The Long Road to Cabo, a Carnival Panorama Review: Day 4 – Embarkationfeatured

Our last Carnival cruise was in May 2018. We stepped onboard the brand new Carnival Horizon after a whirlwind few days in Barcelona. I won an Instagram contest and Carnival had flown us out to Barcelona for the inaugural cruise.

It was one of our best trips.

After that, we did Asia on Royal Caribbean. We had planned on coming back “home” for the Carnival Radiance’s inaugural season in Europe in May, 2020.

We all know what happened then.

It’s been a long time.

When cruising re-started, Stephanie and I hopped on a Norwegian cruise. They were 100% vaccinated, everyone was tested at the pier by NCL and it just felt like a good fit. Mom didn’t go, and we didn’t hear the end of how much she missed cruising. So when Europe felt out of sight for the holidays, we decided to come home.

The rain had finally stopped and we woke up in Huntington Beach to beautiful sunny skies. We hoped it was an omen of good things to come! We got ready, packed up our bags and then the car and checked out of the hotel. I can’t say enough good things about the Kimpton Shorebreak and highly recommend (even with the further drive).

It took us about an hour to drive back to LAX (including a quick Starbucks stop). We fueled up the car and returned it to the rental agency, where there was an empty shuttle waiting. It was a quick drive to the airport, free of the traffic that plagued us when we arrived.

You may be wondering why we were going back to LAX when the ship was leaving out of Long Beach. Returning the car to Long Beach when we rented from LAX would have added hundreds of dollars to the rental fee, and Ubers out of LAX were surging like crazy. So for $30 a person, we returned to the airport to catch a Carnival transfer to the ship. We easily found the agent at Terminal 1, Baggage Claim 1. There was a large crowd of people who hadn’t purchased transfers yet, so you can buy them at the airport. We pre-purchased and were led quickly to the next available transfer and began the 45-minute drive to the port.

One of the changes Carnival made to account for COVID was to introduce the concept of arrival appointments. Two weeks before your cruise, you’re supposed to log onto your account and select an arrival time. If you’re a Diamond or Platinum, you just get an extra two days to pre-select your arrival time. We knew none of this and when we figured it out, the earliest arrival appointment was 1:30 PM. This was a major bummer — we wanted to be on the ship ASAP and squeeze as much cruise fun as possible out of our trip. But there was a hack: taking a Carnival transfer bypassed the arrival appointment thing and we could enter the terminal as soon as we arrived (which was just before 11:45 AM).

Once we were inside, we completed our health screening (an agent reviewed our attestations, vaccination cards and test results) and then made our way into the Diamond & Platinum line, where we bypassed everyone to the next available agent to complete our check in.

Arriving early didn’t change our boarding group (D12), but there was a Captain’s Lounge where we could wait. It was spacious and comfortable and they began calling the first boarding groups shortly before noon. By 12:20 PM, they were beginning the D groups and a boarding agent Mom was chatting up let us board a little early. We took the long walk up to the ship and we were onboard by 12:30 PM — well ahead of our 1:30 PM arrival appointment time! Cabins wouldn’t be ready until 1:30 PM (farewell, Platinum room arrival perk!), but as soon as we walked onboard through that gorgeous atrium, it felt like coming home. Our last Carnival cruise was on the Horizon, a sister ship, so it felt like picking up where we left off.

Immediately after we boarded, we made our way to our muster station to check in. Instead of a standard muster drill, you’ll now need to go check in at your muster station. A crew member will scan your card and lead you inside, where another crew member will demonstrate how to put on a life jacket. No, you can’t skip this if you’re on a back to back or have, I don’t know, almost 30 cruises under your belt. But it’s quick and painless and SO much better than regular muster drill’s.

We headed on up to Deck 10 to the Lido Marketplace, which was surprisingly empty given how many people boarded before us. I had my obligatory first meal (Blue Iguana Cantina), Stephanie and Mom had pizza and we were all just so…happy. Cruising is kind of in our blood. It’s our family “thing.” And even before Covid, we started pulling away from it a bit to explore other parts of the world outside of the Caribbean and Mexico. But it was so nice, so refreshing, to be back to what we know and what we love.

Cabins were ready at exactly 1:30 PM, so we had a short walk down to our cabins on deck 9 and walked aft to find our new homes. Usually when it’s the three of us, we’ll just share a balcony cabin — it’s usually plenty of room for the three of us. Except when we priced it out this time, somehow sailing in two cabins was actually cheaper than sailing in one. So Mom went into her own interior cabin across the hall from our balcony cabin, which worked well for us because Mom is an early to bed/early to rise person, I am the total opposite and Stephanie is somewhere in the middle. And it gave us twice the closet space, which was desperately needed because we dramatically overpacked. All of us. It’s our affliction and our curse.

Our luggage was much slower to follow and since we couldn’t unpack, we decided to explore the ship. The Panorama is lovely. There are so many bars and shops and restaurants. There is a ton to see, a ton to do and I knew we were in for such a fun week ahead of us! We were even treated to a rainbow over Long Beach — another sign of good things to come, I hoped! We stopped at the steakhouse to move up our dinner reservation, grabbed some gelato and just took in this beautiful ship.

Luggage was delivered around 3:30 PM and we got to work on unpacking and settling into our cabins — the two closets thing definitely came in handy! We were treated to a lovely sunset over the port of Long Beach but sailaway time came and passed and we remained in port until 6:30 PM. The lights of Long Beach began to fade away behind us and we were on our way!

We like to start our Carnival cruises off at the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse on the first night. It’s a great meal (one of the best meals at sea!) and there’s free wine if you dine on the first night. That didn’t really mean anything to us — Mom doesn’t drink and Stephanie and I had a Cheers package included in our cabin fare — but it’s a nice gesture.

Our meal at the steakhouse was incredible. If you’re a long time cruiser and remember the Carnival steakhouses of 5+ years ago, they were always really good, but the dishes they serve now are next level — on par with some of the best steakhouses on land. I’d call it the best meal we’ve ever had at sea, and at $38, it’s a steal for the quality alone.

While we were eating, Cruise Director Lee came on to announce we were turning around to return to Long Beach. There was a medical emergency and it was serious enough that we had to turn around and disembark the passenger. Thankfully we were close enough to the port to get them back for the care they needed. Lee didn’t know if this would impact our port times since we departed late, and we hoped everyone was okay.

We concluded our meal with the Art at the Table, an incredible Alinea-esque dessert. Everyone at the table needs to order it but it’s so worth it. A chef comes out and draws on a plank with different sauces, plates out these homemade gourmandises and a white chocolate dome filled with ice cream, a chocolate marquise and some kind of delicious mousse. The dessert is great, the experience is even better. I hear this may have been taken off the steakhouse menu, which just makes me sad!

The Welcome Aboard Show was beginning as we finished our meal, so we headed over to the Liquid Lounge. Lee and the Fun Squad led some fun (socially distanced) pre-show activities.

As a social media joke goes, no one can have all three. On a cruise, it’s a great ship, amazing food and incredible production shows. Carnival has great ships and amazing food, but it just can’t keep up with where Royal Caribbean and Norwegian are on production shows. I think the Welcome Aboard Show is just a prime example of this. The setlist is straight out of 2013 and hasn’t really changed since. And we didn’t know it then, but the high cases of Covid in the crew hit the entertainment teams hard, so there wasn’t a set or any dancers — just singers sitting on stools.

We contemplated going to Pig & Anchor or the Alchemy Bar, but we knew we had plenty of time to enjoy those. And vacation is for rest, right? The older I get, the more appealing time spent curled up in bed feels over a night out. Woof. Who am I and when did I start turning in early? Blame the embarkation day excitement.