You’re probably wondering what a photo of a dog in an elevator has to do with an inside cabin on the Carnival Panorama, right? First off, he’s not a dog. That’s Henry, the best good boi in all the land. And sweetest too – he only looks mad in this photo because we’d been trapped in the elevator of our high rise apartment building in downtown Seattle for 45 minutes following our morning walk and he wanted his breakfast! But while Henry would instantly forget about this little incident with his first post-rescue bite of kibble, I was quickly descending (not from a sudden elevator drop – sorry for the poor choice of word there) from mild claustrophobe to planning how I was going to walk up and down 24 flights of stairs for the remaining year left on our lease to distract myself from hyperventilating. It was bad.
And then a few days later I received an e-mail from Carnival informing me that the original cabin I’d booked, a porthole cabin with a view of outside, had been replaced with a standard inside cabin with no window. While I’ve sailed in inside cabins many, many times before without issue, the thought of one now had me wondering who I should call first, Carnival customer service or my therapist. I called my therapist first who was very helpful and told me to call Carnival and pony up for an oceanview or balcony cabin. Then I called Carnival which was very unhelpful (I shouldn’t say that – this cruise was totally sold out so there was no way they could move me to another cabin). Then I called my therapist again and got prescribed some good drugs.
That’s the first of three important pieces of context you should know about before I launch into my review. The second is that this cruise was coming just weeks after a solo cruise I’d taken on the Majestic Princess where I was upgraded by media relations from my booked inside cabin to a mini-suite. So I was going from:
And third, I was cruising with my 9 year-old, who toward the end of our sailing got a horrible bout of either food poisoning or a stomach bug and we spent two solid days trapped in our inside cabin while he barfed and I tried not to barf at having to smell and clean up barf with minimal ventilation.
Mind you, none of that stopped me from consuming approximately 25 slices of room service chocolate cake over those two days and, despite the unfortunate ending, my son and I had a great cruise together!
But I wanted you to understand the context (I know, get on with it already!), because I fear some of this review might be a bit saltier than it would have been under more typical circumstances. In any case, let’s start with a tour:
And here’s what I loved about my inside cabin on the Panorama:
While our inside cabin was very basic, I paid the equivalent of what a pack of breath mints and a Coke costs at my neighborhood bodega. And the cabin came with 7 days worth of unlimited buffet cake! According to my calculations, Carnival ended up $400 in the red on cake alone.
Cabin 8464 was located on deck 8 aft, just a short jaunt up to the buffet…for cake! And balcony snacks (read on)! While I didn’t choose it, I really ended up loving this location. It was in a much better spot than our original cabin on deck 1 forward.
While the thread count of the sheets was probably equal to the number of stars you’re giving this review (1-2), the mattresses and bedding were perfectly comfortable and my son and I both slept great.
Inevitably, after a few days of sharing a cruise cabin with me, my son finds himself shouting, while imploring me to stop jumping from bed to bed so he can pick up the clutter: “It’s like a zoo in here!” And our accumulated towel animals look at him like, “what’s wrong with that?” And he looks a little perplexed at the dinosaur, but decides not to engage in a debate about realistic residents of a modern day zoo and simply reassures them: “I didn’t mean you guys!” Because he loves the towel animals created by room stewards on Carnival ships. I do too. And our room steward made us some great ones on the Panorama.
As someone who both works to cruise and cruises to work (such is the life of a cruise writer), I appreciated having a desk. While it was small and the uncomfortable stool prompted me to wheel my ergonomic chair out onto my balcony to enjoy some fresh air when I got home so she’d know how much I appreciate her, it did the trick for the brief periods of time I needed to work.
I also appreciated the 2 USB and 2 three-prong outlets above the desk. They were adequate to keep charged the many electronic devices required to keep me entertained at dinner while my 9 year-old droned on and on about politics and the Tolstoy novel he was reading.
I love the breakfast burritos from Blue Iguana Cantina so much that I sometimes eat three in a single day. I’ll sneak out right when they open, before my son is awake, and bring one back to the cabin to stealthily eat in the bathroom. Then once my son wakes up and we head out for a proper, non toilet seat breakfast, I order two more. One to eat then and one to take back to store in the mini-fridge for later. I also grab two extra slices of buffet cake at lunch (since it’s only available at lunch) to keep my breakfast burrito company before eating them after dinner.
I appreciate the in-cabin mini-fridges on Carnival even more since the line discontinued mini-bar service. One used to have to request the mini-bar items be cleared out in order to use the mini-fridge for room snacks. It was a pain for busy room stewards to empty them and I never once purchased anything from one. Wise move, Carnival!
While we could never get the on-demand movies to work which was disappointing, the TV magically transformed this cabin from a likely tomb (in my claustrophobic brain) to a luxurious aft balcony. I simply kept the TV tuned to the aft camera channel, positioned my little blue stool in front of it, put my feet up on the counter above the fridge (like it was a balcony railing), and spent hours on end not seeing any wildlife while I sipped room service coffee and gorged on snacks. Exactly what I’d do with a real balcony cabin!
Seriously though, keeping the television tuned to one of the ship cameras kept my claustrophobia at bay. And my son appreciated having several cartoon channels to watch while he was sick.
This thermostat was a significant upgrade from the knob version seen on most older Carnival ships and it did a great job at keeping our cabin at the desired temperature – cool while my son was feverish and warm when I returned wet and chilled and mad from 4,000 consecutive trips down the red slide (mad because a crew member kicked me off alleging that I wasn’t letting any of the kids have a turn).
While the shower was the typical size and featured a cloth curtain (which isn’t ideal as water tends to get all over the floor), it had an adjustable and removable shower head, great temperature control and water pressure, and the standard retractable clothesline so I could dry out our bathing suits and my gym clothes.
This stateroom was an Ambulatory Accessible Cabin (AAC). These cabins are designed for passengers with mobility limitations, but who do not require regular use of a wheelchair or scooter. Really the only differences between this cabin and a non AAC cabin were in the shower with the addition of grab bars and a bench. While my son and I didn’t require an AAC cabin (it was just assigned to us), I loved being able to pull down the bench to sit on to shave. Or as a table for my early morning bathroom snacks.
While the selection is limited, this breakfast room service card was especially handy for the mornings my son was ill and we couldn’t leave the cabin. Bland carbs and hot tea were pretty much the only things that appealed to him as he started to feel good enough to eat, so I loaded us up with enough toast and bagels to last the day and requested decaf tea for him which was provided. Hot items are an extra charge, but cold items and beverages are complimentary.
Despite this being one of Carnival’s newest ships, nothing about my cabin was cutting edge and everything, except for the thermostat and some additional outlets above the desk, was just like every other Carnival ship I’ve ever sailed on. This included the old-school privacy door hanger. Most newer ships on other lines have buttons to push connected to small lights near the outside of the door. That didn’t bother me in the slightest though. In fact, I just tried to pretend it was 10 years ago before I had gray hairs and wrinkles. Which brings me to the things I didn’t love about my cabin on the Panorama
These are all relatively minor things, but I figured I’d mention them so anyone cruising on the Panorama can prepare for them. I’ll also offer some solutions in a “packing tips” section to follow.
Remember that thing I said (you should, it was like two sentences ago!) about pretending it was 10 years ago? That’s hard to do with this mirror that makes your wrinkles each look like the asteroid caused crater that wiped out the dinosaurs. No wonder our brachiosaurus towel animal looked so terrified every time I walked by him (until his felt eyes fell off).
Pro Tip: Cover that thing with a wash cloth unless you’re prepared to drop some major dollars at the Estee Lauder counter when you return home.
I mean, I wasn’t expecting a “virtual” view like some fancy new mega ships on other lines feature in inside cabins, but maybe at least a curtain or something to make it feel like their might be a window behind the bed? The institutional naked wall was a little drab and depressing and didn’t offer much of a lifeline to this claustrophobe. Thank goodness for the TV.
As a minimalist and human so tiny my clothes would hang loosely off an averaged-sized hobbit, the amount of closet storage in our inside cabin on the Panorama met our needs. However, with only two small closets, one with shelving and drawers and one for hanging items, it may not be adequate for those who find themselves frantically redistributing items between suitcases at the airport check-in counter to squeak in under 50 pounds while apologizing to the growing line behind them: “I’m so sorry, but I can’t possibly cruise without 16 pairs of shoes and a full ensemble to match. Also, this would go faster if anyone would volunteer to transport my 70’s party go go boots.”
There are certain common features of cruise cabins that have just never made sense to me. Having to insert a card into a slot for most of the power to stay on is one of them. Is it a safety thing? Is it to conserve energy? Is it just so sub-par cruise bloggers will have something fairly innocuous to complain about in their reviews (mission accomplished)?
Whatever the reason is (please, if you know with certainly, enlighten all of us in the comments), it’s totally useless since most people, including me, just stick an old hotel key card or credit card in there for the duration of the cruise. If you don’t, any devices you have plugged into the outlets won’t continue to charge when you pull the card out. Be sure to always turn out the lights when you leave though.
There was a time when I believed all cruise ship hair dryers were the same. But once I branched out and started trying lots of different cruise lines and ships, I realized the stereotypes I’d had about them, that none of them stayed on without continually pressing down a button, that they lacked sufficient power, and that they were always attached to the wall through a hole in a drawer, were wrong. It turns out cruise ship hair dryers come in many different models and configurations and not all of them suck. So let that be a lesson.
But I did find myself saying out loud to the hair dryer in our cabin on the Panorama: “Don’t be such a stereotype!” Because you had to continually push down the button for it to stay on, it lacked sufficient power, and it was attached to the wall through a hole in a drawer.
I once heard Carnival called the Motel 6 of cruising by someone on a Celebrity ship who followed up by saying she’d rather eat off the floor of a truck stop bathroom than ever sail on Carnival again. While I appreciated the analogy and jotted it down for future use (now!), I thought to myself: “Fine, more buffet cake and breakfast burritos for me!” And for what it’s worth, I drove twice from Utah to Michigan as a poor collage student and found both the Motel 6’s I stayed in along the way as well as the truck stop bathrooms I stopped in to pee far less enjoyable, like by an order of magnitude, than the worst Carnival cruise I’ve been on.
However, the shampoo and shower gel provided in Carnival cabins does remind me of motel products so bad that you don’t even bother to hide them so the maid will put out more and you can build up a reserve to take home.
I also don’t love the open bathroom shelves on Carnival because they make the space feel cluttered when full of stuff and smaller items fall through the openings. I even had a glass fall off one once during particularly rough seas and shatter. Which brings me to my packing tips for inside cabins on the Carnival Panorama.
Here are some items you might consider bringing with you to make your inside cabin on the Panorama more comfortable and functional. Some of these I brought with me, some I wished I’d brought with me, and some will only be useful to certain people (like those who pack a lot of clothes).
If you don’t already have something similar, pick up a few clear toiletry bags to put your smaller makeup and hygiene items in to store on the open shelves in the bathroom.
If you like waking up to natural light, a sunrise alarm clock is a great inside cabin cruise hack.
Because there was no outlet near the bed and I like to have access to my phone to check the time, I was happy to have brought along my portable charger to charge up my phone at night. We also used it to keep my son’s video game system charged during travel. I have this one (it’s inexpensive and works great):
Magic cascading hangers are a great hack for a small closet. You can bring extra hangers or ask your room steward to provide more.
There were no hooks on the walls of this cabin to hang jackets, swimsuits, purses, and other items. I wished I’d had a few removable ones to stick around. I like these Command hooks.
To transport your room snacks and keep them fresh! Plastic plate covers are available to purchase on Amazon, at many Dollar Stores, or you can use a shower cap as a hack.
As I mentioned earlier, your inside cabin on the Panorama will come stocked with shower gel and shampoo as well as a bar of soap. However, if quality is important to you, pack your own (maybe the little bottles you hoarded from your pre-cruise hotel). And note that conditioner is not provided. Or just tie your hair back in a makeshift bun for 7 days like I did and call it good: cruise hair, don’t care!
So, would I book this cabin again? Well since I didn’t actually book this cabin at all, I guess the better question is: would I book this cabin intentionally?
For the same price? Yes! For much more than what I paid for it? Probably not. While I know many people are loyal to Carnival (and there’s so much to love about the line), I’ve found it really does pay to shop around. Carnival doesn’t always have the best prices (despite what many believe) and cabins on other lines are often a step up in terms of quality and features. But should you think I’m poo pooing Carnival, I just booked another cruise on her tonight! My son and I will be on Carnival again this summer, this time on the Spirit to Alaska. And with that…
Class Dismissed.
Homework (10 points): Cruising on the Carnival Panorama with kids (or kids at heart)? Read my review of the Sky Zone. Then check out my 10 Pro Tips For A Fast And Smooth Embarkation Day on Carnival. You can also find all the Carnival dining and bar menus with prices HERE.
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