I can honestly say that this was one of, if not THE, best cruise that we have taken in about 20 years of cruising. For us, this cruise brought us many firsts, including our first out of LA/Long Beach, our first along the Mexican Riviera, first through the Panama Canal, and first 14-day sailing. We have cruised The Carnival Paradise several times when it sailed out of Miami into the Caribbean and ...
My DH and I arrived in Long Beach 2 days before our cruise began. We Pricelined a room at the Long Beach Hyatt ($65) and it was great. No problems. We took Prime Time Shuttle from SNA to the hotel.
The first day we took Sunseeker Tours for an all day LA tour. The tour was arranged by a fellow cruise critic friend. Alberto was our driver and we enjoyed the day very much. We then met a ...
Carnival Paradise
One disappointing thing to note which was totally out of the cruise lines control was the weather, we left an unusually warm London for an equally unusual cold and wet LA. This may have had an impact on some of our thoughts about the cruise.
Embarkation
The check in process in Long beach was quick and efficient. The lady who check us in was really friendly and worth ...
Two friends and myself did a BFF weekend cruise on Paradise. I don't understand some of the negative posts about the ship, not that everything is perfect.
We drove to port from NoCal and stayed at Hotel Maya using the CCL code, great deal. One of my crew was platinum so we did VIP embarkation and I was the first on the ship! Pretty cool. I'll say that the staff in port and on the ship were ...
This ship is nicely decorated and well laid out. Our party wanted to relax completely, so we skipped getting dressed up for anything, including the dining rooms and shows. Instead, we enjoyed hanging out with one another and eating the above-average food in the Lido Deck Buffet. I was impressed with how well the traffic flows in that venue, even when crowded. Also, we appreciated the Early ...
Panama Canal Cruise -- Carnival Paradise -- November 28-December 12, 2011
Overall, this was a wonderful 14-day cruise on the Paradise with a somewhat unique itinerary (for Carnival) of passing through the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic. This was my 10th cruise, and the 6th time on a Carnival ship.
THE SHIP:
The Paradise was a medium-sized ship (Fantasy Class), but ...
This was my seventh cruise, and my second with Carnival. This is a "Fun Ship," and everything had "fun" in its name. If you are familiar with the fun size Halloween candy, you know that "fun" is really code for "cheap" or "bare minimum," which is the context of fun on this cruise.
We only paid $78.61 per person per day (including taxes and tips) for a 4-day mid-week Los Angeles, Catalina, and ...
My wife and I finally had a getaway without the kids. We are in our mid 50s, and this was my 10th Carnival cruise (finally Platinum) and her 9th. We also traveled with my wife's service dog, Duncan (his 4th cruise). We had a FANTASTIC time on the cruise. We didn't meet 1 crew member who didn't do everything possible to make our cruise experience the best it could be.
The food: We tried ...
Our family of five sailed the Paradise on 10/17/11 out of Long Beach for the 4-day cruise. Our last cruise was on the same ship/itinerary in 2008. Total cost was $220 each per person U.S. which an interior and a porthole room on lower Deck-5.
Embarkation out of Long Beach was very smooth. We arrived at 3:15 P.M. and the wait time was about 15 minutes to check in and obtain the room keys. ...
Pros:
Very easy Check-in and out. No long lines. I suggest the self-assist when it comes to your on luggage's. It's much quicker!
The Room we had which was R187 was very clean and spacious!!! The steward we had named Daman was AWESOME. He was always helpful and friendly whenever we saw. He is really DA-Man!
The Paris Restaurant-Buffet had different choices everyday from breakfast, lunch ...