Panorama August 3-10 Mini Review

[PaddleAddict]

We just got off the Panorama today and I wanted to do a mini review because I feel like there aren’t a ton of reviews of this ship and itinerary (Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas). 
 

A little background, our traveling party was myself (turned 47 on this cruise), my husband (51) and our two boys ages 5 and 9. My husband and I are experienced cruisers but took a long break after having kids. We did a three-day to Ensenada on RCCL two years ago to get the kids’ feet wet, but that was right after covid and things were weird, so this was our kids’ first “real” cruise experience. 
 

We live about an hour away from port and after reading reports of the parking mess at the port we had a friend drive us and drop us off at the Queen Mary. That was PERFECT as we walked to waiting area in less than 5 minutes and completely avoided the VERY long line of cars waiting to drop bags off at the ship. 
 

We dropped out bags off with the porters and here is where I had a pretty serious panic attack as I almost was unable to board the ship with my family. When I pulled out our luggage tags my birth certificate somehow flew out in the wind and disappeared. I did not see this happen, we just couldn’t find it when I got all of our paperwork out. 
 

I was in tears as I walked all over looking for it and some wonderful staff helped and by the grace of god some wonderful passenger had found my birth certificate and turned it in so with just about a 20-minute delay we were back in business and I could stop crying and get ready for some fun. I was so relieved I hugged the woman who brought my birth certificate to me and led us inside. WHEW, what a start to the trip!!  

[PaddleAddict]

After the birth certificate fiasco was resolved, the embarkation process was very quick! They have embarkation down great. Debarkation is another story, but more about that later. 
 

Once on the ship we went to our cabins, which were ready. We were in balcony cabin 7441 and inside cabin 7443 across the hall. We booked two cabins to have more space but interestingly this was not much more expensive than cramming all four of us into a balcony cabin. Note that 7441 is a connecting cabin (we did not know this), which means you can clearly hear your neighbors doing everything through that connecting door, including things you’d rather not hear … at 3 in the morning. 🙈 Duly noted that we will try to avoid booking cabins that connect in the future. 
 

The ship is absolutely gorgeous and I was so surprised having not sailed Carnival for more than 10 years that Panorama’s decor is so beautiful and subdued. We loved it! All the activities were great for our young family: mini golf, ping pong, foosball, slides, splash pad, pools, and ropes course. Camp Ocean kids club was amazing and our boys loved it. They went every day at least once a day and sometimes twice. Skyzone was awesome and my older son did two glow

parties. 
 

Overall, I have few complaints about the ship. One thing I noticed is the common areas are not evenly air conditioned. Some places are super hot, other are very

comfortable. It was very noticeable in the extremely hot weather down south. Upper decks got crazy hot. One other things was it was so hard to find the bathrooms! It’s like they are the hidden Bathrooms of Requirement (if you know Harry Potter, ha ha). I couldn’t find them without the ship map.
 

I did not personally enjoy the “club” vibe going on at the main pool at sail away and on most days. Really loud, club-type music, lots and lots of drinking, it was so packed … it wasn’t great for our kids. We mostly hung out at the aft pool, which was very mellow and relaxing with a great bar, great view, two hot tubs, pizza … all you need for a great time! 

 

P.S. I’ve never seen so much vomit on a cruise ship, not sure if it was bad luck or what. Especially on port days, everywhere I turned I was smelling and seeing vomit or they are cleaning vomit, holy cow. Maybe this is a Mexico thing? Tequila? Who knows! 

[PaddleAddict]

This review will jump around a bit. First up, food! I know it’s very subjective but we were satisfied with the food on the ship. My least favorite place to eat was the buffet. It’s crowded and hard to maneuver and I hate touching all the same serving utensils as the rest of the ship (the hand washing stations were nice to have though). I also just didn’t really enjoy the food in the buffet and the selection was SO much smaller than cruises past. I was shocked at how little variety was available. Breakfast was especially dismal for me … I wish they had more ingredients to choose from the omelette bar.

 

The fast casual places were excellent: pizza and Guy’s burgers were our favorite and the deli was great for hot dogs and grilled cheese for the kids (I loved the tomato mozzarella sandwich there for myself). It’s nice to have quick, easy, tasty food available almost all the time. Only complaint here is these places are so understaffed, especially during off mealtimes when they are the only places open. The lines got so long. I felt bad for the staff who had to work so hard. 
 

We ate in the main dining room twice, for both elegant nights, and we enjoyed the food and service. My kids loved the escargots, calamari, filet mignon, prime rib and lobster. The portions are so much smaller than in the past but that doesn’t bother me at all as I eat less (ha!), but you can of course ask for more. My kids each ate two servings of escargots. 
 

We also ate brunch twice in the main dining room. I would have loved to eat here every morning but the kids were always dying for food and couldn’t wait and I got out voted. Sigh. 
 

On two night, the husband and I ate at Ji Ji and the steakhouse alone while the kids went to the kids club. Both were absolutely outstanding and I wish we would have eaten at Ji Ji twice because there were so many items I would have loved to try. We had duck, jade shrimp, Singapore chile shrimp,

king pao chicken, fried rice and Hakka noodles. All authentic and amazing and so much food!!! Ahhhh bring me back! 

 

 

 

 

 

At the steakhouse my husband had oysters, spinach salad, and surf and turf.  I had stuffed mushrooms (insanely good!), mushroom risotto and grilled lamb chops. Service, ambiance, food were excellent! They have a good wine list in here, we ordered a nice bottle. 

 

 

 

[PaddleAddict]

Next up, ports of call. Day one was my favorite day, Puerto Vallarta. We booked Carnival’s tour, the Majahuitas Beach Cove tour. It was completely magical, a perfect day. 
 

 

I wrote a detailed review here: 

Next was Mazatlan. Since it was so hot I wanted the kids in the water. I booked a resort day through Carnival again. We went to El Cid Marina Beach Hotel and it was perfect! Our kids swam for four hours straight, jumping off the waterfall and swimming in the caves. They loved the iguanas roaming all over. The resort was small but very clean and relaxing. Staff were wonderful. Food was so so, but adequate. We were very pleased with this experience!
 

 

Day three was Cabo San Lucas. We planned to find a boat on the pier to take us to the arches but my older son was feeling under the weather so we stayed on the ship. It was actually really nice with low crowds and the pretty views of Cabo. My younger son did the slides and splash pad all afternoon while my husband and I relaxed. We even got to see the arches as we sailed away.

Edited August 11 by PaddleAddict

[daveo6313]

Thanks for taking the time to post this review.  I am really enjoying reading along.  

[momof3cruisers]

Sounds like a lovely trip. Hope your son recovered quickly! 

[PaddleAddict]

6 hours ago, daveo6313 said:

Thanks for taking the time to post this review.  I am really enjoying reading along.  

Thank you so much! It’s fun to go over the great memories again! 

[PaddleAddict]

27 minutes ago, momof3cruisers said:

Sounds like a lovely trip. Hope your son recovered quickly! 

Thank you! We had such a great time! My son did recover quickly. I think it was a combo of being overtired (too much fun) combined with a touch of seasickness as the seas were VERY rocky for the three port days. Most everyone was commenting on it, even the Carnival staff. 

[Earthworm Jim]

My daughter is on this week's Panorama cruise, and she said embarkation was delayed until 4:30 Saturday because the ship was late returning to port. Do you know what happened?

Edited August 12 by Earthworm Jim

[PaddleAddict]

29 minutes ago, Earthworm Jim said:

My daughter is on this week's Panorama cruise, and she said embarkation was delayed until 4:30 Saturday because the ship was late returning to port. Do you know what happened?

We docked two hours late on Saturday. Cruise director stated it was due to high winds that made navigation difficult. But then we were delayed much longer than two hours for debarkation and I have no idea why. My family was off the ship around noon and there were MANY more people waiting to get off. We were traveling with birth certificates and the line through customs was much shorter for us. The customs line for passengers traveling with passports was so incredibly long. We easily saved an hour, maybe two hours, simply because we were in the birth certificate line. 

[john91498]

I'm glad the drop off to the Queen Mary worked out for you. 😎

[PaddleAddict]

4 minutes ago, john91498 said:

I'm glad the drop off to the Queen Mary worked out for you. 😎

Yes! It was PERFECT. Our driver doubted me at first but once he saw the situation he was a believer! Ha ha ... He also picked us up there, very simple in and out! 

[john91498]

Yeah, I recommended this to a lot of folks including you. It's just a lot easier than dealing with the hellish drop off area of the parking structure.

[PaddleAddict]

Well I came down with covid yesterday, picked up on the ship. 😩  I wonder how many people got covid on this sailing with covid rates so high right now. Such a bummer but glad it happened after I got home and not on the ship. 

I wanted to comment more on the debarkation disaster that happened on our last day. I knew something was up when I woke up around 8am and realized the ship was still moving, which meant we hadn’t docked yet. Rainer the cruise director made an announcement that we were getting in late due to high winds. We docked two hours late.

 

After grabbing breakfast (which it was nearly impossible to find somewhere to sit), we headed down to our “relaxation area” around 9:15am as directed in the app. There we waited. And waited. And waited. Not one person got off the ship for the longest time. I didn’t keep track specifically but I think the first groups were called around 10 or 10:15am. We were called at 11:40am. 
 

Thank god we were traveling on birth certificates and not passports because passport line to go through customs started at the exit door of the ship and snaked all the way down through the cruise terminal. Our wait was much shorter. It took us about 20 minutes to get through. I estimate it took those in the passport line 60-90 minutes after exiting the ship to be cleared. It was insane. 
 

We got to our driver and car at noon so it took 3.5 hours after leaving our cabin to exit the ship. It was a complete nightmare with the kids as there was absolutely nothing to do but wait. I felt bad for those with flights to catch and I wonder what time the ship finally 

set sail that night. 

[PaddleAddict]

Final thoughts:

 

Carnival staff was excellent throughout the ship though it’s obvious they are understaffed and overworked. I felt for them even more than usual seeing how hard everyone had to work but I have zero complaints in service. 
 

The ship was lovely and had a great variety of things to do. It was very clean … I would see staff cleaning all the time. 
 

I wish the piano bar was open prior to 9pm as that meant we only had a short time to enjoy before we collected our kids for bed. The space is much too small. Every night was standing room only with people waiting outside. The piano player was outstanding.

 

The food in the dining room is not what it once was, but it was adequate for our needs. Fast causal food was great and the two speciality restaurants we tried were outstanding. 
 

The casino was fun but I do wish they had a non-smoking casino. We would probably spend more time in there if so, the smoke and the weird ozone air purifier they use to try to combat the smoke gets to you after a while. 
 

I would definitely recommend this cruise for families, but if you're ready to party hard you probably will love it even more. 😂

 

I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have if I can!

Edited August 14 by PaddleAddict

[PinaCarada]

Thank you for the review! I wish you a quick and speedy recovery from COVID. We were on this sailing with you, and we also had a blast. I'm hoping to have the time to write a quick review also, but we also experienced many of the same things (Ji Ji was excellent, Chris at the piano bar was amazing, our kids loved Camp Ocean, the ship is beautiful and incredibly clean, we received great service all over, etc.), but I didn't see a single drop of vomit the whole cruise 🤣 We also had consistently great food every night in the MDR, and I was impressed that the lunch buffet had many more options compared to the other ships we've sailed recently, like comfort foods on one side and a different ethnic theme on the other side, the fresh mozzarella bar, the empanada bar, and the gelato bar, in addition to the complimentary lunch offerings at Cucina and Ji Ji. 

 

We also had a very different experience with debarkation. We are platinum and did self-assist, so we were in the dining room with the other priority debarkers. They made a lot of microphone announcements to keep us updated, and started debarking diamonds at about 9:30. By 9:40, we were heading off the ship and through the non-existent passport line. We waited about 15 minutes for our elite transportation to pick us up from the parking structure and were still at LGB, through bags and security, and eating breakfast by 10:40. From what I hear from others (and you), we were INCREDIBLY lucky. 

 

 

[PaddleAddict]

14 hours ago, PinaCarada said:

Thank you for the review! I wish you a quick and speedy recovery from COVID. We were on this sailing with you, and we also had a blast. I'm hoping to have the time to write a quick review also, but we also experienced many of the same things (Ji Ji was excellent, Chris at the piano bar was amazing, our kids loved Camp Ocean, the ship is beautiful and incredibly clean, we received great service all over, etc.), but I didn't see a single drop of vomit the whole cruise 🤣 We also had consistently great food every night in the MDR, and I was impressed that the lunch buffet had many more options compared to the other ships we've sailed recently, like comfort foods on one side and a different ethnic theme on the other side, the fresh mozzarella bar, the empanada bar, and the gelato bar, in addition to the complimentary lunch offerings at Cucina and Ji Ji. 

 

We also had a very different experience with debarkation. We are platinum and did self-assist, so we were in the dining room with the other priority debarkers. They made a lot of microphone announcements to keep us updated, and started debarking diamonds at about 9:30. By 9:40, we were heading off the ship and through the non-existent passport line. We waited about 15 minutes for our elite transportation to pick us up from the parking structure and were still at LGB, through bags and security, and eating breakfast by 10:40. From what I hear from others (and you), we were INCREDIBLY lucky. 

 

 

Your debarkation experience sounds like a dream compared to ours! We need some more status on Carnival! 

[john91498]

5 minutes ago, PaddleAddict said:

Your debarkation experience sounds like a dream compared to ours! We need some more status on Carnival! 

 

You get the same perks if you get a suite 🙂

[pc_load_letter]

On 8/12/2024 at 9:30 AM, PaddleAddict said:

We docked two hours late on Saturday. Cruise director stated it was due to high winds that made navigation difficult. But then we were delayed much longer than two hours for debarkation and I have no idea why. My family was off the ship around noon and there were MANY more people waiting to get off. We were traveling with birth certificates and the line through customs was much shorter for us. The customs line for passengers traveling with passports was so incredibly long. We easily saved an hour, maybe two hours, simply because we were in the birth certificate line. 

 

There are three things guaranteed in life....death, taxes and Panorama will arrive at the dock late

 

Thanks for the review! On any Carnival ship, we generally always stay in the aft.

 

Sadly on Firenze, the main lido is a bust so Carnival now has DJs and music in aft making even the back of the ship unbearable. 

Edited August 14 by pc_load_letter

[PaddleAddict]

4 hours ago, john91498 said:

 

You get the same perks if you get a suite 🙂

This is good to know!

[PaddleAddict]

3 hours ago, pc_load_letter said:

 

There are three things guaranteed in life....death, taxes and Panorama will arrive at the dock late

 

Thanks for the review! On any Carnival ship, we generally always stay in the aft.

 

Sadly on Firenze, the main lido is a bust so Carnival now has DJs and music in aft making even the back of the ship unbearable. 

Thank you for sharing that info. I might have to write that particular ship off the list for us.

[Negril60]

Thank you for this review. I was just looking at this ship. I have cruised Carnival 6 times, but I prefer Princess. I sailed this ship in 2022. I loved the ship and thought is was beautiful. I really liked the itinerary . I may have to book it again.

[vanislandcruisers]

Thanks for sharing your Review...Enjoyed it!!!