed since the last time we sailed on her.  Pepsi instead of Coca Cola!  Candy straws!  No access to the bow viewing area on deck five!  No magic buttons for bar service on the Havana sun deck!  I actually counted more than a dozen things that were different since the last time we were aboard.

So, I thought I'd make a video about it, and show you all the changes that I noticed.  Have a look..
 

I think it's really unfortunate that, for your return to Carnival after a long absence, you didn't choose a Vista-class ship or Mardi Gras.  You chose an old ship.  Yes, parts have been revitalized, but it's still an old ship at heart.

My very strong advice for anyone who hasn't sailed on Carnival in a very long time (or ever) is to book a cruise on a Vista-class ship in a Havana Cabana...  and you'll be seeing Carnival at her best.  If you don't like a cruise in a Havana Cabana on the Vista class, at least you've experienced the best of the new Carnival...  and you can safely move on to some other cruise line instead, knowing that you gave Carnival a fair shot at impressing you.

But to judge Carnival based on Carnival Sunshine...  you just haven't given Carnival a fair shot.

The Carnival Spirit is actually a surprisingly good cruise ship.  I sailed on her quite a few times back in the days when she was homeported in Los Angeles.

First off, I think she's got one of the best Serenity Retreats in the entire fleet.  On so many Carnival ships, the Serenity Retreat is up at the front of the ship, on the top deck, completely exposed to wind.  On Carnival Spirit, she is at the back of the ship, and because of the design of things back there, things are much less windy back there.  Also, the Serenity Retreat has a swimming pool...  which most don't.

Carnival Spirit also has several other swimming pools, one of which has a glass dome that can open or close depending on the weather.  So, if you have a rainy day, they close the glass dome, and the pool area is still a delightful place to relax.

I don't know if it's still this way, but back in the days when I sailed on Carnival Spirit, there was this delightful little lounge one level below the main theater.  These days, it's the Punchliner comedy club, and maybe they remodeled it when it became the Punchliner...  but back when I was aboard it had the most unique and whimsical interior design.  There were dioramas built in to the walls on the left and right side of the lounge.  It's hard to describe, but a picture is worth a thousand words...

I don't know if it's still that way or if the lounge has been remodeled now that it's the Punchliner...  but I always got a kick out of those unique walls when I was aboard.  Also, the acoustics in that room are amazing...  it was always a great place for a band to play.  I don't know if they ever do that now.  It might be for comedy only these days.

Also, the Carnival Spirit happens to have the best waterslide in the entire Carnival fleet...  the Green Thunder Waterslide.

The downside of sailing on an older ship like Carnival Spirit is that the cabins will lack the amenities you find on some of the newer ships...  like electrical outlets by the bed, or USB charging.  But I think you'll find a lot to like about Carnival Spirit.

If you are curious about even more specific information on Carnival Spirit, have a look at a web page I made about the several cruises I did on her.  Just keep in mind that those cruises were quite some time ago, so a few things may have changed...  but I bet a lot is still the same.

When I first started cruising, I just couldn't figure out why people used travel agents to book a cruise when you could do it all yourself without having to explain to anyone what you wanted.  I always booked my cruises directly with the cruise line.

Later, I made a complete change of mind.  Now I always book cruises through a travel agent.  The reason is that the more I cruised, the more I realized that unexpected things happen and sometimes you need to reach the cruise line to change something or to fix a mess.  It's never easy to reach the cruise line, and I hate sitting on hold with them for so long.  I'd much rather explain to my travel agent what I need, and let the travel agent get it done.  I love getting an email from my travel agent saying that she's taken care of everything for me.

My friends at American Cruise Lines have made artist's renderings and computer-generated animations available to me so that I could make a video about Project Blue, their next generation of ships.  It's really interesting to have visuals that show exactly how these ships will be different from the current fleet.

If you have nine minutes to sit down and watch a video, I think you'll find this new video very interesting.

You can see it here on YouTube, or just watch it here:
  

I'm really happy to see that you knew to book a Havana cabana.  So many people that book a cruise on Carnival Panorama don't even know about the Havana area...  and then they get onboard and see it, with a pool and two hot tubs, completely un-crowded, and are so disappointed to find out that they can't get in to it because they didn't book a cabin in the Havana area.  Booking a Havana Cabana like you did is definitely the way to go.

Also, I'm equally happy to see that you took the excursion to Las Caletas beach.  That's another thing that if people only knew about it, they would definitely go.  It's one of my favorite shore excursions anywhere in the world...  and I've been on over 50 cruises.

We are so fortunate to have Carnival Panorama based in California so that those of us that live on the west coast can experience one of the best cruise ships in the world without having to fly to Florida.

On 12/11/2021 at 7:39 PM, ShelleyQT said:

@dggoddess61 we will be on the ship with you!  I really hope we aren't expected to wear masks!

 

Going without a mask in an indoor space with a bunch of other people, during a global pandemic, when there's a new variant of the virus that spreads much more easily...   regardless of your vaccination status, you might want to think that one through a little more.

19 hours ago, CastellanoCruiser said:

Actually we will be on American Harmony starting August 4 in Clarkston. Guess I can't read my calendar! 😁

I'll be right there with you on that same cruise.  I'll be shooting a LOT of video all week...  so, if you see some guy with a video camera or flying a drone, it might just be me.

Yeah, I got that today too.  Luckily, my county offers a really easy (and free) drive through Covid test.  So, I've scheduled one for tomorrow morning.

I thought you might enjoy seeing a few videos of several ACL ships on the Columbia River in Southeastern Washington.  I live in Pasco, one of the Tri Cities of Richland/Kennewick/Pasco...  and Richland is one of the stops for ACL ships on the Columbia River.  So, it's a fun sight when I spot one on the river, and I enjoy putting my drone up in the air to get a nice aerial view of the ship.

In this first video, you'll see American Harmony going under the Tri Cities' iconic Cable Bridge...  a structure that was way ahead of its time when it was built back in 1978.  It was the first cable-stayed bridge ever built in the United States!

In this next video, you'll see American Pride working her way up the river towards the Tri Cities...

And finally, American Harmony and American Song docked together in Richland
and then heading down river to the Cable Bridge...

I'll be onboard American Harmony next week for my very first cruise with ACL, so you can expect to see more videos from me after I get back from that cruise.

- Jim Zim

a.k.a. Spaniel Lover

I've posted a second video from our Iceland trip on Viking Sky.  This one is a scenic video with no talking...  just a bunch of beautiful waterfalls and some nice music playing along with it.

Take a look at it here:

On 7/20/2021 at 7:05 AM, Jammy Bun said:

He and several other YouTubers and agents were aboard (at Viking's expense) according to the disclosure in his previous video.  So maybe more footage will appear soon on Youtube!

The three other YouTube channels to keep an eye on in the coming weeks for video from Viking Sky are:

Popular Cruising

EatSleepCruise

Cruise Fever

I had a fun time talking to them!  By the way, I will have three or four more videos from that cruise.  I'll most likely be posting one new one to my channel each Monday for the next few weeks.

There were also journalists aboard from several print publications, including Porthole magazine.  Cruise Critic also had a writer aboard.

- Jim Zim

4 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Jim

I just found out this morning (when your YouTube showed up) that you were aboard our ship. Wish I had of known as I would have loved to meet you and say thanks in person for all the information you have shared over the years.  

I'm not surprised that you didn't see me aboard, as I was wearing a disguise so that I wouldn't be recognized.  I was dressed as a Viking so that I would just blend in.

Ha ha ha...  just kidding, of course!  Sorry we didn't run in to each other.

Jim Zim

If you take a look at this video and go to the 1:30 point of the video, you'll see my advice for re-arranging the chair layout in a Deluxe Verandah cabin to make it a bit better than Viking's standard arrangement.

I've put together a video about my recent Iceland cruise on Viking Sky...
A cruise where one of the other passengers tested positive for Covid about half way through the voyage, and the Iceland Coast Guard wouldn't let the ship visit any further ports of call.  It was a really interesting experience, and I even managed to capture the audio of the first couple of ship-wide PA announcements that were made when they decided to let everyone know about the Covid case onboard.

I was really impressed with Viking’s approach to detecting and preventing Covid onboard.  It seems like a far superior strategy than many of the other cruise lines are employing.  It was also quite impressive to see the way the positive Covid case was handled during our cruise.  The fact that Viking was able to quarantine the one infected passenger and prevent the virus from spreading to others...  it's proof that Viking's strategy is sound.  It seems to me that it's just a matter of time before Covid makes its way on to ships of other cruise lines, and I doubt some of those other lines will be as successful as Viking was at preventing an outbreak.  Viking has a far more robust strategy for detecting Covid and prevent it from spreading than some of the other cruise lines do.  All of this and more is shown and explained in my video.  Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

This is the first of what will probably be four videos I'll do about my experiences in Iceland during our cruise on Viking Sky...  but this one will be the only one that deals with the Covid situation aboard.  The videos still to come will be about the things we saw and did in Iceland, and the many things I loved about our cruise.

This was the 52nd cruise we've done since 1996, and the furthest we've ever traveled from home...  we crossed seven time zones to get from our home in Washington state to the embarkation city of Reykjavik.  We were jet lagged for about the first four days we were there!  The interesting thing about crossing that many times zones is what happened when we did it in the westbound direction on the way home after the cruise.  We had a 7 hour and 44 minute flight that took off at 6:01 PM Iceland time and thanks to those seven time zones we crossed, we arrived in Seattle at 6:45 PM.  In other words, the clock only advanced 44 minutes in a nearly 8 hour flight!

Speaking of the flight home, the views out the window were incredible when we flew over Greenland!  At a distance, as we were approaching the coast, I saw a bunch of little specks in the water, and at first I couldn't quite figure out what they were.  As we got closer, I realized they were icebergs!  It was the first time I had ever seen icebergs in person.

Once the plane actually crossed the Greenland coastline, the views got even more amazing.  There were multiple glaciers visible, as well as a bay full of icebergs!

Of course, the views in Iceland (during the cruise) were great, too!  I especially loved all the waterfalls.

I'll have some pretty spectacular video to share of all the sights in the coming weeks.
For now, please enjoy my video about our brush with Covid-19 and the brilliant way Viking kept it from becoming an outbreak.
Click here to watch the video on YouTube.
 

- Jim Zim (aka "Spaniel Lover")

I never tried any of the pizza onboard.  I get lots of pizza in my normal life, so I rarely eat it on a cruise ship.  Cruise ship pizza tends to be in the traditional Italian style, which is not really the way I like it.  I'm a California boy, who has grown up eating the pizza in California...  and it's not the way they make it in Italy.  Cruise ship pizza doesn't do it for me.  I like a thicker crust and a lot more toppings than what they serve on cruise ships.  I bet I would have a great time trying out pizza places in New York or Chicago...  and I look forward to discovering the best pizza places in my new home in Washington state after our move there next Fall...  but cruise ship pizza has always been a disappointment for me.

3 hours ago, willsears94 said:

If you have time to answer, what is your next cruise? We will be following along on YouTube regardless. Thank you for all you do!

We'll be on Carnival Panorama in January, in a Havana Suite.  Same ports of call as the cruise on the Joy, but Carnival spent millions on upgrading their terminal in Long Beach...  so the boarding process should be a lot smoother!  I'm looking forward to Guy's Burger Joint and the Pig & Anchor for a week...  and never having to make a reservation for a show.  Oh, and the huge shower in the Havana Suite!  There should be some videos on my YouTube channel by the end of January, and if you're in the "Jim Zim On YouTube" Facebook group, there will be occasional real-time updates during the cruise.