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

[deladane]

1 hour ago, mitsugirly said:

I'm here to tell ya...they will continue to have phases as the grow up as well. So don't sigh any relief once he starts smiling again for pictures. 😄 When Sakari got around (guessing) 12 or 13 her phase was sticking her tongue out in EVERY picture! I hated it. She's in the phase now of smiling (smirk) without showing teeth. I have to catch her in a laugh to get an actual teeth smile like I like. Ugh!

 

Oye, something tells me Ian will give me the sticking out his tongue phase at some point too.  Don't these kids know their mothers love taking photos and want their kids to look their best?!  

 

 

1 hour ago, mitsugirly said:

OH EM GEE! I love that first photo (and some others you did) that captured that ray of light in them! LOVE LOVE LOVE

 

The seals on the rocks 🦭 is making my heart melt! Something we've never seen or done before...oh I'm building the excitement now!

 

Aww, thanks!!  So did you book the cruise yet??  I want to know when it becomes official!  

 

And a note about my photos... I just got to the part in your review when you mentioned you switched to using your phone for photos instead of your camera.  I did too!  All of the photos from my entire cruise were taken on my iPhone, except for a few photos at the all inclusive in Mazatlan because we were at the pool and I didn't want to risk dropping the phone.  My TG5 stayed in the cabin the entire rest of the cruise and I didn't miss it at all.  You're right that it was so nice not having to charge the batteries and schlep the bulky camera in addition to my phone, when I was going to take my phone everywhere anyway.  I think the phone takes photos just as good as the camera, if not better because it has live mode which I need for every photo with Ian 🤣

[deladane]

1 hour ago, edspec said:

This.  I wear a not smart watch on these cruises and set it to ship's time and my i phone gives me local time.  

 

I actually planned to wear my old waterproof cheap watch that I used to wear on all my prior cruises, but when I took it out of the drawer, the battery was dead.  I'll have to remember to buy a new one before we take another cruise because that really does make things simpler. 

[deladane]

As we were walking back to the tender dock, we spotted a restaurant with a good happy hour deal- $5.50 USD for Corona/Pacifico/Dos Equis and a shot of tequila.  After the day we were having, we needed a drink!  There was only one other occupied table when we arrived, but it filled in shortly after that.  We had a great view of the marina and all the people walking along the path, so it made for a fun pit stop before returning to the ship. 

 

 

 

 

I can’t remember the last time I took a shot of tequila, but when in Mexico… #YOLO  

 

 

We were enjoying ourselves and the great people-watching, so we decided to order a second round.  This was certainly better pricing than we’d get for drinks on the ship!  4 beers and 4 shots of tequila cost us $22 plus tip.  Can’t beat that!

 

When we finished our drinks, it was a quick walk back to the tender pier.  There was a big tour boat already filling up to bring passengers back to the ship.  We got on and quickly found seats for the short ride across the bay.

 

 

[deladane]

We were back on board by 3pm, so our first stop was to go back to the cabin for Ian’s nap.  This little guy was waiting for us on our bed… I think it’s a ram? 

 

 

Jason decided to take a nap too, so I left them there and went to find something else to do around the ship.  We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and surprisingly I wasn’t hungry, but I thought it was smart to eat a little something.  The Lido buffet was totally closed so I went to the Pizzeria del Capitano, and there was no line at all!  Score!  I asked the guys if they were open and they were, so I ordered the Funghi and they made it fresh for me in just a few minutes.  Hot and fresh from the oven, it was very yummy!

 

 

 

As I ate, I admired the beautiful view of the sun setting behind the hills.

 

 

 

A few people enjoying the Tides Pool, with the sun illuminating the Princess ship behind us:

 

 

Perfect weather in Cabo!

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

I went up to the padded chairs on deck 11 overlooking the pool to take some notes for this review.

 

 

The sun dipped behind the hills at 4:45pm, so I took that as my cue to go back to the cabin and wake up the boys and get ready for dinner.

 

 

 

It is so rare to see ports on a cruise at night, but since we didn’t sail away until 7pm, and the sun set so early with it only being the first week in January, we had a stunning view of Cabo from our balcony!

 

 

 

[deladane]

We arrived at our dinner table right at 5:30pm, and it took until 5:50pm for Raf to take our order.  In an effort to help speed things along, Jason asked Raf to bring all of our appetizers to the table at the same time, and then all our entrees at the same time.  We have done this on prior cruises and it works well for us.  Plus, that way if we don’t like one of the dishes for whatever reason, we already have our other dish sitting on the table, ready to eat.  No need to flag Raf down to ask for the next dish sooner than he planned.

 

 

 

 

For my appetizers, I ordered the stuffed mushrooms and the linguine with clams.  The mushrooms were always one of my favorite appetizers from the old dinner menus.  They used to serve them in the round tin with 6 little circles, which doubled as the tin to serve escargot.  Now that escargot is no longer served, I guess they got rid of those tins.  Instead, the mushrooms were just served on a plate, and there were only 4 of them instead of 6.  This cutback didn’t really bother me though because I usually end up ordering more food than I can eat at dinner, and if I did want more mushrooms, I could have ordered a second plate.

 

 

The appetizer portion of the linguine with clams was perfect.  I really like that the entree pasta dish is always listed as a smaller portion in the appetizer menu.  

 

 

I ordered the chicken parmigiana for my entree.  I wish it was served with a side of spaghetti with marinara sauce, but at least I got the linguine appetizer to satisfy my pasta craving.  The chicken was served hot and tasted delicious.

 

 

I ordered my first melting chocolate cake of the cruise as my dessert.  As much as I like my steaks served rare, I like my melting cake served well done and cooked all the way through.  I find that they are either served barely cooked with a warm liquid under the top cooked layer, or they are fully cooked through, and there’s no way to know what you got until you dip your spoon into the dish.  Luckily, my dessert tonight was served exactly how I like it!

 

 

[deladane]

We finished dinner at 7pm and took Ian up to Camp Ocean.  We made sure to give a thorough goodbye with our usual routine from daycare drop off, and that did the trick.  Ian ran into the play room and was very excited.  We called an hour later to check on him and they said he was happy and playing, so mission accomplished!   We took advantage of a child-free evening and went to the 7:30pm show in Liquid Lounge.  It was a Motown solo act singer named Ron Mitchell.  We arrived at the theater literally 3 minutes before showtime and there were still plenty of seats available. 

 

 

He was a decent singer but the show was so awkward because he didn’t have back up singers or dancers or anything so it was just him on stage with a backing track.  It felt like it was missing something, and we thought it was under-produced and had so much potential to be a better show.  We do enjoy listening to Motown music, so at least we liked that part of it.

 

 

After that, we went back to the Limelight Lounge for the Punchliner Comedy Club.  We got there at 8:15pm and it was almost full already for the 9pm adult show.  That was surprising because the Fun Times said the doors didn’t even open until 8:30pm, but when we arrived 15 minutes early, the doors were open so we just walked in and found a seat and no one stopped us. 

 

 

We tried to flag down a bar waitress for a while and couldn’t get her attention.  I found it so weird that there isn’t a bar in there!  Jason went over to the sports bar next door to get us some drinks.  I’m not sure what he had, probably some kind of martini, but I got my favorite Carnival drink: the Funship Special.  

 

 

There are no regular plastic straws on the ship.  Instead, they serve edible straws with a lime flavoring.  Since I tend to prefer fruity drinks, this wasn’t an issue (although I could definitely taste the sour lime flavor, the drink was sweet enough to overpower the lime) but I would imagine the lime didn’t mix well with a chocolate or coffee flavored drink.  John Heald actually just addressed the topic of straws this week.  I knew they made the switch away from plastic straws to protect the wildlife in the oceans, and he confirmed that reasoning.  He suggested people can bring reusable stainless steel straws if they don’t like the lime flavoring, but I can’t imagine most people would want to deal with washing their straws while on vacation.

 

The 9pm comedy show was rated R-18+ and featured JC Coccoli.  She was by far the funniest comedian I have ever seen on a cruise ship.  Yes, her act was a bit dirty, but that’s to be expected in an 18+ show.  She came across as very professional, with a great set of prepared material, while also thinking on her feet to react to comments from the audience.  And to anyone reading this who may have seen her show, I will never think of spaghetti and meatballs the same way again!  Spagoot!

 

 

Right after the show, we went upstairs to get Ian from camp before the 10pm cut off when they start to charge.  On the way back to the cabin, Jason found a rubber ducky hiding behind a pillar on the ship so he gave it to Ian and he was thrilled.  (Look up “Cruising Ducks” if you don’t know what I am referring to)  Ian kept referring to it as “my ducky” and he played with it for the rest of the cruise.

 

 

Ian was so happy and riled up from playing that it took an hour to get him to fall asleep, but that was ok because he was so happy and having a great time on his first cruise vacation.  He kept sticking his head out from the blackout curtains like it was a game.  Silly boy!

 

 

Even though Cabo and La Paz are in the same time zone, we didn’t change our clocks last night because of New Year’s Eve.  That meant we spent all day in Cabo with ship time being one hour behind local time.  Tonight, we did have to change our clocks so we lost an hour of sleep heading into tomorrow in La Paz, but that’s no biggie because we didn’t have anything specific planned anyway.

 

Up next: La Paz, Mexico

[mitsugirly]

What side of the ship are you on when you are passing the Arch?

 

What do you get when you get a soda? Do they give you lime straws for that too?

[deladane]

21 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

What side of the ship are you on when you are passing the Arch?

 

What do you get when you get a soda? Do they give you lime straws for that too?

 

When passing the Arch, we were on the port side of the ship.  Those photos between breakfast and tendering were all taken on deck 11, right above where we ate breakfast at Blue Iguana.

 

I know how you are about soda, but I just have one can a day at home.  We carried on a 12-pack to share in case either of us wanted soda during the cruise, and we took 8 cans home at the end of the week lol So needless to say, I never bought a soda on the ship and I can't answer for sure, but maybe someone else know?  My guess is that they give you a cup without a straw, and if you ask for a straw, you get a lime one.  There are no plastic straws on the ship.

[KarmaCruisers]

43 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

What side of the ship are you on when you are passing the Arch?

 

What do you get when you get a soda? Do they give you lime straws for that too?

Who uses a straw to drink out of can?

If you get a glass of soda; no straw comes with it, so you’d need to request one (and tell them which flavor straw you want)

personally we take a 100-pack of plastic straws with us onboard. Eff those crummy edible straws that melt.

[TrqoisWtrs]

On 1/9/2024 at 1:42 PM, deladane said:

I would like to formally introduce to Cruise Critic the newest member of our family, our 2 and a half year old son, Ian.

I remember you and your hubby!  Welcome back and Ian is a cutie!  Looking forward to reading your review. 😊

[mitsugirly]

3 hours ago, KarmaCruisers said:

Who uses a straw to drink out of can?

If you get a glass of soda; no straw comes with it, so you’d need to request one (and tell them which flavor straw you want)

personally we take a 100-pack of plastic straws with us onboard. Eff those crummy edible straws that melt.

we always buy the soda package, so unless things have changed and they now give you cans instead of a glass, we like a straw. They have different flavors as well?

[deladane]

17 hours ago, cruisin*tigger said:

I remember you and your hubby!  Welcome back and Ian is a cutie!  Looking forward to reading your review. 😊

 

Thank you!  So glad to have you back again to follow along!

[deladane]

15 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

we always buy the soda package, so unless things have changed and they now give you cans instead of a glass, we like a straw. They have different flavors as well?

 

I only ever saw the lime flavor.  Maybe they have other more popular flavors that they only give out upon request?  Does anyone else know?

[deladane]

Tuesday, January 2 | La Paz, Mexico | 8:00am to 5:00pm

 

Back when I was researching daily excursions, I decided to start my research with the smallest, least touristy port, and move on from there.  That was La Paz, and no surprise, it proved to be the most challenging port to pick an excursion.  The port itself is industrial and there isn’t anything to do in that immediate area.  Most cruise passengers go to the center of town where they can walk along the Malecon, go to a restaurant, or shop in some of the touristy shops.  I’m not really a fan of shopping for trinkets that will just gather dust on a shelf once we get home (and Ian gets bored quickly when we put him in the stroller to go shopping at home), so while this was a possibility, it was not my first choice of what to do that day.  

 

There are 2 popular beaches located about 15 minutes north of the cruise port.  They looked very pretty, but also very remote.  I was unsure about the idea of spending the day at the beach, especially one with few resources.  I was not sure if there was any natural shade, or a place to rent an umbrella and some lounge chairs.  When we go to the pool at our community center, Ian is content for about an hour and then he’s ready to go home.  It seemed like a lot of effort to go to the beach if he was only going to tolerate it for an hour and then want to leave. This was still a possibility on my list, but not the ideal choice.

 

Another very popular activity in La Paz is swimming with whale sharks and/or sea lions.  Pre-child, there is no doubt in my mind that this is how Jason and I would have opted to spend our day.  La Paz is one of the top places in the world to swim with whale sharks, and this seemed like an incredible bucket-list opportunity.  The problem was that this would definitely not be a toddler-friendly excursion.  It would involve riding on a small boat out into the Sea of Cortez, and spending several hours on that boat.  My past experience with similar tours was that everyone jumps in the water together, so who would be left on the boat to watch Ian?  And even if Jason and I could somehow take turns going in the water, it still seemed unsafe to take a toddler on a small boat in the open water.  We spent a lot of time debating back and forth on if we should leave Ian in Camp Ocean while we left the ship to do this excursion.  There are some tours which last the whole day and include swimming with both whale sharks and sea lions, then having lunch somewhere, then going to the beach, and we would be gone for 7+ hours.  We knew we couldn’t do a tour like that, but we thought it would be possible to pick a shorter 2-3 hour tour in the morning.  Ian has been going to daycare full time Monday through Friday for 10 hours a day since he was 6 months old.  He loves daycare and always has so much fun (based on the reports from his teachers and from all the photos they upload into the school app), but we had no way to know in advance how he would react to camp on the cruise with all new kids and counselors and a new environment he wasn’t used to.  Unfortunately, swimming with whale sharks would have to wait for another time, but it wasn’t in the cards for this cruise.

 

Every few weeks through the fall, I did another search online for things to do in La Paz, hoping to see something new.  In the end, I really couldn’t find anything specific that would work for us, so we decided to do something we almost never do and have no plans for the day.  We would find our way to the downtown area, walk along the Malecon, and see where the day took us.  The biggest question was how exactly would we get downtown?  La Paz is not a very common cruise port for Carnival, so there was basically no information about it on Cruise Critic.  Some Princess itineraries go there, and I was able to find out that Princess offered their passengers a free shuttle bus to get downtown, but I had no idea if Carnival would make the same arrangements for us.  Princess is owned by Carnival Corporation so I kept my fingers crossed that they would handle things similarly for us.  Planning to have no plan kind of gives me anxiety with all the unknowns, but worst case scenario, we would just cut the day short and go back to the ship, or just never get off the ship at all that day.

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

Last night, Nino left us a paper with details about the complimentary shuttle bus to transport passengers from the ship to the beach and/or to downtown La Paz.  I was so relieved to get this information because it made it possible for us to get downtown.  Whew!

 

 

 

With no specific plans for the day, I didn’t set an alarm and figured we could sleep in until our toddler alarm woke us up.  After going to sleep so late last night, I really hoped Ian would sleep in, but nope!  He had other plans and woke up at 7:30am today, so he only got 8 hours of sleep instead of the 12 hours he gets at home.  

 

From the balcony, it looked like a beautiful morning in La Paz.

 

 

 

 

 

We all got dressed and went to Lido for Blue Iguana burritos and arepas. Even Ian loved the arepas!

 

 

[deladane]

Since we weren’t in any rush, I left the boys at our breakfast table and went up to deck 11 where I could take some photos of the port without windows blocking the view.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there is a whole lot of nothing nearby the port.  This is definitely not a place where you can get off the ship and just walk around on your own.  Thank goodness for those complimentary shuttles to take us somewhere with something to do!  We finished up with breakfast, then got off the ship at 10am.

 

 

[john91498]

Interesting, the Bonsai sushi went up to $26. It was $23 when we were on back in September.

 

You review is bringing back fond memories of that cruise 🥰

[riktishaw]

Thanks so much for this review. As an over preparer- I’m loving all the detail. La Paz planning was stressing me out since I’m traveling with a 10 year old boy and a legally blind elderly family member and this helps gauge what they might be able to do. 

[deladane]

2 hours ago, john91498 said:

Interesting, the Bonsai sushi went up to $26. It was $23 when we were on back in September.

 

You review is bringing back fond memories of that cruise 🥰

 

I have never ordered the MDR sushi before, or any cruise ship sushi for that matter.  I enjoy it at home, but I never think to get it on the ship 🤷‍♀️

 

So glad you are enjoying the review! 

[deladane]

2 hours ago, riktishaw said:

Thanks so much for this review. As an over preparer- I’m loving all the detail. La Paz planning was stressing me out since I’m traveling with a 10 year old boy and a legally blind elderly family member and this helps gauge what they might be able to do. 

 

More details about La Paz coming soon!  We really enjoyed our low key day there.  I'm so glad you find my review helpful for your planning!  Let me know if you have any questions 😄

[KarmaCruisers]

I’m real interested to see your next couple posts..how Ian handles the incredibly long line to come BACK to the ship from downtown (we as adults were barely handling it)

[pinto18]

We are going in a few weeks. My husband really wanted to swim with the whale sharks but thinks the water might be too cold to really enjoy it. Did you happen to stick your feet int the water? Was it brrrrrr?

[deladane]

16 minutes ago, KarmaCruisers said:

I’m real interested to see your next couple posts..how Ian handles the incredibly long line to come BACK to the ship from downtown (we as adults were barely handling it)

 

Ian was sitting in his stroller with a baggie of prepackaged snacks... he was the most comfortable person in that line! 🤣

[deladane]

15 minutes ago, pinto18 said:

We are going in a few weeks. My husband really wanted to swim with the whale sharks but thinks the water might be too cold to really enjoy it. Did you happen to stick your feet int the water? Was it brrrrrr?

 

Nope!  But considering the best season for seeing whale sharks is in the winter, maybe the tour companies have wet suits you can use??