Crowded but relaxing cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 13

Helpful Votes: 433

Review summary

Better late than never and while it may look like we may have been unhappy, we really were not and plan on doing Panorama again. This was only a lazy, kick back, vegetate, late winter, do nothing trip. Unfortunately - spring break is not the narrow window around Easter anymore. Hope you enjoy the review, and maybe we will see you onboard some day. Day 1 impressions, ship was in late due to bad seas so as a suite, even though we had early boarding, we did not get on until about 12:30 (YEAH for early boarding!). First stop was muster station for a quick demo of the life jacket, then we popped up to the Mongolian for a nice lunch (a very nice alternative to the lido deck craziness). Rooms were not open so we hung out aft for about an hour until they did open. Announcements were made by Christian, the cruise director, at regular intervals letting us know the status of the rooms. Dinner was good. Show tonight on the screen was the “The Mitchells and the Machines”, a cute animation that was fun to watch. OBSERVATION : Priority does not mean a thing, our bags came about an hour apart, and were behind non-priority bags. They just grabbed and tossed the bags at the pier and grabbed and tossed on the ship to speed things up (I assume). Room, close to double a regular balcony in size but it only seems about 1.5X. Shower is a tub/shower so the less agile have issues, but there are nice handles. The tub is about a foot wide at the bottom and a bit over 1.5 feet at the top, actually about as wide as the normal stall. Frankly, not worth the extra cost unless you get a deal like we did or have more than two people, but the sofa bed looks like it will partially block the other side of the main bed from the restroom. Traffic flow : as some have noted, this class is not very intuitive in the crazy way they did the various paths around the ship and out of elevators and it is easy to get turned around. But it was not a reason to hate the ship. Day 2, Sunday. A lazy sea day. Went to the ‘morning show live’ in the liquid lounge, Christian was hyping that we had an excited full crowd in the liquid lounge….all of about 20 calm people …. Anyway, we were told that we had 4200 people aboard and 900 kids (12 and under banded?), looks like more kids, but then at 70, the definition of ‘kid’ is different than when I was 25. The overall review of the trip ‘Fun Ashore, Fun Abroad’ was interesting, but was more geared to the ship’s tours and staying safe ashore. Did the buffet for breakfast, OK and thank goodness for the Iguana, but I got spoiled on the last trip in October and our Regal trip in December. The full breakfast buffet opens at 07:30, the Vista at 08:30 when at sea, since I am an early riser (partially the drugs I have to use, partially habit from being at work by 05:00 too many times). Lunch was the smokehouse, OK, but the rolls are now cheap cheap HOT DOG buns...yuck Still made a good pulled pork sandwich with slaw and Carolina sauce (needed some dill pickle) but I miss the old rolls. Only complaint about the pork was the lack of a good bark and smoke flavor. Listened to Folkai Duo while eating, they were a mix of fair and good (her singing ‘9-5’ was almost as good as Dolly Parton). Lobster night, our staff managed to get me three on one plate. As stated before, the plates are not as full as before, gives you a chance to try more than one entree without being too stuffed. Went to listen to the Panorama Band but they had some people sick so they improvised with Jazz/Funk, OK, but the Funk got repetitive and we left early. App said to change time, so I did. WRONG! Next morning phone and TV were still on old time, the service desk said we are staying on Los Angeles time. Day 5, Wednesday. We did not care for the listed MDR offerings so we did the Italian (actually got an opening 17:30 reservation booked at around 12:00), kind of a disappointment. While what we had was good, you were limited to one of each category, unlike other lines where you had one entree and as many sides and appetizer/soup/salad (should have been called Appetizer, Soup OR salad) as you wanted. Not like the Italian dinners I had over at a girl friend’s house in college who were Italian. At least the pizza joint was there to fill in the void. Also, we were almost packed in there like sardines, one foot between tables (full house by 17:45). Got a nice sunny window seat to watch the port go by as we departed Mazatlan, and some gal three tables away complained about the light so they closed the blinds. Couldn’t do the simple thing like swap sides with her boyfriend, just whined. Day 7, Friday. We did the Tappanyaki for my birthday, good, but compared to my local place overpriced and not as good, and our table cook was not as good as the other cook. Nice thing to do once, but will not do again. Day 8, Saturday - SOB – Exit day. Looks like over half the ship did carry off, it was well over two hours later when we finally headed off (suites can go anytime, we just sat in the buffet and snacked) and they were still doing the carry offs. Got to the baggage claim fast, but there was a long line for customs (looking at the luggage I think a lot of folks gave up and left before being called), we got to skip the line because we had passports and went to a much shorter/faster line for facial recognition. Bus to airport was fast, just a slight wait while they filled up (can’t understand why some folks whine about that transfer, unless they wanted taxi style service and did not get it).

Embarkation

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Onboard Activities

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Service and Staff

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Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Long Beach (Los Angeles), California Did not visit port

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Mazatlan, Mexico Did not visit port

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Did not visit port

Disembarkation

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