Carnival Panorama Review

4.5 / 5.0
179 reviews

Great Service, Difficult Crowd and Casino Smoking Issues

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival Panorama
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Oren
10+ Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Feb 2020
Cabin: Ocean Suite

We got off the Carnival Panorama at the Long Beach port after returning to our rooms for one additional night as one passenger was Covid 19 tested and the 4000 of us had to wait for that one passengers result. Thank god the one passenger was negative but it was nerve wracking for all of us. Needless to say it was chaos for the thousands of embarking passengers since they could not get on the ship since we could not get off it. I have no idea were 1000+ hotel rooms were found to put these 1000's of waiting passengers. After 15 Carnival Cruises (since the 1990's), I think I am really done with Carnival for a long time. The Panorama crew and their service was impeccable and personable. Having Matt Mitcham (as a surprise guest) onboard truly helped the atmosphere as he and Emma did the best they could with the challenges caused by these events. The problem is that the mass cruise market has just become way too congested (e.g. just too way too many people and too many queues) on their ships. The production shows were great, but the showroom layout, seat cushions, and sight lines were the worse ever (and that was considered an improvement from the other Vista ship we were on). The casino was literally unplayable! Reason: The entire casino is the dedicated indoor smoking area 24 hours a day. Its so bad, that transiting non-smokers had to go up one deck and cross over before going back down stairs on the other side. What a dreadful design and my casino play was the least ever on any cruise ship because of this. On the other hand, the new NCL Encore we ere on the month before has a non smoking and separately ventilated and isolated/enclosed smoking casino and it was wonderful except even the NCL Encore suffers from the same passenger congestion issues. I am still a big fan of cruising, but I think its time to look at less passenger ratio ships in terms of "elbow room." I'll try more River cruises (which I love!), once this Covid virus is past us. My estimate is that is won't be until year 2022 that this pandemic is under control so that cruising becomes as safe as it was before this started. Otherwise, trust me, its not worth the stress to vacation this way with this kind of risk out there.

Cabin Review

Ocean Suite

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