deladane

Thanks for following along! I hope you have a wonderful cruise, and please come back to tell me how it went!!

I’m not sure why I didn’t think to leave out jackets or extra layers of clothing, but OMG! It was freezing outside!! We all were just wearing a thin long sleeve t-shirt, and that was not nearly warm enough. I considered searching for our sweatshirts, but I knew they were packed somewhere in one of the big checked bags, and I wasn’t even sure which one. I wasn’t going to open up and dig around both bags and right here on the sidewalk, and I figured we’d be in the car soon enough, so we just made do. Jason opened the Uber app on his phone and requested an Uber XL to take us back to his brother’s house where our car was parked. It stayed on the screen where it said it was looking for an available driver for 10 minutes, then it bopped us out to the home screen again. What?! So Jason requested the ride again. And again, after 10 minutes, it kicked us out of the request and sent us back to the home screen. We have never had this happen before, especially not in a major city, but apparently there either weren’t any XL drivers available at 10am on a Sunday morning, or none of them were willing to pick us up at the Long Beach cruise terminal. That was frustrating, so he tried Lyft. Same thing! After half an hour of trying and not getting anyone to accept our ride request, I took out my phone and tried too. Jason used Uber and I used Lyft, hoping that one of us would get a driver and then the other could just cancel the request. Finally, after 40 minutes, an Uber XL driver accepted Jason’s request. The problem was, he was still 20 minutes away! We knew it would be hard to find a different driver who was closer to the port, so we just went with it. We kept watching the car move along the map and get closer to the terminal, and watching the arrival time count down. Then, when the clock said our driver was 5 minutes away, everything came to a halt. Uh oh! Remember all of that traffic we had trying to get to the port to be dropped off for our cruise last week? Well the same thing was happening this morning! It was all so chaotic, as more and more people got off the ship and were crowding onto the narrow sidewalk, with nowhere else to go as we all waited for our rides who were stuck outside the port gates in traffic. At one point, Jason called our driver to ask if he wanted us to walk out to him in the line of traffic (not that I have any idea how Jason thought that was possible with all our stuff and just the two of us to manage it). The driver said he was dropping off a family who were going on today’s cruise so he didn’t have space for us and our bags in the car quite yet. At least we knew he wouldn’t make a U-turn and abandon us here! Finally, at 11:10am, our driver called us to say he was here! We had been standing outside on the sidewalk waiting for a ride for exactly an hour and a half. No joke, my feet and fingers were completely numb from being so cold! The only person who was happy was Ian, who was nice and warm, sitting in his stroller, snacking on graham crackers the entire time. Lucky boy! Anyway, the Uber driver said he was on the far side of the pick up area because that’s where they directed him to go when he arrived. That must have been just as frustrating for the passengers he dropped off as it was for us! So now, we had to figure out how to get all of our stuff across to his car, including crossing two lanes of cars. Jason ended up going back and forth, taking as much as he could manage on his own, and I just stayed with the pile of stuff and with Ian until the last load when we all went to the Uber together. Oye, this was definitely the worst drop off and pick up experience I have ever had for a cruise! The good news was that our Uber XL was a nice big minivan with plenty of space for all our bags. The driver was very patient as Jason installed Ian’s car seat, and soon enough, we were on the road to Jason’s brother’s house. By the time we got there 30 minutes later, it was noon. Considering we started the process to exit the ship with the elevator fiasco starting at 8:40am, it had been a looooong time since we had bathroom access! Good thing we could fix that problem at the house prior to starting our long drive back to Phoenix. We loaded all the luggage into Jason’s car, re-installed Ian’s car seat, and finally hit the road at 12:30pm, way later than we ever expected to start the 6-hour drive home. Luckily, there was no traffic and we managed to conserve gas enough to wait until the Costco in Palm Springs to stop and fill the tank and get something to eat for a late lunch. After that, we drove straight through until we finally pulled into our garage at 8pm (thanks to the one hour time change). So that’s all, folks! This cruise certainly had its ups and its downs, but overall it was a great first family vacation and hopefully we’ll get to cruise again one day soon. We don’t currently have anything booked or planned, and I’m okay with that for the time being. I’m sure a few months will pass, and I’ll start to get that itch to want to travel again. And when we do, you know I’ll be right back here to write up another detailed review upon our return!

According to our debarkation paperwork, FTTF was supposed to meet at the casino on midship deck 4 at 9:15am if you had left your checked luggage outside the cabin last night. We finished breakfast at 8:40am, but we didn’t want to hog the table, so we figured we’d just go down to the casino and hang out there until it was our turn to get off the ship. We went over to the mid-ship elevators, but the touchscreen wouldn’t let us select deck 4. After trying for a while, we gave up and decided to go down to deck 5 to see if we could figure out what was happening. Jason left me and Ian with our carry on bags and went to investigate. From what he could tell, there were definitely people down on deck 4, but neither the forward nor the midship elevators were letting us select deck 4. By this time, it was 9:10am and he could see people on deck 4 were getting off the ship, so we took Ian out of the stroller and took turns carrying all of our stuff down the stairs to deck 4. There were 2 ladies in motorized scooters who were very frustrated that the elevators weren’t allowing you to get off on deck 4. Obviously they eventually got it sorted out because it’s not like Carnival would trap them on the ship forever, but we were curious how long it took for them to allow you to select deck 4 on the elevator touchscreens. Once we were down on deck 4, we joined the line of people walking off the ship. It started from the mid-ship casino entrance, went all the way down the hall to the aft of the ship near the comedy club, then it went out the door onto the outside deck below the lifeboats, and back up to near the midship elevators. It was a loooong line and a really far distance to walk with all our bags, but at least the line did keep moving forward, albeit very slowly. At one point, the line split into 2 lines and they told us to keep right because we had a stroller. The weird thing was, once we bing bonged our sign and sail cards for the last time and stepped onto the bridge, the lines became one line again to walk across the bridge into the terminal building. I’m still not really sure why they separated us into a separate line, but oh well, at least we were officially off the ship. Once we were back in the terminal, we had to walk down the long zig zagging ramp (so there was no need for an elevator with our stroller). Again, they split us into 2 lines, with passports to the left, and birth certificates to the right. Since Ian only had a birth certificate, they told us to take that line and they could process our passports with him. That meant we could fly down the ramp and bypass everyone else in the passport line. Not that I would recommend traveling with a birth certificate just so you can cut the line, but that definitely did get us down the ramp faster. At the base of the ramp, we went into an open warehouse to find our luggage. Ours was right there in front and very easy to find as we entered the room. We knew we needed a porter because there was no way we could manage 2 large suitcases, 2 carry on bags, a pack n play, a car seat, 2 backpacks, a diaper bag, and a stroller with just the two of us. Once again, I got the feeling that it was everyone’s first day of work and no one knew what they were doing. We could see a few porters at the far side of the warehouse, but we couldn’t get to them because there was a barricade set up around the checked luggage. I caught someone’s eye and he said I had to speak to this other guy because he’s in charge. Ooookay. The guy in charge said we had to wait for the porters to get cleared by customs. Shouldn’t that be something they take care of before passengers start debarking and entering the warehouse? And then once they did get clearance, the porters couldn’t get to us with their dollies because the barricades were blocking them! It was just so disorganized and really felt like none of these guys had ever done this before, when I know that can’t really be the case. Once we finally got a porter, he piled all of our stuff onto his dolly and we went to the far exit to have our documents checked. Again, this saved us some time because we were the only ones down at that exit whereas everyone else went to the passports exit. It took us less than a minute for the lady to look at Ian’s birth certificate and Jason and my passports, and then we were on our way outside to the ride share pick up location. The porter unloaded our stuff, we gave him a tip to thank him for his help, and our cruise was officially over. The timestamp on this photo is 9:41am, so it took us just half an hour from the time we joined the line to start leaving the ship to the time we were outside the cruise terminal. Not too bad at all!

We had to leave the cabin by 8:30am so the steward could clean up for the new guests embarking today. We were done packing and ready to go by 7:45am, so we just decided to get an early start for the day. Getting an elevator to go up one deck to Lido proved to be rather challenging. By this point in the cruise, most people seemed to figure out how to operate the “smart” elevators, but I don’t think anyone realized that they needed to account for their luggage when typing in the number of people in their party. Several elevators were packed beyond their limits and it took a few minutes to get one with space for our party of 2 adults, one stroller containing a toddler, one carseat, 2 big backpacks, one diaper bag, and 2 rolling carry-on suitcases. We weren’t in a hurry or we would have considered just dragging all our stuff up the one flight of stairs. We wanted to have one last Blue Iguana burrito and an arepa for breakfast. Of course the line was long, but that was to be expected. Luckily, it went pretty fast because there were 2 guys working behind the counter. Finding a table proved to be another tricky task because people were just camping out at tables even after they finished eating. Fortunately, Jason spotted one couple getting up and he snagged their table so we could sit down to eat.

Sunday, January 7, 2024 ~ Debarkation So you know the 1.5L water bottles left in the cabin on embarkation day that they want you to buy? We bought a 12 pack of smaller bottles of water and had no use for the big bottles, so we put them on the top shelf next to the vanity mirror to keep it out of the way for the week. There were some rough seas coming into Long Beach this morning. At 6:35am we heard a loud crash! We jumped out of bed not knowing what happened. Jason panicked and ran over to the crib, thinking it somehow collapsed and Ian was hurt. Then we realized what actually happened… The bottles of water had rolled off the shelf and tumbled onto the vanity, and then down to the floor. Ugh! That was a very rude awakening! There was no chance any of us would fall back asleep after that, and we had to wake up soon after that anyway, so we just got up to get dressed and finish packing. I peeked out on the balcony to see a beautiful sunrise as we sailed into Long Beach. I really must say that the sunrises and sunsets on this cruise were so pretty! As excited as I was to see this dome last Saturday morning, I wasn’t nearly as thrilled to see it right now. The shipping container cranes welcomed us back to Long Beach.

Aww, thank you! 🥰 I got him a little toy cruise ship before the cruise so he would know what it was, and he still loves playing with it. Every time he catches me reading someone else's review with photos of a cruise ship, he comes running over to look at the pictures of a "crew sip!" so I think he's hooked!

That's a bummer! I would have loved to check out the Imax if they had it. The trampoline area was very popular and I saw a lot of older kids going there as it was right where the forward elevators opened on deck 7.

We set our clocks forward one hour on the night before La Paz so ship time matched port time. Funny enough, that probably won't happen on your cruise because your cruise is after we change our clocks for daylight savings time. They don't observe DST in Mexico (just like we don't observe it where I live in Arizona). Today, Cabo/La Paz is the same time as Arizona, but California is one hour behind us. After DST clocks change, California and Arizona will be on the same time, meaning California will also be on the same time as Cabo/La Paz so I don't think there is a need to change your clocks. Puerto Vallarta is currently one hour ahead of me in Arizona, so you might change your clocks the night before Puerto Vallarta on your cruise. I'm sure people on the sailing before you can clarify on how the captain handles it.

Thank you! I have never cruised on NCL, but I can say that I like how much there is to do on a Carnival cruise, especially at night with the comedy shows and piano bar in addition to whatever is happening in the big theater. And of course, they always have tons of things going on during the day so there's never time to be bored!

According to the Carnival website, they only start giving out the pins when you reach Gold. I think you can pick it up starting on the first day of the cruise, so maybe make a note to take care of it on embarkation day so you don't forget! And yes, for sea day brunch you had to make a reservation because they assign you a specific table. Maybe reservation isn't the right word... you just check in on the app when you are ready to eat. It's not like you need to tell them in advance that you want to eat at 10am or whatever time.

I had a busy weekend so I am just now getting a chance to read up on your posts. Thanks for writing up your review! You are doing a great job, as always! Looking forward to cruising along with you for the rest of this week!!

No, I've never tried it! Maybe it really is chicken disguised as frog legs?? 🤷‍♀️

Hahaha at that point, it's really more of a garnish! But actually, Ian probably ate it because he stole our broccoli pretty much every night. Of course, now that we've been home for a month, he is right back to not wanting to touch the broccoli, so I gotta wonder what Carnival does to make it so tasty 🤷‍♀️

We started to walk back towards the elevators to put our luggage outside the cabin, but then I remembered that I had to redeem my free drink for having Gold VIFP status. Every time I cruise with Carnival, this perk becomes less and less convenient. At first, they had a big party for us in the main theater with unlimited drinks, then they stopped throwing the party and just gave us a coupon that we could redeem for a free drink. Now they don’t even give you the coupon anymore! You just have to remember on your own that you can get a free drink on the last night of the cruise between 5 and 10pm. It’s like they are hoping you will forget about it and never redeem your free drink. Well they don’t know me that well because I will never pass up a chance for a free drink! Errands completed, we could now go back to the cabin to put our checked luggage outside. This was actually trickier than it has been on prior cruises. Usually, I just leave out pajamas, tomorrow’s clothing, and a few toiletries, and I only need a little space in my carry-on bag for what I’m wearing on the ship on the last night. This time around, I had to make sure there was enough space in our carry-on bags for Ian’s black out curtains, extra diapers, panda stuffie, pre-packaged snacks for the drive home, and a bunch of other stuff that we’ve never had to deal with before. Once that was all sorted out, we put the bags in the hallway so we could get back to enjoying our last night onboard. We decided to give Mat in the Piano Bar one more chance, but honestly, he just wasn’t doing it for us. Maybe it was because it was during the open entry hour and not the 18+ adult show, but we just found Mat to be very low-energy. We were originally considering leaving Ian in camp late and paying for Night Owls so we could see the vibe after 10pm, but Mat took a 15 minute break at 9:45pm, so we just decided to leave then and get Ian from camp before they started to charge. Ian came out of camp wearing a medal around his neck. They said it was because he won the dancing competition, but that was a shock to us because dancing isn’t exactly Ian’s forte LOL Maybe they secretly gave out medals to all the kids on the last night? Ian also got to keep his name tag, and they gave us a drawstring backpack to take home. Back in the cabin, we all got ready for bed to rest up for a long day of travel tomorrow. Up next: Debarkation and driving home

Unfortunately, tonight’s dinner was extremely slow and took way too long, so we missed the 7pm comedy show we were planning to attend. We didn’t even leave the dining room until 7:10pm and we still had to run Ian upstairs to Camp Ocean. That was a bummer because we wanted to see another one of Jaylyn’s shows, but it wasn’t meant to be. When we got up to deck 11, there was a long line to drop off Ian at camp. It ended up taking 15 minutes, and I wondered if more people brought their kids to camp tonight than earlier in the week in an attempt to enjoy their last night on the ship? Once Ian was checked in, we ran downstairs to the Liquid Lounge for the 7:30pm show called “The World Works Here.” Deon explained that the Panorama has 1800 crew members from over 60 countries, and they announced each one and someone came out carrying that flag. He also said that we had 4700 guests on board this week, which is mind-blowing since it honestly never felt THAT crowded. I guess there are just enough different areas for people to hang out on the ship so no one place ever felt too congested. After the flags part was done, the production cast came out and sang songs about love. Sure enough, there were only 7 of them on stage. I totally wouldn’t have noticed that without the Q and A earlier this afternoon. The kids from the 2 older groups in Camp Ocean came out to each sing a song, but the penguin group must have been too young so we didn’t get to see Ian on stage. Funny enough, Ian loves singing the songs he learns in daycare at home, and he literally wakes up in the middle of the night to sing! But I guess the counselors on the ship didn’t want to take on the task of teaching the young kids a new song in just a few days, so that was understandable. After the show, we exited into the atrium to see colorful marbles falling through the funnel. I think this was my favorite of all the designs we saw in the funnel all week. This was such a fun feature on the Panorama and I really loved seeing something totally different every time we were in the atrium. Earlier this afternoon, I remembered that I never got the loyalty pin from the VIFP program. I am used to them leaving it for us in the cabin, but then I remembered we have to pick it up from Pixels now. I have a collection of all my sign and sail cards and all my VIFP pins from prior cruises, so I definitely wanted to grab the one for this sailing. Even though it was now 2024, they gave us the 2023 pin. I guess that’s okay because technically this cruise did start in 2023, and maybe we will take another Carnival cruise this calendar year so we won’t end up with a duplicate (not that we have anything booked at this moment, but you never know!)

Tonight’s appetizers menu didn’t really appeal to me, so I opted for the always-available and always-tasty caesar salad. I got the penne mariscos for my entree, but Ian stole most of my penne haha Before dessert, the waiters paraded around the dining room with platters of Baked Alaska, and then sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Unfortunately for us, we were seated in a section of the dining room that had no view at all of the show, so we could hear it but we couldn’t really see what was happening. Ian didn’t seem to mind… he was having fun clapping to the music! I don’t care for Baked Alaska, so I ordered the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake for dessert. As perfectly well cooked as it was earlier in the cruise, tonight, my serving was completely liquidy and I only ate the top layer of crust and left the rest behind. It’s funny how the photos look identical, but the insides of the dish were completely different. You win some, you lose some!

After lunch, we went to Ocean Plaza at 12:45pm for the Q and A with the production cast. I always find these kinds of things so interesting, giving guests a chance to get to know the crew a little better and learn something about life on the ships. The production cast usually has 8 performers in total: 2 female singers, 2 male singers, 2 female dancers, and 2 male dancers, but the dancers also know how to sing, and the singers can also do some dancing. Apparently they were down one of the female dancers but I couldn’t tell anything was missing from the shows I saw. They said someone had a new opportunity come up so she left her contract early, but it happened during the time the ship was in dry dock so they had time to re-block the shows and practice with a cast of 7. They said it helped that everyone in the cast can both dance and sing so that gave them more flexibility to distribute the parts that had been performed by the girl who left. The “bat phone” rang at 1pm during the Q and A. Ian was upset in camp because he was hungry. We knew that they do not feed the kids lunch on sea days, and we had planned to pick him up after the Q and A, hoping his big brunch would hold him over, but I guess not! We left the Q and A early and immediately went upstairs to get Ian. He ended up eating a whole margarita pizza on his own, so I guess he really was hungry! While Ian ate his pizza, I tried some of the options from the antipasto section. We went back to the cabin at 2pm to do some more packing and put Ian down for a nap. He was finally getting the hang of napping on the ship and went down without a fight, and he slept for 2 hours. Yay! When he woke up, we got ready for the evening and noticed another pretty sunset outside. We went down to the atrium before dinner for one last attempt at getting a photo of the 3 of us dressed nicely for dinner, but of course, Ian had other plans. We tried to pose him in front of the stairs, but he kept running up and down and wouldn’t stay still for a photo with us. This was the best we could get… oye, so much for the nice collection of family photos I was hoping to accrue this week! Eventually, he did settle down enough to take a photo by himself!

After that, I met Jason back at the cabin to spend an hour packing. This little bunny was waiting for us when we arrived: We also had some more paperwork about debarkation. Boo! Hiss! At noon, we went down to deck 5 to finally try the BBQ buffet for lunch. I’m not sure if it was because of the chilly weather, because people had already had their fill of BBQ earlier in the cruise, or because we got there so early, but there was a very short line and we got our food right away. We tried the chicken, beef, mac and cheese, and the bread. It was all very good, but we just got a little bit to share so we could try other things too. After all, this was our last lunch on board and we wanted to get as much variety as possible. Today was the chocolate extravaganza at the Lido buffet. In years past, they had a chocolate fountain and lots of other chocolate goodies, but all I could find was that the fancy cakes were all chocolate flavored. “Extravaganza” was somewhat of a misnomer, but at least the chocolate cheesecake was very good!

After brunch, we still had some time before Camp Ocean opened at 10am, so we went up to deck 10 aft to look at the view. It was a beautiful morning, but you could feel a slight chill in the air as we traveled further north towards Long Beach. I liked how we could always see land in the distance on all 3 sea days. With a Caribbean cruise, you usually see nothing but water on all sides of the ship on sea days, but we sailed close enough to the west coast that we could see land all day long if we wanted to. At 10am, Jason took Ian to camp, while I went down to the Liquid Lounge for the towel folding demonstration. I have done this before on other cruises and it’s always fun, but it’s been a few years so I decided I wanted a refresher course. On the way, I passed through the atrium to admire the ever-changing funnel: As you entered the theater, they had a huge bin filled with towels, so there was no need to bring your own from the cabin. The chairs in the theater were set up in rows to watch a show on stage, but I knew I would need space to spread out my towels. I chose to sit on the bar-height stools at the back of the room because there is a cocktail table in front of the stools which works well for making towel animals. Deon stood up on stage to give step by step instructions on how to fold the towels, while Cadet from housekeeping demonstrated what to do. Props to Deon because he did a great job giving specific verbal instructions that were easy to follow. People spread out around the theater in search of enough space to lay out their towels… on the stage, on the floor, and some people just turned around the chairs in front of them to make a table from their seat. First, we made a dog. Then we made an elephant: The whole thing took about 30 minutes, and I had a fun time making my animals.

Saturday, January 6, 2024 ~ Sea Day Last night, the seas were very rocky and I could hear the wind howling inside our cabin, over the white noise from our sound machine. I woke up at 7am again, as I had done for the whole cruise. Why can’t I ever manage to sleep in?! The boys were still sound asleep, so I quietly got ready in the bathroom, then sat on the floor by the front door of the cabin and folded everyone’s dirty laundry and put it back into packing cubes. I always hate the nagging feeling of needing to pack on the last day of the cruise, so at least I could be productive for an hour while waiting for Jason and Ian to wake up. Ian woke up a little after 8am, and woke up Jason in the process, so that meant we could go to the MDR right when they opened at 8:30am. We made brunch reservations on the app and got the alert that our table was ready as we were walking down the hall to the elevator. How convenient! Service was very slow this morning. It took a long time for the waiter to take our order, and even longer for the food to arrive. This was the first time we had a table in the main section of the aft dining room as we had been seated in the very front by the windows on the other two sea days. I didn’t even realize until now that there was a second level to this MDR! The midship MDR where we eat dinner is only one level and it feels kind of claustrophobic to me, but this dining room felt more grand and I really liked the square chandeliers hanging over the middle section. While I waited for our food to come out, I took screenshots from the Hub app of all the specialty dining restaurants on the ship. I am not going to post all of them, but please let me know if you would like to see anything in particular and I can post it for you. In an attempt to add some variety to my order, I got the mozzarella sticks off the kids menu. They were very good! The plate came with 4 mozzarella sticks but I ate one before I remembered to take a photo… oops! As usual, I also got a bagel with lox to share with Ian, and I got the 12-hour French Toast.

Yea, that sounds like you would be cutting it verrrry close and everything would have to work out perfectly to make it there by 9am.

Tuna Tours is a 3 minute walk from Estrella del Mar. They are both at the bottom of this map.

Hopefully this can help clarify things... If you pull up Google Maps, type in La Paz, Mexico, to have the right city pulled up. Then do a search for "Terminal Turistica Aguila Malecon"- that's the name of the bus station where the free shuttles drop you off. It is right across the street from the malecon, and it took us about 20 minutes to walk back from the restaurant we went to called Estrella del Mar (very close to the marina you need to go to). It's an easy flat walk and you can't get lost as long as you keep the ocean on your right when walking there.

oye, that must have been frustrating!

Ugh, I cannot wait until Ian is old enough to not need a nap anymore. Even as I am typing this reply, he is in his crib, fighting his nap and yelling "It's wake up time!!" I thought for sure that we'd get him to nap at his regular time on the sea days, but the first sea day had the Dr. Seuss parade at nap time (why did they schedule it like that?!), and the other 2 sea days, he was so hyped up from playing at camp that he didn't want to take his naps. I just keep reminding myself... it's a phase and he won't always be this little!