Sister’s Trip 2023 (Carnival Panorama)

My sister’s and I try to take a trip every couple of years. We’ve been doing this for many, many years and over the years it has evolved, we started our trips by going to Vegas or California to shop for our kids Christmas gifts when they were little, but now that our kids are all grown ( with an exception of Ashley’s kids and a few of Nancy’s) we have switched it up, This will be our third Cruise, and our longest one too! We found a crazy deal for a 7 day cruise out of Long Beach that we just couldn’t pass up! We flew out the evening before to LAX. We were so glad we did because Dawn’s bag got sent to Las Vegas instead! Luckily they were able to track it down and send it on the next flight which was only like an hour and a half wait, So we chilled at the airport waiting for her bag and luckily it was the first bag off! Whew! Crisis diverted!!

We stayed the night in Long Beach, woke up and headed to the port. Well we tried to head to the Port but man it was very difficult getting a ride there! We tried to Uber and Lift there and our request kept getting picked up and then dropped, this happed over and over again for like 45 minutes! We had a check in time of 11-11:30 and we were not going to make our time, I decided to go back into our hotel and ask the front desk to call us a Taxi, She was able to get us a Taxi for WAY less than Uber or Lift and they were able to bypass the long lines and get us to the port super quick! Because we were late to our check in we were able to move to the front of the lines and go through check in speedy fast! We ended up still having to wait to be called back but not nearly as long as if we had made it to the port at 11 so I would say it was a happy accident that we were not able to get a ride when we wanted!!

First stop on the ship was to Guy’s Burgers. We love those burgers and fries.

Long beach was cold and rainy, and of course I wasn’t prepared for that, it’s like the weather gods are just laughing at me, girl you cant escape the yucky weather!! LOL I didn’t take very many pictures that day but of course Carnival bugs you every second to take your picture so I have a few that I took screenshots of, The One of Ashley jumping is my favorite and I wish I would of just bought it… Oh well you get the idea we were pretty happy to be on board!!

The next important stop is of course get an ice cream cone!! I kind of wished I would of kept a count of how many I ate that week but then again I am also glad that I didn’t, because it was ALOT!!! But oh man so good!!

We took a tour of the spa and Nancy and I decided to book messages for the first sea day since apparently the first and last sea days are the coldest, so we figured it would be a good time to do that. My message was super intense, I think maybe too intense for me, I always thought I liked a more firm message but this was on a whole different level, the lady literally jumped on the bed and was working on the knots in my back and dude, it was super painful! and she also messaged my head and put all kinds of oil in my hair, which bummed me out big time because it wasn’t even close to wash my hair day! LOL

We did all the on board things the first two days, played Bingo, watched the shows, listened to Karaoke, went to the comedy club, you name it we did it!

The second day was a sunny day so we headed out to find a place to lay out but of course everyone else had the same idea. We finally were able to find a few chairs to hang out on.

Our Ship was full of people from Utah, like seriously everyone on there was from Utah it seemed. We found out from a couple we met in the spa that Zach Wilson was on board. If you are like me and clueless who that is, apparently he played football at BYU and was drafted to play for the Jets in 2021, but that’s not the only thing he is famous for, apparently he had a fling with his mom’s best friend!?! LOL So anyway Nancy and I decided to make it our mission to find him because we thought it would be funny to take a picture with him and send it to our husbands. Well wouldn’t you know it while we were sitting in our chairs people watching Nancy spotted him! So we decided to go up to him and ask him if we could take a picture with him. He was super nice and and had no problem taking a picture with us! We sent the pictures to our families and man I had no idea but they all knew the story and was like mom you better stay away from him! LOL I kind of feel bad for him, he really seems like a good guy. Oh and he is the same age as Tyler so ya no worries people, I could easily be his mom!! Too Funny!

That night was our first elegant night. We stopped and took stupid pictures, like we like to do, again here are some screenshots of a few that we took. The piano ones are so funny to me because out of the 4 of us I believe I was the only one who never really played so that made it even funnier! We really should of bought some of these because they are so cheesy they are hilarious! LOL