fligster

Here are 2 videos I took from the Carnival Mardi Gras on May 4 as the Disney Fantasy was leaving Port Canaveral.

Short - Musical Horns

Leaving Port Canaveral

I recently upgraded from a Deluxe Inside to an Aqua Class after final Payment. It wasn't an issue and I got the price I expected. The agent did say he had to get his supervisors "permission" or needed his supervisor to do something since it was after final payment. He couldn't just do it on his own.

2 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

 

 

Thanks for the videos!

 

On your walk to the beach video: When you got along that back half, right after you said  that it was a long walk, do you remember how long it took you to get there?

 

Also, in the beginning, you were walking along the water, then it looked like you went outside that area (where you are by the surf boards in the circle) and then ended up back by the water again. Can you not walk along the water the entire way? Or is this the way to get out?

I had done a "walk" on my apple watch on the way back. It was about 1.75 miles and took about 47 minutes walking slowly. We were slower than normal as my wife wore the wrong shoes to be walking 3.5 miles or so total (roundtrip).

You can stay by the water the entire time. When you get off the tender, after you walk down that dock you have the option to go left, straight or right. We had gone straight to see what was there and ended up "outside" the immediate port area and circled around to come back into the port area by the Surf Boards and be in the port and by the water. If you turn right at the end of the pier from the tender you will stay next to the water and come to the surfboards that way. You would turn right again before the surfboards to walk by the water towards the town. Follow the arrows below to get to the same surfboard spot but by walking by the water. I believe there is also a boat you can pay and take from the pier to get to near the beach rather than walking.

Here is a link to the playlist on Youtube for the 13 videos I made during our Carnival Panorama Mexican Riviera Cruise. 

Here's a video fro a different Mexican Riviera cruise of another visit to Cabo.

9 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

Were you able to debark before the masses?  Or did you get hung up in them?

We happened to just be walking down to the lounge when they made the announcement, so we just kept walking to the gangway  and we’re maybe one of the first 15 off the ship. I will have a debarkation video as well as other videos from the cruise on our youtube channel. 
 

https://youtube.com/TravelWithFligster

In the end, FTTF didn’t matter for debarkation. We were supposed to go to lounge at 7:15 for self express debarkation, but they ended up calling open self debarkation for all at 7:05.

Just received information about debarkation for faster to the fun. 

The priority line at guest services has the FTTF logo on it.

Our room wasn’t  ready at 1:30 but I saw others with FTTF were ready. We got our luggage around 2:00 pm, but not sure if that was any earlier cause there was a lot of luggage being delivered then. Also my AirTag showed my bag was on the dock until 1:30 or so even though checked it in at 9:45

They have a special seating section roped off for FTTF. There is a carnival person letting people in. Just a separate area, nothing special regular benches etc, but right outside captains lounge and boarding doors.

Going on radiance today out of Long Beach . Had 10:00-10:30 appointment time. They have a separate faster to the fun checkin priority line. Arrived around 9:40 all checked in by 9:50. She mentioned that rooms would be ready when board so we can drop our stuff off.

We did the Panorama out of long beach in October and got a 10:00 checkin time. I am not platinum and  did online checkin when it opened which was 9 pm the night before since checkin time based on Midnight Eastern time and we are in pacific.

4 hours ago, asalligo said:

Remember, check in time is Midnight the day your check in opens. You can usually snag a 10am check in time if you are awake at Midnight to grab it. As soon as check in opens, just jump right to check in time, then go back and fill out the rest. 

 

Midnight Eastern Time, not local time. So, if you are in different Time zone, you don't have to stay up as late. 

2 hours ago, asalligo said:

I also just checked in for our nearest cruise and snagged the 10am check in time. Seems like FTTF is a waste at this point, but my wife would like to keep it for immediate room access upon boarding to drop off luggage if nothing else. Sure seems like a high price for just dropping off luggage and boarding the ship 10 minutes faster. I will try to catalog the benefit usage in my head on this cruise at least for next time. 

Yea, last month in Long Beach we had a 10:00 arrival time as well, but boarding zone A05. So looks like we will board 5-10 minutes earlier .... Our is only 3 day cruise so was like $50 and we had $500 OBC to use, so will just see what other benefit it will be this cruise. 

I had purchased FTTF for our 12/19 Radiance sailing. I had to select an arrival appointment (got 10:00-10:30) and my Boarding Zone says "FTTF" on my boarding pass. I did the online checking at right at Midnight ET on 12/5 (On west coast so only 9:00 PM on 12/4 for me). 

On 11/17/2022 at 8:45 PM, cruisinqt said:

For both my Horizon cruise in February  and my Mardi Gras cruise in July we started boarding at 11:00. I think they’ve been getting people off the ship early and boarding earlier than noon for a good while now. Though one guy on the boards here swears he tipped his cabin steward and was allowed to hang out on his balcony till 11:00. I’m happy to hear that they’re boarding earlier though because we’re Platinum and have the 10:00-10:30 slot for our Panorama cruise next week. Hopefully I’ll be sipping a cocktail on the Lido before 11:00 this time. 

October 22, 2022 boarding started at 11:20. We had A05 and started boarding at 11:22 and were on the ship at 11:39. I will be posting our embarkation video on our Youtube channel in the next few days.

https://youtube.com/TravelWithFligster

10 hours ago, neongoddess said:

Where are these secret decks? I will be on this ship in a few days.

Deck 7 and 6 all the way forward. 

I was $60 for our December 19th  3 day cruise. I figured I would buy it since we have $500 OBC to use and I could use that to pay for it. 

Ship - Panorama

Deck - 7

Stateroom # - 7295

Stateroom Category – 8C

Starboard or Port Side - Starboard

Quiet Stateroom? (With comments on problems) – This cabin was very quiet, we didn't hear noise from adjacent cabins or the deck above.

Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No

Balcony View - Good View, no obstructions. Deck 5 is further out from Deck 7 so you can't look directly down to the ocean.

Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - Normal. 2 Small chairs and a little side table.

Was wind a problem? - No

If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? - N/A

Any specific problems with this cabin? - No, everything worked fine.

For a walkthrough of this cabin, please see our Youtube video below.

1 minute ago, KarmaCruisers said:

Fligster! Haven’t seen you post on VMB lately so I had wondered what you were up to..cruising now 😛 (I’m Timspeed over on VMB)

debark is ALWAYS a nightmare in LBC..I’ve always just chalked it up to California idiotic people.

Hey,

I recognize the VMB handle. We moved to Vegas (Henderson) 3 years ago and haven’t been on VMB  much lately. Used to do live  trip reports and such but since moved here that doesn’t make sense 😀. Ironically,  I actually gamble less now, usually just play live poker. We had always been cruisers but this was first cruise since Pandemic.

I’ll have to get back and checkout what’s going on at VMB these days.

Here is a short review of the major areas of our cruise. We will have many (15+) videos on our YouTube channel so please subscribe and enable notifications so you don’t miss any. I will list some at the end.

Http://YouTube.com/TravelWithFligster

Embarkation

The worst part was the drive in. We had 10:00-10:30 check in and got to the port area around 9:50. The line was jammed getting into the port. It took us a good 25 minutes to go the last .10 mile to the parking garage. We were able to find a spot that just opened on the first floor but there seemed to be plenty of parking.

The line to checkin was a short 5-10 minute wait and then security was quick. We didn’t have to wait too long to Board, exact times will be in our Embarkation video.

Dining

The food in the dining room was just ok. We ate there a few nights. The cold soup appetizers never disappoint.

We love Guys Burgers and Blue Iguana. Guys BBQ was ok, but it is BBQ on a ship so I’ll take it. The pizza was really good. We had this a few times.

The buffet was much smaller than other ships and there weren’t that many choices for each meal. This was a disappointment to  us.

We didn't go to any speciality restaurants.

Service

All the crew we interacted with were very friendly and helpful. Our room steward was good but they do only clean the room once per day now. You select morning or evening.  The service at the dining room for dinner was hit or miss depending on what table you got. We had my time dining and only had to wait no more than a few minutes for a table. You check in on the app and they tell you when your table is ready. This worked well.  Except for the dining room service one night and cleaning the room once per day we didn’t notice any issues due to staffing. We always saw crew cleaning and our used plates when done eating either in the buffet or out on deck were removed very quickly every time.

Entertainment / Activities

We attended and participated in The Showdown and that was fun. The Love and Marriage game was good as well. We did lots of trivia. The pumpkin search for Halloween was fun but very difficult. We did the carnival kitchen pasta making class which was really fun. They didn’t give any information about where to go and times until the Morning of which was strange. Also the letter said you would eat your creation at dinner but that wasn’t true, we ate it right after making it.

Overall there is an abundance of activities available. We also did some dive-in movies and bingo.

Ports

In Cabo, we did camel riding which was a great excursion and worth it.

In Mazatlan, we stayed on the ship. The port area is very industrial, lots of cars and vans waiting to be shipped out by ship or rail.

In Puerto Vallarta we did the tile painting and art tour which was ok but could of been better. The real issue was the van used and the ride. The video explains this.

Shops

We don’t really shop on a cruise except for cruise line souvenirs. They had 2 small shops with carnival merchandise. Not really a selection of T-shirt’s and other typical souvenirs. Even the t-shirt sale didn’t have 2xl shirts. I would have liked more carnival souvenir merchandise.

Safety/cleanliness

Masks were optional for all. There were more crew wearing masks than cruisers. I only saw a handful of cruisers wearing masks. Crew were cleaning constantly which was good. There was no requirement to wash or sanitize your hands before entering the buffet or any restaurant although they provided hand washing and sanitizer stations. The buffet was self serve.

Debarkation

This was a mess and the worst debarkation we have experienced.  We did express where you carry your own luggage off. It seemed like most of the ship did this. The flow they had was bad as you had all these people coming down stairs going through the hall with people coming out of elevators and a jam of people merging into one line. Lots of people were confused and tried to go with express when they had put their luggage out. Also some people were at the luggage area in the terminal getting bags even tough they left with express.  And it seemed like not everyone waited for their muster station to be called and they weren’t checking your muster station at the exit.  The actual immigration part was simple and quick. The video will show the crowd of people in line. We pulled into port around 7:00, using express debarkation we were in our car at 9:30.

Overall

We of course had a great time especially for the price paid.

We will have 15+ videos on our YouTube channel so please check that out and subscribe so you don’t miss any. I will also be on a 3 day Carnival Radiance cruise in December and will have videos from that cruise as well.  We also have previous cruise Videos as well as other travel videos, including many Las Vegas room and pool walkthroughs.

Http://YouTube.com/TravelWithFligster

Videos will be released at least weekly possibly more frequent (I need to edit them all) so enable notifications so you will know when a new video is uploaded. My videos are concise and to the point, I like to provide information and not a lot of fluff or filler.

Some of the videos include:

• Embarkation Process
• Hotel Maya Room walkthrough (hotel at port)
• Balcony Cabin Walkthrough
• Buffet walkthrough
• Cabo Camel Excursion
• Puerto Vallarta Art Excursion
• Ship Tour
• Hub App walkthrough
• Puerto Vallarta Docking
• Self serve Laundry
• Debarkation Process

Please let me know if you have any questions about the Panorama or our cruise, and I will try my best to answer them. 

The text when you select Carnival cruise is not correct, still has information about requirements from August 4 but I just did it yesterday for 10/22/22 cruise and it changed to "Ready to sail" after uploading digital covid cert. So it seems like the programming is up to date, but the description of what is needed, isn't. 

10 minutes ago, Rulers Mom said:

Carohs,  I just checked my Chase Amazon - where do you find it?  I checked Travel, Gift Cards...thank you in advance!

 

You need to check under "Chase Offers".

2 hours ago, jiimmy2k said:

What was the cost for this excursion? 

I think it was around $130 per person.

We went on the River Tubing and Blue Hole excursion while stopped in Jamaica on the Harmony of the Seas.  Overall this was a fun excursion, although since we docked in Falmouth, it was a very long bus ride, at least 1 hour 40 minutes each way. We are not the most fit, but were ok on this excursion. There are some slippery and rocky parts you need to walk on at Blue Hole. The river tubing was easy, I was worried about getting in the tube, but they are very sturdy and large tubes and they hold it for you to get in. I would recommend, especially if you are docked closer and the ride isn't as long.