Our 8 day Cruise aboard the Carnival Panorama 3/30/2024 - 04/07/2024

[Ranyw]

18 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

Lunch at The Office looked great! Do you remember how much was the total bill? Thx!

 

Hello, I can do one better,  Here is a copy of our receipt.  I believe at the time $1 US dollar was about 15.6 Mexican Pesos.

 

[Ranyw]

8 hours ago, Roxxy said:

Loving your review!

You said you had ticket #23 for a 10:30 tender ??  What time did your ship dock?

Hi there!  Sorry I don't remember.  I looked at the time stamp from the camera when I snapped a photo on board the tender, it was 11:49am.  However, I am not sure if that was ship time or port time?

 

In previous experience dock time is never guaranteed.  If the seas are rough it can be delayed, once it was a bit windy and they kept having to move the ship around which caused delay.

Edited April 26 by Ranyw

[carohs]

13 hours ago, Ranyw said:

 

Hello, I can do one better,  Here is a copy of our receipt.  I believe at the time $1 US dollar was about 15.6 Mexican Pesos.

 

It's right there "tipo de cambio 15.70". So $8 for a bottled water and $17 for each of those kids plates. 😲😲😲 Nope, nope, nope. And don't get me started on chicken strips and fries when you're in Mexico. 

 

But looks like y'all had a great time so far, can't wait to read more. 

[tootsiescurly]

23 hours ago, Ranyw said:

 

Hello, I can do one better,  Here is a copy of our receipt.  I believe at the time $1 US dollar was about 15.6 Mexican Pesos.

 

This seems very expensive for what  you ordered.

[pinto18]

The prices in Cabo on the beach are pretty similar to the US. Most other places in Mexico you will find it less expensive 

[Ranyw]

5 hours ago, pinto18 said:

The prices in Cabo on the beach are pretty similar to the US. Most other places in Mexico you will find it less expensive 

They are.  I know some ports can be a bargain, but Cabo is not.  Reminds me of our trip to Vegas last year.  We stayed at the Wynn.  While at the pool we ordered wings, chips and salsa, 2 mai Thais and 2 bottles of water and the total was $130.

 

Your paying for the ambiance in Cabo.

[Ranyw]

Sorry for the delay ! Been working through some health issues.  On with the show!!

[Ranyw]

4/2/2024 - La Paz - Tuesday

 

This was port was the main reason we picked this cruise.  We have never been to La Paz and were excited to try a new port.  The ship actually docks in Port of Pichillingue.  Carnival provided free shuttle bus’s for the 30 minute ride into town.  The bus will stop at the beach if you want about half way to town and drop you off there. 

 

 

 

 

This was the beach stop for those who wanted to stay there.  Odd note, if you opted to get off here and wanted to return to the ship, you have to catch the next bus which will take you to downtown bus depot, then you return back to the ship.

 

 

Once in town we had a plan of walking along the Malecone (The Boardwalk / beach walk), visiting the church and having Lunch at either Mr. krispy or Tex burger.  Today was a cool breezy day.  We didn’t let it ruin our experience.  The church is a short walk uphill from the bus terminal.  We made our way up the uneven sidewalks to the church.  I always find older church’s to be very inspiring.  We try to be as respectful as possible.  Unfortunately we tend to have shorts on due to the weather.  After we finished exploring the church we stumbled onto a local grocery store to explore the local options.

 

 

When I was younger I used to watch a show by a man called Rick Steves.  He is a travel enthusiast and one the main reasons i enjoy traveling.  He always encourages the traveler to not dine in the most touristy spot but rather where the locals eat to get a sense of how the locals live.  When I’ve visited Europe I followed his advice and went to a local grocery store and picked up some odds and ends and had a picnic with a view of the Eiffel Tower.  That’s a story for another blog.

 

 

After the church my daughter wanted to walk along the beach to see if she could find any sea shells.

When I was researching La Paz, I found two local places Mr. Krispy (A fried chicken place) and Tex burger.  We swung by around 1:30 and was told by both places that they were not open yet and didn’t expect to open until 3pm.  We had a deadline to get onboard the bus to head back to the pier.  We walked around the boulevard and found a small pub that had a decent menu.  I think it was called Cornelio Cantina?  We grabbed a quick bite and made our way back to the bus terminal.  We ordered a couple tacos, chips, mini burger sliders, fries and sodas.  The total was about $75 (surprised at the price?  Higher than I had expected.) But the view was nice, it was nice and breezy.

 

 

We devoured the food, then realized that we didn't take any photos.

 

Here is a picture of the bus depot.  Notice the line of people that were waiting for a shuttle return trip back to the pier.  The line moved pretty fast, only took about 10 minutes for us to board the bus.

 

 

At the port in La Paz, there are the usual vendors inside the port area with local wares.

 

 

 

[Ranyw]

4/3/2024 - Wednesday - Mazatlan

 

In the past we’ve just exited the port area and walked the blue line.  If it’s your first time to Mazatlan. The city has actually painted a blue line on the street / sidewalk from the port exit right to downtown.  You can’t get lost and there is plenty of police and tourist assistance on the way if you have any questions.  We usually visit the large cathedral and browse the local market.  This time I wanted to shake things up.

 

I did my research here on cruise critic and also on YouTube.  I was interested in Stone Island.  I found a tour company online called Mazatlan tours.  They offered a package for the whole family for $177.00.  The website charged me $77 and the balance of $100 was due at the time of boarding.  They would include pick up at the port, transportation to the catamaran dock, a 30 minute Marina tour then off to stone island.  Once at stone island we would have a tractor take us to a beachside restaurant with an open bar, lunch and we could select a couple of activities to do such as boogie boarding, horse back rides etc.

 

Let me say that this was a very authentic experience.  I’d say it was about 90% locals and 10% tourists.  I LOVE these types of experiences.  The transportation we got from the Ship pier was a pickup that had been converted to a taxi.  It had two benches that face each other with a small metal gate to keep you from falling out of the back of the pickup.  There was one other family (father and son) from the ship that went with us.

 

 

 

 

The catamaran dock was only a 7 minute ride from the ship terminal.

 

 

 

Once we arrived at the tour dock we paid our balance for the tour and we are given bracelets and paper voucher to exchange for lunch / activities.  The other family with us mentioned that if we had booked directly with the local tour operator that we would have paid about half the price.  When the gate was opened there was a mad rush to board the catamaran, everyone was given a life jacket but there wasn’t enough seats for everyone.  Most people reserved seats, but stood up the whole time dancing or taking photos of the scenery.  There was a DJ on the catamaran that was hyping up the tour and playing salsa music.  Most of the dialogue was in Spanish, however once they realized there was a few gringos on the catamaran they pointed out some things in English.   There was also a bar onboard for drinks.

 

 

I found out later that Stone island really isn’t an island.  It’s more of a peninsula and it’s just a cross the harbor from where the panorama was docked.  Once the catamaran docked we exited and waited for our chariot to arrive.  There were plenty of vendors selling fruit, home made doughnuts, key chains and one man even had a monkey in a diaper for photo ops.

 

 

 

 

The tractor arrived, it felt familiar like the tractor rides at the pumpkin patch for Halloween.  There were 3 trailers that we piled into being pulled by a farm type of tractor.  It was a short 6-7 minute ride to the beach side restaurant.  We all got refreshments and waited for the lunch.  You had a choice of a fish fillet or bbq chicken. Either was accompanied by rice and beans and a small house salad.  They also had a larger menu of reasonable priced options like ribs, burgers and whole fish.

 

 

 

 

My daughter was so excited to go on a horse ride.  She has private lessons once a week at home so she wanted to show off her skills.  She wanted all of us to ride.  Who I am I to say no?  There was one man at the restaurant that spoke English and was the trip coordinator.  He pointed out where the horses were.  This was in a no way a professional operation.  It seemed like a local rancher and his daughter had 5 or 6 horses that would offer rides in exchange for a coupon that we were given on the catamaran.   I’m assuming the horses had done this a 1,000 times as the horse was on cruise control and knew where to go.  This was the first time me and the wife had been on a horse.  My son has had rides before at the local ranch.

 

 

We mozzied down the dirt road and then turned onto the beach where I held on for dear life.  I was petrified and my family was just laughing away.  Seriously we were going about 1mph.  The ranchers daughter snapped some nice pics of us.

 

 

After the wife and daughter headed to the shore to look for more sea shells.  Me and my son sat and listened to the mariachi bands play special requests.  There were so many vendors that had some good deals.  We got a dozen key chains for just $5 usd.

 

Before we knew it we were told it was time to reboard the tractors as we had to head back to the catamaran.  I grabbed A fresh coconut for $1.50 to enjoy on our ride back.  There were many people from our ship that were on this tour.

 

 

 

Once back to the catamaran we boarded and it was a quick 5 minutes back to the tour dock.  This is where it got a little dicey.  I’d say they were about 200 people on that boat.  The tour coordinator disappeared and we were sort of left on our own to find a return to the cruise ship.  200 people were running along side the sidewalk trying to disperse.  I heard some of the fellow cruise passengers asking for their ride back to the ship.  I just took matters in my own hands and  I flagged down a taxi while all the chaos was going on and was told it would be $10 back to the cruise port.

 

 

Let’s go!  Once back to the cruise port we quickly browsed the gift shops and made way to the ship.  We managed to snap a picture with Deon the cruise director before boarding the ship.

 

 

If you're courageous enough to do this tour, my advice.  Book directly with the tour operator.  You will probably save and have a great experience.

 

A few pics from dinner, my son really enjoys the "Showtime" in the MDR.

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 07:48 PM by Ranyw

[pinto18]

18 minutes ago, Ranyw said:

If you're courageous enough to do this tour, my advice.  Book directly with the tour operator.  You will probably save and have a great experience.

Even less expensive is to go on your own, 3 dollar water taxi over and the restaurants are pretty reasonable. Like you the one thing I like about Stone island, it seems to be a destination for locals and maybe Mexicans on vacation. More so than Cabo for instance