Mitsugirly's PANORAMA detailed review and pictorial

[ninjacat123]

The kids make a sweet couple!!

[mitsugirly]

We walked up and over to the marina side. It was real pretty over there. We did see a lot of people going to the lighthouse as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of places to shop at and also eat.

 

 

 

 

 

They have a lock wall and you could even buy a lock from a vendor along the waterfront to leave your mark there with the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

There's one thing you will learn about Karl during this review and that is that he's a human garbage disposal. Despite his thin physique he eats...non-stop and everything in site and doesn't think twice about asking "Are you gonna eat that?"  Well of course, he's hungry. My small finger salad didn't tie me over for very long and I agreed...it was time to have some lunch.

 

We picked a nice little pizza place on the waterfront and elected to sit outside by the water.

 

 

The pizza here was really good! We all enjoyed it and the views from our table. 

 

 

After lunch Karl inquired "Wait, that was lunch right? It wasn't dinner right? We are going to eat dinner still right?" Ahhh, dear Karl, I'm not going to starve you to death. No worries (although my bank account had me questioning that statement).

 

There's one thing I promised Karl's mother and that was not to let him out of my site when we were in any port off the ship. I'm not sure if you would call this a port but I stopped to take a picture of this cute little sea horse bench and turned around and there was no Karl. 

 

 

Now remember, we had just had lunch...and this is where I found him.

 

 

 

Yep, he was eating again but this time ice cream. He just never stops eating. Thank goodness we would be on the ship tomorrow with all the food his little heart desires.

 

I had to have him stop for a picture of prof of him still eating. At this point, Sakari decided to tie his hair back (she loves his long hair and calls him her skater boy despite the boy can't skate worth a darn even though he bought a skate board just to roll around with Sakari and fit the profile lol) so that he could eat his ice cream in a controlled environment of wind blown hair.

 

 

The Queen Mary was off in the distance. I had considered staying here because it seems to be "the" thing to do but now I'm glad I didn't. I started reading about it being haunted and I would have freaked out had anything weird happened...just saying.

 

 

[ninjacat123]

Has Karl ever been on a cruise?

[mitsugirly]

We headed on down toward the water. They had places you could rent the little bicycle/cab like contraptions that we could all roll around in but not thinking about this walk, I decided we were just going to hoof it around and explore. I would later regret this.

 

We walked along the waterfront and would find multiple birds hanging out where people were fishing. They waited patiently just wanting a handout. It was cute. It was a long walk. They were still there on our way back. They must know this is the bird diner when people arrive. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked and walked and would discover at the end of this trail, it was a dead end and we would have to turn around and head back in the same direction. Oops. Yep, I was really wishing we had rented that bike now! My leg was hurting and swelling at this point but I kept going on...just a little slower than before.

 

When we got close to the hotel again, I decided to go back to the room and grab our rolling luggage. I wanted to walk to the store near by to get pop for the ship. One thing I love about Carnival is that they still allow you to bring a case of pop (12 pack) for each person. This time, I would get to load up with 4 cases. Woo Hoo! Score!

 

The closest grocery store was a place called VONS. It was several blocks down and over but we easily found it using our maps on the phone. We walked in and it was just like a Kroger (where Karl and Sakari work). Their deals seemed to be the same and I think the hubby said something about Vons actually being owned by Kroger so that explained it. However, we had to sign up for their app to get the deals: Buy 2 get 3 free. Wait, what were we going to do with an extra case of pop? It looked like we were going to be caffeined up tonight! They made announcements codes over the loud speaker and of course Sakari and Karl felt right at home and knew exactly what that code meant. 

 

So we get to the register, check out, and then the card reader goes down and won't work. Karl, being a person who works in customer service at Kroger, knows all the codes to enter and does so.  Well, he effectively broke it and we had to move over to another register to pay for it. Talk about upset people in line behind us oops. But I was armed with my caffeine and that's all that mattered. 

 

Back to the hotel to rest for awhile because I knew I wanted to still do the swan boats. My foot/leg was killing me at this point.

 

 

 

There goes the Radiance...not the Panorama. 😄 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We could see the little shops that we walked to from our room. Man that was a long walk.

 

 

Anyone interested in just how far we walked...well let me show you (AND, I might add, my phone and watch died during this process and needed to be charged so it didn't capture the entire walk).

 

 

[mitsugirly]

1 hour ago, fethiyeden said:

I’d noticed they were matching. 

 lol

 

1 hour ago, ninjacat123 said:

The kids make a sweet couple!!

 

Thanks, we're thinking about keeping him. haha

 

29 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

Has Karl ever been on a cruise?

 

Never. Actually only been on a plane once his entire life and I think maybe vacation once. He has several brothers and a sister so family vacations have been too expensive for them to take growing up. This was quite the adventure for him. We are starting him out big time. I guess time will tell if a) he liked it and b) is he a sea sick type of person. 😄 

[retiring soon]

Hi all!

Mitsugirly - so happy to have found you near the beginning of your review. Eager to hear your experiences in. Mexico. I love Mexico, especially Puerto Vallarta.

I'm doing a Panama Canal cruise that's going to five places in Mexico in November so look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

 

- Jo -

[mitsugirly]

The kids decided they were going to go swimming. I thought they were nuts but from our window we could see others in the pool. It was now open. The front desk did make a comment that they keep the water 80 degrees at all times. But what about the air? Can you up the temperature on that as well please?

 

 

 

I knew there was no way I was getting in that water no matter how warm it was. It was still cold outside and in the 60's. No way! You get out of the water and freeze to death. 

 

The hubby and I played several games of corn hole while the kids enjoyed the pool and hot tub. It was SO WINDY that it made the game quite interesting to say the least. You never knew where the bean bags would end up at.

 

 

We also tried a game of life sized Jenga...the wind kept blowing it over as well. I elected to sit by the fire because I was freezing!

 

 

 

The life guard watching over everyone in the pool:

 

 

 

 

When the kids started to freeze over, it was time to leave and head to the room for hot showers to warm up. The hotel did have a large vending type machine that you scan your card, open the door, then you could grab heated towels. That was a plus. 

 

[mitsugirly]

After warming up, Karl was hungry. Well Karl...you are going to have to work for it. We are going to the swan boats and you kids are going to chauffeur us around in it while doing all the work. Such disappointed looks in their eyes. HA!

 

But I told them "It's for the review. I gotta have what fun it was for the review I'll be doing. Look like you're both having fun I said!" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a lot of fun...at least for us. But it was FREEZING!

 

 

They did have an aquarium next to our hotel. I had thought about going there but it got too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun was setting and Karl's belly was growling very loudly at me and we headed back. I liked that we went during the evening because they had the lights on the swan all lit up and it was so pretty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Ok Karl, we can eat now. After such a long day, I really didn't feel like walking any further than the hotel and we decided we would just eat at the hotel. 

 

Karl didn't waste any time.

 

 

 

 

They also had a mini store there.

 

 

 

And if you forgot any supplies, CVS was there to help with a vending machine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hubby and I got a Chicken Teriyaki bowl, which was good but only came with about 5 pieces of chicken in it. Sakari got a Poke bowl and liked it. Karl got a cheeseburger and fries and it only came with 6 fries. The food was good but a disappointment that they were so stingy with the food. We had a $10 off coupon that was given to us at the front desk. They only allow you to use this IF you charge the meal to your room. So, just an FYI. 

 

After dinner we headed to the room to watch a movie (RoboCop, which was really good) and I would take pictures of the night lights outside our window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were all tired after the movie and headed to bed around 10pm. ZzzzZzz

 

[mitsugirly]

26 minutes ago, retiring soon said:

Hi all!

Mitsugirly - so happy to have found you near the beginning of your review. Eager to hear your experiences in. Mexico. I love Mexico, especially Puerto Vallarta.

I'm doing a Panama Canal cruise that's going to five places in Mexico in November so look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

 

- Jo -

 

Hi Jo! Glad to have you here for the review. Panama Canal is on my bucket list as well. So many things to see and do and so little time. I think it would be quite the experience. 

[Destaw71835]

I came all the way over from the NCL boards for this one 🙂. I want to do this itinerary and was thinking Carnival may be the way to go. I think they go to a port that the other lines do not visit.

[deladane]

Yay!! I have been waiting for you to post your review! I can’t wait to see how you liked the Mexican Riviera!

[#55worktoplay]

Enjoyed your first day. WOW, allot of steps were put in. Good on ya considering your injury. 
 

Many years ago we took a tour of the Queen Mary and it was near but it’s very old and apparently haunted like you said. I think the Hyatt Regency was a better choice. 
 

Nice to meet Karl. Does Kendra and family not cruise anymore?  It was always fun reading about how late they made you and how different they were compared to you but it always worked out😀. I often think of the time Kendra’s husband getting drugged at the bar (forget which Island) and you guys very likely getting back just in time to goodness knows what he would have encountered. 
 

Looking forward to more. 

[sternfanla]

Great review so far. 

[mitsugirly]

5 hours ago, Destaw71835 said:

I came all the way over from the NCL boards for this one 🙂. I want to do this itinerary and was thinking Carnival may be the way to go. I think they go to a port that the other lines do not visit.

 

Well look at you all the way over here 😄  Yes, do try it. I may even consider their short cruise from there to because they go to even more places. Maybe a back to back if it would ever work out for us. 🙂 

 

5 hours ago, deladane said:

Yay!! I have been waiting for you to post your review! I can’t wait to see how you liked the Mexican Riviera!

 

Yep, coming right up. hehe

 

2 hours ago, #55worktoplay said:

Enjoyed your first day. WOW, allot of steps were put in. Good on ya considering your injury. 
 

Many years ago we took a tour of the Queen Mary and it was near but it’s very old and apparently haunted like you said. I think the Hyatt Regency was a better choice. 
 

Nice to meet Karl. Does Kendra and family not cruise anymore?  It was always fun reading about how late they made you and how different they were compared to you but it always worked out😀. I often think of the time Kendra’s husband getting drugged at the bar (forget which Island) and you guys very likely getting back just in time to goodness knows what he would have encountered. 
 

Looking forward to more. 

 

Yes, I was definitely paying the price for all those steps that night but I managed. I think eating healthier has helped a lot over the last year and a half with the inflammation...but it still hurts, just not as bad. 

 

Kendra hasn't cruised with us in years and every time she says she's going to go but they are just so busy with their companies and the kids go to a different school district and never have the same dates off as us. As they get older, it matters a little more than when they were kids when it comes to taking them out of school. My grandson, Brayden, is about 6' tall now!!! He towers over Kendra and I.  

 

Oh yes, I remember that well...it was Roatan at West Bay that he was drugged. We will never forget that day. I believe that was the first cruise we took Kambriah on as well. So much for adult supervision on that cruise. There's always SOMETHING going on when it involves Kendra or part of her family. LOL

1 hour ago, sternfanla said:

Great review so far. 

 

Thank you!

[mitsugirly]

Well as promised, I had to step out for awhile to see a few patients and had a death (I'm a hospice nurse now since last year). So, 66.1 miles later and half my day gone...I'm back...until the phone rings again. (Not holding my breath and neither should you). 

 

 

 

I woke up at 4:45am to use the restroom and...we had NO electric. Everything was out. The Hyatt has those fancy lights that, in the dark, will light up when it senses that you put your foot on the floor beside the bed so that you will have a path light. Well, no path light this time around. I tried to turn the lights on...nothing. Ugh. Ok, well it's still night time so I'm going back to bed. Or so I thought... at 5:34 the tv randomly comes on. I guess we have the electric back. Now I can't sleep darnit. 

 

Everyone was up by 6am and Karl was wanting to know if the ship was here yet. Nope, not yet. Of course the next comment was "I'm hungry". The hubby made coffee in the room and Karl and Sakari headed downstairs to explore their breakfast possibilities and returned with some overgrown cinnamon rolls that had enough sugar to get them in gear to get ready for the day. The hubby finished his second cup of coffee and headed down to get us breakfast. He returned with some colossal sized breakfast burritos as I was finishing off pop #5 I'm sure. Remember, I had an entire case to drink before getting on this cruise and I think there were only about 3 left at this point.  

 

By 7:45am I spotted something out of our window:

 

 

Here comes our floating hotel for the next glorious 8 days. Or should I say here comes our restaurant for Karl for the next 8 days! Whew!

 

 

 

 

It was an icky rainy day out but we weren't about to let that spoil our moods. The kids were juiced up on sugar and the hubby and I juiced up on caffeine. What could go wrong right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looked like she was turning around and backing in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

We had a boarding time of 12-12:30pm so we weren't in much of a rush to get there. I headed for the shower only to find that it was maybe lukewarm at best. Ugh! I showered as fast as I could and was glad that the fam had showered the night before. 

 

We hung out in the room for awhile and when it was the official check out time, we headed down stairs. I did tell the guy at the desk about the electric being out and the lack of hot water this morning and he gave me a $50 credit. He was so nice. I wasn't even expecting that and just wanted to let him know for the next people. 

 

 

I knew the port was close so we waited until around 11:30 to call for an Uber. Then we headed outside to wait. However, I kept getting a message that they had no drivers available at the time. Oh no! We tried several times. We finally gave up and decided to try Lyft and it accepted. 

 

So...let the fun begin. Kendra is staying at my house to care for the animals. I get a text from an unknown number from out of state saying answer your phone. I look at my phone and see that I have several missed calls from this number. I think it's the Lyft driver and try to call them back. Someone picks up and hangs up. Um, ok. The next phone call I get is some type of answering robot type of call that says the following....

 

This is a call from the Franklin County jail. You have a collect call from Kendra. If you would like to accept, please press 1. This call will cost you $5.99 per minute."

 

I went in to complete panic mode. I hit 1 and nothing. I hit 1 again. The call hung up. I tried calling back and nothing. I tried calling Kambriah. She answers and I ask where her mom is and she said "gone". I said "where?" She said "She said she was going to the store".  I said "When?" She replies "Last night"   SAY WHAT???? I ask how she left and she said "With daddy". Um ok. I'm totally freaking out. At this point my Lyft driver is putting our luggage in the car and we are leaving. I told her I'd call her back. 

 

I biting my nails all the way to the port and can't wait to get there so I can call back or start calling my boys to go over to my house. I'm in full panic mode now. 

 

We weren't moving very fast and there was such a big line to get to the port. 

 

 

 

It was so hard to be excited at this point. Someone needed to get to my house and get those kids (she had a friend with her) and figure out why Kendra was in jail!!!!!

 

 

 

We waited about 20 minutes in line and it was by far the longest 20 minutes of my life. I'm pretty sure I jumped out of the car like the seat of my pants were on fire. I had the family check the luggage in and I immediately started making calls. 

 

 

[Destaw71835]

So cool to see the ship sailing into port right from your hotel room!

[Crusin Karen]

Happy and excited to have you back!  There was a girl on my recent Venezia cruise who was wearing a mermaid tail in the pool and I thought of Sakari! (biting my nails about Kendra!) 

[mitsugirly]

I call Kam back and guess who answers....Kendra. She tells me "I told her not to do you" I'm like WHERE ARE YOU???? She said at your house. Um ok. So I get the story that Kam was pranking me. Once we got back home she told me how and this kid is too smart for her britches! She got an app with a fake number to call on. She went on my computer to google translate and typed in what she wanted to say in the call. She pressed play for it to say the sentence on the computer and recorded it with her phone. Then called me, hit the play button so I would hear it. That little shiznit! So you see...those of you who remember the shenanigans every time Kendra and her family vacation with us...she don't even have to go to get this full effect of pranks from them of some sort. Geesh! Kendra said she told Kam not to stress me out on my vacation and that's exactly what she did to me. I will get her back one day. 

 

Now it was time to check in and relax the rest of the day. The lines were F-O-R-E-V-E-R long. I had the kids go get in line while I went up to the front. The hubby kept saying "Don't we have priority or something??" No hubby, this is not NCL. We haven't hit "priority" yet and it will take at least 2 more cruises for that. However, I did notice that the line everyone was waiting in said "12:30-1pm boarding". Well we were supposed to be 12 boarding. I stopped to ask a worker where that line was for the 12pm boarding and he said they had already went in and if I had my boarding passes that stated that, he'd let us in now. I went back and grabbed the kids and we got to go in the building. Well, I felt like priority at that point because there was no waiting. 

 

They had tall desks all over the place that they would point you to a person to check in.

 

 

He checked our boarding passes and checked our passports and then on to security we went. 

 

 

 

It was quick and simple! For those asking about them making you open your luggage/drinks to make sure you really have pop, they didn't ask us to do anything nor did they look. 

 

Then in we went. There was no one in there and the place was beautiful inside this dome. I loved it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took this opportunity to use the restroom and when we came out we wasn't really sure where to go or what to do. We looked so lonely standing there. 

 

 

 

We did notice a short line off in the distance and decided to join. I guess this is the way we go. 

 

 

 

 

I find it odd that Carnival does not give you your key cards for the rooms when you board or prior to that during check in. I wasn't quite sure how this worked. I over heard someone say they would be waiting at our door.

 

We headed up a ramp and followed everyone. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had finally made it to the gangway.

 

 

 

It was all open and FREEZING! I'm used to NCL having the enclosed ones and don't get me wrong, I'm fine with open, just not on a rainy day that's cold. It was super windy out and walking across that gangway was brutal. Poor Sakari was freezing and I tried to tell her not to wear shorts. 

 

 

It was raining on us and the wind was hitting our faces like ice but we knew we were almost there!

 

It was time to officially step onto the ship and I had to get pictures of it. Karl's first cruise!!!

 

 

 

Look at the excitement in Sakari's face. They even synchronized their walk onto the ship. lol

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Oh just for future reference, the port has a MAJOR problem if you print your tickets out front and back of the paper. They kept yelling at me to give everyone their own ticket to hold. Well, you see I can't because his ticket is on the back of mine and her ticket is on the back of his. So...  we encountered this several times while checking in and showing our tickets to various people. Sorry, I didn't do it on purpose. My computer just printed it out that way. So take note! One worker was very rude about it and said "I need for him to have his own ticket in hand" I turned mine over to show her. She handed it back to him to hand to her. Seriously?

 

 

 

Karl "So where's the food?"  Geesh dude give me a second. It was 1:28pm now and they said we could head straight to our rooms and that's what I was doing so that the hubby didn't have to haul around our pop the whole time. 

 

We got to our room and several people were in the hallway. No one had key cards to get in their rooms. Someone found a room steward and he went to get everyone's cards. However he would not hand them to anyone directly and insisted on putting them above the room number for us to grab. 

 

In we went.

 

We were on the 6th floor in a balcony room in room 6386.

 

 

 

Of course the first thing I did was inspect the sleeping arrangements to make sure there was a pull out bed and a bed that dropped down from the ceiling to make bunk beds. Yep, we are good although I had Karl believing he was sleeping on the floor. lol   Sakari has been on too many cruises and quickly informed him he would have the couch/pull out bed and she would be in the bunk above. She spoiled it for me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will say that I didn't feel like there was enough storage in the room compared to NCL. NCL seems to make the most out of every space they can for storage.

 

They had 3 drawers and a few shelves. Then 2 hanging closets and we usually don't hang anything but or "dressy" outfits. So way too much area for hanging. I would much rather have drawers or shelves. 

 

 

 

I was excited to see that the fridge didn't have anything in it. I always hated having to empty the contents out of it and it clutter my dresser table. 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

53 minutes ago, Destaw71835 said:

So cool to see the ship sailing into port right from your hotel room!

 

It was! I'm glad we got the room we did. They ask if we wanted to be on that side. Well of course we do!

 

27 minutes ago, Crusin Karen said:

Happy and excited to have you back!  There was a girl on my recent Venezia cruise who was wearing a mermaid tail in the pool and I thought of Sakari! (biting my nails about Kendra!) 

 

Thank you! Glad to be back. Yes, I miss those mermaid days. They were so much fun. She's too "grown" for that now. 😞 Although she did show all of them to Karl before leaving and I had glimmer of hope but she still refused. I told him he could be a merman if he wanted and they had outfits for guys. He didn't seem opposed to the idea...Sakari just rolled her eyes. LOL

[mitsugirly]

Can we get food yet? I bet you can guess who said that. 

 

Ok, off to get this growing boy some food before he evaporates. I knew that the ship was going to be packed in the buffet and that's usually where we head to for lunch. However, also knew that you could go to Pig & Anchor for free lunch. That's where I decided to go and the line was short. Good executive decision. *pats self on back*

 

 

 

It was yummy and Karl was finally satisfied...at least for an hour or two.

 

 

We looked around for a bit and man was it windy and cold but the rain had stopped. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sakari yelled "Look over there by the hotels! There's a rainbow"

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Oh I did forget, on our way to our rooms we passed by a sign for the muster drill.  We signed in and the guy said that he would only take 1 1/2 minutes of our time. Um...only 1 1/2 minutes to explain? "Ok, on your mark, get set, go" and I hit my timer on my phone. He laughed and said "Are you really timing me?" I said "You now only have 1 minute and 20 seconds" He did his talk and demonstration and finished before the time was up. Great job! However, I can honestly say that I don't even know where we were at during this drill and would have never known where to go in case of an emergency. Oops!

 

 

We heard an announcement at 4:30pm that the sail away party would be held in the atrium...where it was nice and warm, due to the liquid sunshine happening again outside! So off we went to bust a move. Now notice there was A LOT of the crew/dancers from the ship that were taking up most of the dance floor and area. There was hardly any place to stand because there were so many of them. 

 

 

Well now Karl, you are not shy at all. He danced and danced the entire time with Sakari. They had a blast!

 

 

Karl was dancing like there's no tomorrow and not a care in the world. I'm so glad she found someone like this. I knew we had made a good decision to bring him along for her to have someone to hang out with. I know she's been missing this now that she doesn't want to go to the kids club (that shy teenage stage of making new friends). 

 

 

 

 

 

When the party was over at 5pm, I headed to the kiosk to apply some of my AARP gift cards to my account. Then off to buy the "soda" pop package at the Atrium bar. 

 

I also stopped at some of the gift shops to look into getting one of the ship ornaments I collect. I was so disappointed to see that they didn't have ANY! When I inquired about them, the lady said they did not have any and wouldn't have any the rest of the cruise. Now I'm down 3 ships that I have cruised on and missing from my travel display wall. I'm so bummed. There seems to be a lot of people that collect these. You would think they would keep them in stock FFS as John would say. Instead we walked away with a Carnival "charm" bracelet they were passing out for free. 

 

 

 

 

We headed back to our rooms to put away our clothes and luggage and I noticed this outside the balcony:

 

 

 

 

This had to be a good sign of the week to come right?

 

Ida came to our room to introduce himself as our room steward. He was awesome the entire cruise and always spoke to us. I did tell him I would like to have an ice bucket with ice daily and he quickly brought me one. Ahh, ice cold pop, round number two coming right up.