JMKreno

Visit LA multiple times a year, sometimes driving (usually if we visit multiple theme parks/sightsee) or drive if flying/have a specific purpose in the area. I budget 3x what I actually expect to get anywhere when we need to drive somewhere. The Friday before actually is pretty mild for how we normally travel - just last time on our trip in March when we drove down for Disneyland/Universal we used our first free day to do the following: 1) Amoeba and Hollywood area (Amoeba is a must hit for my daughter on every visit) 2) Bookstore in downtown LA 3) LAX plane spotting 4) Watched the ships sail out of San Pedro 5) Dinner at Downtown Disney On our other day off we did America's Got Talent taping, another bookstore in north hollywood, and some light shoppigg in the morning. We're the type of people who get to Disneyland and Universal an hour+ before rope drop and then leave when the parks close. A studio tour and amoeba is a light day for us and we might even squeeze in a TMZ star tour if time permits (kids have always wanted to go - even if they don't see any celebrities)

Hyatt is not taking points that weekend in Long Beach and as of right now the selection of hotels in San Pedro is almost non-existent. Burbank will work well with our pre-cruise plans and I'll give ample time on embarkation morning to get to the pier. I won't pay $400/night for the Maya when I can just stay further away in the LA metro and pay to get a ride for much cheaper. I try to get to the LB pier around 930 am. Often we are among the first in line and with platinum we are usually let in soon after.

The smart elevators on the Panorama worked well when the people using them used them correctly. We understood this from day 1 to select the number in our party. Lots of people never figured it out in 7 days ("Good cruise but why would anyone build an elevator with no buttons?!" - last night of the cruise going up to lido from deck 2). I blame this partially on Carnival but also on people just being dumb honestly. Maybe it's just me but if something is different about an experience I've done so many times (riding an elevator) and this particular instance was different (no buttons in the elevator) I would instinctually tell myself that I maybe need to figure out how this works vs others. Some people just go numb and don't think. I give a pass for 2-3 days and blame Carnival for the lack of signage on how the elevators work (they need WAY more signage above by elevators - we only found signs in the heaviest traffic areas explaining the elevators) but after that I put the blame on personal responsibility.

We booked the Burbank flight on Thursday night for 14000 points which was a steal IMHO. We are going to stay in Glendale Thursday night (Hyatt free with points) and likely rent a car and go to Hollywood (Amoeba Music) and do the Warner Bros Studio tour. Then likely head south to San Pedro in the afternoon, drop off the rental in San Pedro and stay in that area since the Long Beach Marathon is that weekend (we'll avoid Long Beach city). Then uber to pier in the AM early (again, avoiding Long Beach proper). Will figure out the flights back! There are more options but the flights to BUR were well timed and super good value.

Need cruisers opinion. Family of 4 cruising on the Carnival Firenze in October out of Long Beach. There is a fare sale today with Southwest where I can get flights into Burbank on Thursday night (leave on Saturday) for only 14000 points + fees for 4 people (I can cover with existing points a small transfer from my Chase points). I would then book 2 nights at a Hyatt using my chase points (no hotel cost) in DTLA. The cost to shuttle between BUR, the hotel, and then hotel to pier, and then back to Burbank is just over $205 right now through Prime Time shuttle for 4 in a van (perfect size). The flight back from Burbank is at 345pm which seems perfect and would only cost about $300 with credits I have with SW. Flying into LAX or LGB are right around $1100 for 4 plus I still need to book a room and shuttle (though cheaper) and the times out are much later (6pm). My total cost using Burbank would be around $600 with fees with 2 nights of hotel and about 30k chase points (I have 70k at the moment). I am very familiar with the LA area and know Burbank is the furthest airport but time is something we have ample of to save a decent chunk of change. What is everyone's opinion of this?

Added argument for an excel class ship in LA, Royal is expanding in LA by adding the Quantum of the Seas. https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/03/royal-caribbean-quantums-los-angeles-program-includes-44-departures/ I imagine the Panorama will move EAST and be replaced with the Excel class to compete with the Quantum and Firenze to compete with the Navigator. I really doubt this will happen but one can hope. I mean, it would honestly make sense on the West Coast - that is the port that they use to get that large west coast market exposed to cruising Carnival and an Excel Class would be a hell of an introduction!

We are seasoned cruisers and cruise out of Long Beach many times (our last 4 cruises have been to PV/Cabo/Mazatlan/Enenada/Catalina). We would love for an EXCEL class ship on the West Coast. At this point we go for the ship/cruise not the destinations. We have the Firenze planned for October of this year. That said, 2026-2028 is going to be a VERY big year for Southern California with the World Cup in NA in 2026, Super Bowl in 2027, and then the LA Olympics in 2028, there is going to be a lot of visibility to the region. Might make sense to ride the "wave" of publicity in the region. Who knows?

Your opinion very much mirrors our thoughts on the Oasis. The ship was AMAZING - nothing on Carnival compares. Central Park is probably my favorite place on any ship. Tons of amenities. That said, we had issues. 1) Seeing the ocean is next to impossible from most locations - I cruise so I can see water 2) for a ship of it's size the amount of "included" food was incredibly disappointing. El Loco fresh doesn't hold a candle to Blue Iguana and often was bland, overcooked, or sat too long under the heating lamp - never fresh. For 7 days I couldn't get a good burger anywhere - the buffet burger was a puck and I wasn't paying $10 for a burger at Johnny Rockets. When the buffet closed, it CLOSED. You couldn't go in at all, we love sitting in Lido on Carnival during non-meal times since there's tons of seating for games, etc. But not only that, Breakfast ended at 1130 or so, buffet closed and then the ONLY restaurant open was Cafe Promenade with just 3 sandwiches to pick from (all yuck) a couple salads, or cookies or Sorrento's. Even Central Park cafe "closed" to transition to lunch. So there was a period of 30 minutes there was almost no food. Evenings were worse! Between 3 and 6 there was almost no food! Buffet was closed, El Loco Fresh closed, Central Park Cafe close and once again back to Cafe Promenade or Sorrento's for the same options we head earlier. The deli on Carnival has a number of sandwiches, most premade but you can customize them if you want, the sandwiches on Royal were pre-made with no options to change. Royal REALLY pushes you to "buy" better food - our family palette is fairly simple - meat & potatoes type people. We've been comped free dinners at specialty restaurants and honestly were never so blown away that we felt they were "worth" visiting again. We ate at Giovanni's Table and honestly didn't find it any better than Macaroni Grill - and it was a free dinner and would have been disappointed to pay for it. To be fair, we also did "Cucina Del Capitano" on Carnival and had the same feeling - just not worth it to us. We don't eat stake, my wife is a vegatarian, and my kids would live on Chinese food if they could. Carnival winds hands-down. Disney wasn't any better - their casual options were even more limited - mostly to pool deck food that wasn't nearly as good as Carnival pool deck food. Sure, the dining room was better, but mostly due to the "rotational dining" and the theming/entertainment aspect. We still enjoyed Carnival food more. We just aren't that "sophisticated" Would we go on Royal again? Yes, but for the right price. Disney? Maybe not, but again, for the right price we would. We may try NCL some day, but the same thing seems to be that they "push" for specialty dining since they encourage you to get the dining package during booking. Also, add to that, my wife and I don't drink wine or much else (maybe a margarita, pina colada, or daiquiri now and then). For us, Carnival still works and will likely keep getting our money MOST OFTEN as long as they remain affordable. As for my kids? They are 8 and 16, and they still love Carnival even after the Oasis and Disney...we're even booked on the Venezia sister, Firenze in October. The area above the pool deck looks really nice, since we love Bocce Ball you'll likely fund us there most of the week!

Unfortunately we booked without our usual PVP. The rates were good (and now gone) for the cabins we wanted over the weekend and our PVP wasn't available. With the new rules, since we booked ourselves, the PVP can't assist.

Thought I saw something about this on the forums, but I can't find it. One of our cruising companions apparently created multiple VIFP accounts and carnival.com login is linked to the incorrect account (does not have her previous cruises nor any of her casino offers). We know her correct VIFP number from her last cruise. Is there a way to have carnival combine these accounts? She booked another cruise with the correct VIFP number (linked to our reservation) but we cannot manage it through her account. They aren't the most tech savvy and not sure they'll be able to resolve this themselves if we have them call in. Email would be an easier option but I cannot find an email where we can contact someone directly. Any guidance appreciated!

Our cost was roughly $60ish for a LyftXL (4 passengers & 4 big bags). Getting from LAX to Long Beach was no issue, but we had a hell of a time getting a Lyft or Uber back to LAX when we disembarked. We are even priority Lyft members and we ended up taking the free passport into Long Beach and grabbing a Lyft from town, seems drivers were avoiding the terminal for some reason. We took the Passport bus from our hotel to the ship the morning of our cruise since it was free and NO ONE was on it.

We live in NV and gamble occasionally and only gamble a little bit on ships, but apparently enough to get pretty good cruise offers. My wife likes the Wheel of Fortune climber and the Night Edition as well as the Firecracker game. One of our things is to find games where wilds go active on the 10th game and look through denoms to see if people have gotten the wild counts high but never finished the 10 spins and then finish them out, almost always pays out. However, this is a funny video for those who think they really have a leg up on casinos:

My mother in law is on a short cruise on the Navigator of the Seas from LA this weekend. Her and my father-in-law said they were going to see "A Man Called Otto" in the theater on-board but Royal wanted to charge them $11.99 each? I checked to verify if she meant her room, and she said no they were going to the theater? I was not aware of any other places to watch movies on-board besides the room or the pool deck. And on top of that, if that is actually something, do they really charge $11.99 for movies that are already out on streaming? I am going crazy trying to figure that out (there is more to that story than this, but this one confused me in particular). Is this something I was not aware of? I told them to save the $24 and watch it at home since it's already streaming lol Any idea?! Please tell me that she was just confused and this was for the in-room movies. Thank you!

Great photos! Did the Radiance last year and was pleasantly surprised at how good the 4-day actually was. We also saw TONS of dolphins, more than any other cruise. A pod followed us at night as well and there had to be dozens jumping, splashing, etc for hours the last evening of our cruise. Do you have a picture of the Royal ship? That is the Navigator of the Seas and my in-laws are aboard and would be cool to get a shot of their ship if you have one! Thanks in advance!

If that's the case, then I am a happy camper! Are we sure of this? I guess when I check-in it should show us as Priority? I assume they would also get to join me in the Platinum lounge in Long Beach? I DEFINITELY will get my $25 in the casino and the $5 arcade credit for my kids!