This will be my first time cruising in October. It’s hard to believe that Carnival Panorama has only done about 10 cruises since I disembarked just over 19 months ago. I am actually going to be getting off of the ship the day before Halloween. But since Carnival celebrates Halloween the entire month of October, we should get the full Halloween experience on this week before Halloween cruise.

Booking

I had a FCC (Future Cruise Credit) from Carnival that had $600 OBC (On Board Credit) attached to it from a canceled cruise during the shutdown. I believe the cruise had to be booked by the end of September for a cruise with a sailing date by the end of next year. Otherwise the FCC would still be good but I would lose the OBC.

I saw Carnival had some low fares for the fall and winter. Football season is tricky for me. I have two weeks in October I can work with. One is a bye week. The other is an away game on Monday Night Football which I know will be on the TVs on the ship.

The ships with good prices those weeks were Breeze with a 5-day starting at $300 or Panorama with a 7-day starting at $400.

I really didn’t want to go down to a 5-day. I looked into adding a 4-day on it but the price of the 4-day was so high it took away all of the savings. I also thought about my $600 OBC. I was also going to have a couple hundred overage on my FCC that would be converted to OBC plus my shareholder OBC and OBC from my travel agent. I’m going to have to spend around $1,000 OBC and I’ll have a much better chance of doing that on a 7-day Panorama than I would on a 5-day Breeze. Plus the Panorama has the really nice “Hero’s Lounge” sports bar that will make cruising during football season much easier.

I went ahead and locked in the Panorama. The good room rate was only on an interior upper/lower guarantee. I have always wanted to try one of those rooms. This will be a good opportunity. If they had these solo deals more often, I would probably book one of those rooms. As it is it’s usually only a $50-100 upgrade to get a king size bed on the lido deck so I never book the upper/lower rooms.

Two weeks out I got my room assignment. I was expecting to be in a closet on deck 1. I ended up with a regular interior like I normally book with the king bed up on deck 7. It’s right by the secret deck which is nice. It’ll be very easy for me to step out and catch the sunrise/set. It’s actually just about five steps from the 4J room I booked on Vista in December.

Flight

Do to my inability to fly out early the day before the cruise, my options were to get into LAX around midnight or take the first flight out on Saturday. I always said I would never fly in the day of a cruise. I’m making an exception this time. I booked a Spirit flight that leaves at 6am and gets in at 7:30.

A month after I booked the flight, they changed the departure time to 7:45 and the arrival time to 9am. I re-evaluated my flight options at that point but found the best I could do would get me in about 30 minutes earlier on a different airline. I decided to stick with my existing flight.

Since I am flying Spirit I was able to get the cheap seat upgrades I like. Exit row aisle seats both ways with additional leg room. In the past these seat upgrades have cost me $20-30 per leg. This time I’m paying about $46 per leg. But the flight itself was extremely cheap. The breakdown is $82 for the flight, $66 for a checked bag, $92 for seat upgrades and $31 for taxes. The grand total is $272 for the round trip ticket. Maybe I could get that price on another airline, but not with the seat I got and the checked bags.

Onboard Credit

As I mentioned earlier I used a FCC with $600 OBC from a previously canceled cruise to book this one. That FCC was worth more than I paid for this cruise so the overage gave me another $200 or so OBC. Then I added on $100 OBC for owning at least 100 shares of Carnival stock. I will get a little OBC from my travel agent as well bringing me up around $1000 OBC. This is where it stands right now.

I will use that to pay for my Cheers drink package, internet, automatic gratuities. That should leave me with about $350 to spend on specialty dining and excursions.

Specialty Dining

I have not booked any specialty dining yet. With the onboard credit I have, I will definitely be spending at least one night in the Steakhouse and at least one night in JiJi’s Asian restaurant. I may even try the Seafood Shack for lunch one day since I have never eaten there.

Excursions

Due to the amount of onboard credit I have on my account, any excursions I book will be booked on the ship. My hope is at a minimum to book Rhythms of the Night in Puerta Vallarta once on the ship.

I was a little concerned about this excursion because it hadn’t been listed as available for purchase online. Finally one week before the cruise it popped up. As long as it doesn’t sell out between now and the time I board the ship, that will be the first thing I do once onboard. I heard nothing but good things about that excursion prior to my last Panorama cruise and I have heard nothing but good things about it since my last Panorama cruise.

Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan are still up in the air. I did Whale Watching last time in Cabo. I said next time I would like to be in one of the smaller boats that gets closer to the whales. I don’t believe we are in whale season now so that is out. I may look into one of the smaller boats that gets closer to the Arch.

Last time I went to the top of El Faro in Mazatlan. I also took a little private tour with a cab driver that included a tour of the Cathedral, a drive down the melancon, and watching the cliff divers. I would be interested in touring the Pacifico brewery if they have that. I heard it used to be a great tour. Then they did away with the tours. Now it’s a little sketchy as to whether or not you can do it but they say it’s not as good as it used to be.

Covid-19 Testing

After my incident CVS last time, I will no longer put my ability cruise in the hands of CVS. Walgreens won’t allow you to book until two days out which is scary. I ordered the home tests from Optum that are approved by Carnival. I waited until early October to order and received the tests two days later. I got a 3-pack for $100. The tests expire in late December. They will cover this cruise, my December Vista cruise and I’ll have one spare in case something goes awry with one of the other two tests.

I had previously booked a PCR test with Walmart. That is the test that got my results back in two days last time. Once Walgreens’ rapid testing was available to book for my days I booked them for the day before my cruise and canceled my Walmart test. The plan at that point was to do the home test on Thursday night and if it went well, cancel the Walgreens appointment. If something went wrong with the home test, I would go to Walgreens the next day. If something went wrong with Walgreens, my absolute last resort would be a test at DFW or LAX airports.

I received this reminder voicemail eight days before the cruise. It’s very similar to one I received before my Mardi Gras cruise.

Two days before the cruise I got impatient and looked to see if I could move my Walgreens appointment to that day.

I was able to get a same day appointment for 4:15. I arrived at 4:10 but there was a line.

I didn’t get to the window until 4:35. At 4:40 the lady asked me if she could help me. I told her I had an appointment to test. She steps away. She comes back at 4:45 and says she needs to print my paper work real quick. She comes back at 4:55 and asks for me to hold up my ID. She then sends me a single swab in the paper. She asks me to take it out, stick it one half inch into each nostril, swirl five times in each nostril, then put it back in the paper. I was done at 5pm and received an email at 5:25pm saying my results are in. After clicking the link in the email, I was asked to provide my birthdate. That gave me access to my results.

It doesn’t look like I need to used the home test this time. I am vaccinated, tested, and ready to cruise.