Carnival Panorama 10/22/22-10/29/22 REVIEW

[fligster]

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. 

 

 

[KarmaCruisers]

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.

[fligster]

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.