We decided Carnival is not for us. Our last time on Carnival was 5 years ago and things have gone way down hill. But our cabin steward, Freddy, was amazing! He had 36 cabins and a helper for only one hour a day. We designated a large portion of our gratuities to him.
Embarkation
1 out of 5
Less than one star would be appropriate. We got to the port at our assigned time and then waited in a very disorganized line for well over 2 hours! Our daughters arrived a bit later due to a different flight and waited for nearly 4 hours!! Carnival apparently had some special late in the week and there were 5000 passengers on a ship that says it holds 4004! We had all of our info organized and thought it would go well but NO!!!
The elevators at the port were not working so it was a very long and winding ramp to get onto the ship. Very bad start!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
We really tried hard to be positive but it was so difficult to find good food. We have been on over 40 cruises and even our Carnival other Carnival cruises were never this bad.
The Blue Iguana was very good, open limited hours and Guys Pig and Anchor was sometimes open for lunch with no fee. My husband loved that as be is a BBQ enthusiast.
The Lido was not great and was closed for 3 hours every day!!
Our one daughter, who is a vegetarian, had a hard time finding good food in the MDR. She really tried the spare offerings but nothing was done right.
We did not try any specialty restaurants.
The Mongolian was open for lunch for no fee and it was OK.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
They are so understaffed and the staff is working so hard but it really was apparent that there were not enough crew.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
Very weird layout but we finally got it figured out. The elevators are great once you figure out how to use them. Everything is technology driven and sometimes their tech would fail. The chat app is a must but it is an up charge and failed almost daily. Then, it made you purchase it again and you had to go to Guest services to reverse the charges, along with several hundred other people with the same issue.
The ship was clean.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
It was a cove balcony and we liked that. It was very low to the water and was very comfortable. We had plenty of storage and it was clean and neat.
Ship tip
Don’t do it!! We booked a shore excursion through this app and it was amazing!!! We had comments from other guests that ship trips were not great.
We did an excursion booked through this app and it was so perfect!! We loved every moment and our guide Cesar was great! We went to 2 tiny towns about an hour from Mazatlan. We visited a quail farm which was the real deal.
We went to a bakery in the next town, also authentic, and the lunch was so good an also authentic. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant.
We had been many times and decided to remain on the ship and had the whirlpool on the Serenity deck all to ourselves!!!
It is a tender port and we were there a short time.
The arch on sail away is beautiful and our daughter goT some great photos.
We took a city bus into El Centroi and found an amazing restaurant on the Malecon above the ocean that had 40 peso margaritas and the breeze was flowing in and there was a nice guitar player. The food was perfection! It was called the Bar Oceano.
Thank you for the review. Long Beach port needs to fix the boarding issues. Everyone waits in the same line and they do not care what your boarding time is.
We sailed on her in September and it was great. I'm pretty sure ships can't let on an extra 1,000 guests unless they have cabins for them. You are correct that the buffet is closed for a while in the afternoon while they switch over to dinner. Fortunately the deck food stands are open then so nobody is in danger of starving.
We were very disappointed in our Panorama cruise experience in August. Sad to see things haven’t improved. We love Carnival, but we did try annRC cruise and were surprised by the differences. RC has a nicer game.
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