Day 44 - Carnival Panorama Cruise (Day 7 - At Sea)

---

We we woke up around 8.00am as the ship time went back an hour at 2am this morning and had a good sleep and this is our final day at sea. We decided to head back to the main dining room again for breakfast / brunch and they had the same menu and we sat at the same table # 392 again (how bizarre).

Today we have two gentlemen from Canada on our table. Jarett from Vancouver and Gordon from Calgary. Kerry ordered the parfait and also her first omelette of the trip with “the lot”. I had the parfait which was excellent along with 2 eggs sunny side up with hash browns and corned beef hash. We had a good chat with them. Gordon shared his story about riding a motorbike through dirt road canyons on a biking adventure similar to what we saw at the antelope canyons and he got caught in a flash flood event which must have been scary. Jarett shared some stories about his previous adventures and has encouraged us to give Celebrity Cruises a try which is Royal Caribbean’s slightly more upmarket brand. He said their service is a few extra notches higher with only a slightly higher price tag.

They were cruising together on a boys week with some other mates and they went deep sea fishing and caught a big sword fish which he showed us a photo of and it was big. They are having a big weekend with a game of golf tomorrow and corporate seats at the NFL game between the San Francisco’s 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams at the new state of the art So Fi stadium near LAX on Sunday afternoon where we will heading home from tomorrow night. They both totally understood our love of visiting diners in USA and said they don”t really have them in Canada.

I found a really quiet part of ship in the Havana bar where Kerry could read and she is getting well and truly hooked in her 2nd book which is a murder mystery. It’s called The Therapist written by B.A. Paris. We had a late lunch around 2pm at the Deli where they make your meals as you order them and Kerry got us both a Philly Cheese Steak and fries and for some reason I later decided to go back and get a cheese toasted sandwich as well !

After a coffee we went back to the room to watch the video on the TV about the debarkation process for our arrival back in Long Beach tomorrow. We have arranged for the Carnival bus to take us to LAX which we booked using the onboard credit. They are giving us an option to leave our bags out tonight and have them checked in which results in a later departure time off the ship or take the bags off the ship ourselves which will get us off quicker so we will do the latter as I expect with 4309 passengers getting off it will be a long procedure so the sooner we start the better.

We have to be out of our rooms by 8.30 so the steward “I Made” from Indonesia who is a lovely chap can get the cabin 8296 ready for the sailing from departing tomorrow afternoon. We spoke with our room steward and he has to look after 37 rooms on board so he is kept pretty busy but we have noticed this time they only do your room once per day and not the usual “evening refresh”.

We had a pretty early dinner and we had a chat with one of the staff who was cleaning the tables who was from Indonesia and we asked a few questions about life on the ship. He is on his 3rd contract (9 months this time) and had previously worked on the Carnival Spirit ship from Sydney and commented on how rough the seas can be on their way to New Zealand which we also experienced on a Royal Caribbean cruise several years ago. I asked about how is life on Deck 0 and he is actually staying on Deck Alpha and said he would be able to see the fish if he had a window as it’s undersea apparently ! He talked about how they were allowed a reasonable amount of alcohol when off duty in their own area of the ship where they can relax but some crew members had behaved badly and now the alcohol policy has become stricter for all. He also explained how the pay is much better than he can earn at home which explains why so many Indonesians and Phillipines staff are working on cruise ships. It’s a big commitment as they are aware from their families until the contract ends in 7-9 months when they must return home for 2-3 months.

We decided to head to the main showroom for the 7.30 show but after 5 minutes I said to Kerry I would go to the Comedy Club and join the queue for the 8.30 show to avoid missing out again and when I got there I was only about 10th in the queue. Kerry would later join me in about 20 minutes as the show was pretty ordinary and around 8.15 they let us in and we had the choice of the best seats. On this occasion the show did not actually fill up and we got to see Doug Williams. I think the reason it was not full is that in addition to his early 7.30 and our 8.30 show he was doing a 9.30 show and had now also agreed to do an extra 4th show at 10.45 in the showroom. His performance only goes for 30 minutes and it had some funny things highlighted by a line he used when he was chatting with an older lady recently widowed which I cannot repeat !

We got the luggage all packed and ready for a morning departure. It has been great to be cruising again.

---

Photos

Evidence I am still committed to my fitness ?
In truth this was my only visit after within an hour of boarding the ship !