Mexican Riviera Cruise on the Carnival Panorama

Sea Days and Disembarkation -- January 26-28, 2023

Or, as Carnival calls it, Fun Day at Sea. Both days were too windy for the SkyDrive to be open. I was looking forward to it again. I also wanted to do the waterpark, but I did not brave the cooler and wind. Others did, and the kids did not mind.

On the first sea day, I had an omelet in the buffet, and Travis an oatmeal. The omelet station was not crowded; everyone was sleeping late. This night was also the night that we got the time change hour back. The cruise director encourage people to stay out late with the extra hour.

We had lunch at Guy's Smokehouse and buffet cake dessert; then Travis found the empanadas on the Lido that he had liked before. Then second lunch at the smokehouse again. I ate too much on this cruise!

We watched the Dive In movie, the new Top Gun. I asked about blankets at the towel station. He mentioned them coming in 10 minutes, but others already had them. Carnival now sells the popcorn at a bar at the pool for $3. Maybe one gets a blanket only when buying popcorn. I was cold in capris, but did not want to go down to our room for towels and miss the movie. I saw others bringing their room pillows and maybe even their duvet to the show. I liked the movie. We also watched See How They Run on our room TV, on demand, over a couple of days.

Pizza place menu:

Found a cruise duck; I made Travis pose with it. We also found a tiny plastic cruise baby? One morning a little girl and Mom were looking for a duck in the buffet because the little girl really wanted to find one. When their led turned up dry, a crewmember passed with a cart with dishes and a duck. I mentioned to them, and the girl was excited. Hopefully, it was not too dirty, and they gave it a nice bath because that is a strange place for a duck.

For dinner, it was the next second/last formal night. I had the Caesar salad, prime rib, baked potato, and creme brulee. The Caesar salad is not as good as it used to be (to me), but the rest was good. Travis had fried oysters, striped bass, and the cheese plate for dessert. I shared some creme brulee with him too. Dressed up, my prime rib, and Travis's oysters and bass.

On both the Sea Days, we did trivias, watched karaoke, and read -- Travis got a book at the library on the first day. I was reading the sign. It looked like the library had very limited hours, but it was actually art gallery sales there. There was no formal checkout process, but there was someone there. He asked and just got it. There were not many books, but he found something by an author that he had read before. He finish on the sea days; we liked to sit on the promenade. There was also seating on the high decks above and on either side of the aft pool that I commented that we should try out, but we never remembered to actual try them. Karaoke was fun to watch.

The next Sea Day morning, I had half a bagel -- you don't toast them yourself now, but they are pre-toasted of varying toastedness; the first bagel was so hard and dried out that I could not eat it. I found another from another section that was better. The ham was good, and I was very excited to find a chocolate muffin this morning. Travis had beans (which sounds weird now -- an English breakfast?) and oatmeal.

For lunch, I had my last Guy's Ringer of the trip, and Travis a salad. For second lunch, from Blue Iguana, I had a fish taco and Travis the pork taco. They were very good.

The last Sea Day was the chocolate extravaganza -- cool that they still have one; many have gone away. It was challenging being a small area of the buffet with people coming into a "line" from both sides; okay a lady with a child cutting after we had already waited a while. The puff pastry swans with ice cream was very cute. They also had a chocolate fountain, which was the slow part to serve. The normal cake stations had a lot of chocolate cakes. I got a piece.

These digital funnels were over the atrium bar and over the casino. They were really cool. Here is a Dr. Seuss that I took to show our kids.

Last dinner, I had the Asian chicken tenders; they were good but the noodles were not too impressive. Braised short ribs. Travis had Cobb salad, jerked pork loin. We both had to have the baked Alaska!

The last day, we got up early enough to have the MDR. I got the broken egg sandwich, and Travis the oatmeal. Lots of choices.

They did not push the fresh pressed juices this morning. We watched the approach into Long Beach from the dining room and went to the promenade to get another view later. We needed to leave the room by 8:30 am and the documentation noted that everyone had to be off by 10:45 am. We did carry your own bags, which they called by muster station numbers. We waited in the library, and time between muster station calls seemed pretty slow. Some was probably extra people, not really going during their muster station, and the cruise director announced to only come when called. Though we docked early, so we got off quicker. After getting off, customs was also pretty quick -- though the birth certificate line was much shorter than the passport line which had the facial recognition. We then got in the taxi line. It was expensive; Uber would have been cheaper. We had an early enough flight that I was not brave enough for public transportation.

Long Beach terminal, pretty mountains, and back at home.