Great cruise but the ship has propulsion issues and will keep returning late until it is dry docked.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Ship arrived late due to propulsion issues, so we boarded about 2 hours late.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
If you cannot find something to eat that you love on this ship, then that is on you. Lots of great food options. All the upcharge options were great and pretty low price for all that you get.
Bonsai Sushi
5 out of 5
Fantastic! Much more food than I was expecting!
Alchemy Bar
5 out of 5
Much better on the Panorama as opposed to some poor experiences on the Glory and Magic.
Havana Bar & Pool
5 out of 5
Worth every penny for this area.
Ji Ji Asian Kitchen
5 out of 5
Really good. Definitely will try again.
Bonsai Teppanyaki
5 out of 5
Fantastic!
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
Havana pool and hot tubs were great and always plenty of room.
Sky Ride was fun to do!
Entertainment
5 out of 5
We typically do not care about the Cruise Director, however, Chris Williams aka The Flying Scotsman was fantastic. High energy, super friendly, and a great singer. He had his own show in the main theater one night where he sang.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Overall great, however this ship has a trampoline park instead of the iMax theater on its sister ship and we would have much preferred that.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Havana Aft Balcony was great!
Ship tip
Ongoing propulsion issues prevent the ship from reaching max speed which means the ship will be late returning until they fix the problems in dry dock.
Some nice things here but not particularly safe. We stayed at a Hilton about 1 mile from the port and the hotel staff advised us to not walk around. Aquarium of the Pacific and the Queen Mary were cool to visit but there are a lot of metal bars on windows and barbed wire on fences all around town.
I would give this zero stars if I could. We booked the latest flight we could because we were going back to the East Coast, but that was still pretty early at 12:15pm. The ship was a few hours late again due to propulsion issues and we were concerned about making it. Carnival was great about getting those of us with early flights off ASAP. However, my wife was flagged to be escorted upon scanning out of the ship for an unknown reason. It took forever to get an escort off the ship to the terminal. No one from Carnival could tell us what was going on. The extra time this all took added to our stress of getting to our flight. My wife has had identity theft issues and it turned out that Customs/DHS wanted to verify her passport with her driver’s license. Totally ridiculous that no one could explain what was happening and completely unapologetic.
The ship arrived in Long Beach around 9:30am. Until it docked and cleared customs, it was a little after 10am when they started letting us who had early flights off the ship. Because of my wife getting flagged, we didn’t get to leave for the airport until about 11am. If we did not have TSA Precheck to skip the line at the airport we would have missed our flight. But we just made it.
Yes, we typically would not do a flight as early as 12:15pm but it was the last possible flight for us that day without having to spend another night in Long Beach.
Thanks for sharing. We're on that cruise in October also coming from the east coast; however we do have a later flight. I read your review of Long Beach, did you feel safe walking around the ports of call in Mexico?
Wow that is amazing that you made your 12:15 flight with the ship getting back two hours late and the airport being so far from the cruise port. I wouldn’t have risked that even if my ship was expected to be on time.
What time was your flight out and what time did you guys arrive at the port? I'm asking because we are about to take this same cruise and im worried that my 530pm flight out won't enough.
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