We are finally about to board the Carnival Panorama. The dome building is the departure building and you can also see the Queen Mary.
The skies are a bit cloudy and it rained a little as we left at 4pm but we are headed to sunny Mexico where it we much much warmer.
Today we get to start the final adventure of this holiday by going on a 7 day cruise to the Mexican Riviera(Saturday to Saturday). We are leaving on the Carnival Panorama which is a really new ship. We were scheduled to do this cruise on this same ship and same itinerary in October 2020 when the ship was only very new as it first sailed in December 2019. However this was obviously cancelled and once the cruise industry was shut down in March 2020 by the CDC, this ship was put into hibernation for 17 months and was subsequently sent to the Phillipines to take home all the crews from various Carnival ships that were based in the USA and it was mothballed until August 2021 so it is still a very new ship.
When we checked in online for the cruise yesterday we were allocated a specific boarding time of 12.30 to 1.00 pm and as the checkout of the hotel is 11.00 am we decided to checkout right on 11.00 am and then asked reception to call a taxi for the 4km ride to the cruise port. He did this for us and said you are set. There
Very spacious inside with a King Bed and 3 seater lounge with a bar fridge and balcony just forward of mid ship on the port (left hand side of the ship).
were about 8 other people in the lobby at the time and they all had Carnival Cruise bag tags on their luggage just like us so I asked him how long they have been waiting for their taxis and he said over an hour ! Soon I heard one lady asking him about where her taxi was and he said they are always late and he offered no empathy at all and his attitude was pathetic and it was the same guy who checked us in when we arrived on Thursday afternoon.
A couple of people walked out the front of the hotel to the street to look for cabs and I got the sense we were going to have some trouble. I headed outside as well and a taxi eventually rolled up and I overheard this women saying the taxi driver was quoting her $50- for the ride and a second taxi arrived and he was quoting a different price and the other people (ahead of us in the taxi queue) were getting agitated. Further the guy in reception did not even get our names when I asked him to book a cab so who knows what taxi
Dressing up in costumes is apparently and american thing as there were quite a lot of people who must like the attention.
belongs to who. I could also see a bunch of people waiting out the front of the Marriott Hotel across the road as well so I randomly decided to download the Lyft App on my phone (they seem to be bigger than Uber here in USA) and see what options exist for a ride share.
To my surprise it offered me a fare of only $7.50 and only a 2 minutes wait. There was also an option for an urgent one for $14.92 so I went with that and he arrived in a flash at 11.29am in a nice Toyota SUV. The ride didnt start well when on the first intersection we got stuck behind a movie set where the road was closed for filming and he did not seem to know what to do ? We literally sat there at this intersection for about 5 minutes watching this Porsche car with a camera mounted on an arm attached to its roof presumably so it could film the drivers through the front windscreen whilst the car was in motion. He eventually did a and went a different route and soon we crossed the bridge over the Los Angeles
There was about 8 different types of equipment here and you could get a nice and easy workout without any stress on your joints at all. Exercise could be fun (maybe we can install these at home and I can get a workout whilst watching TV ?). I enjoyed this so much I to exercising everyday here. Well see what happens.
River to join a huge traffic jam. We eventually got out of the car at 12.
