We embarked on a 7 day Carnival cruise on Panorama leaving Long beach. There are a lot of ways to do cruises, excursions, ect, this is how I did it and my family of 6 (4 kids 12, 13, 15, 16) had a fabulous time. First of all, we ubered from LAX to the port, no problem 67.00. We were early so we went to one of the restaurants about 10 minutes away and had lunch for 1.5 hours. Once back at port we waited in our entry line for about an hour. They were running about 1 hour late checking people in. It was very easy and well planned out. I suppose if you wanted to sneak in early, you probably could. Lots of people were bringing on their own soft drinks, probably a good idea if you are into soft drinks.

Once on ship we checked into our cabins, we had a nice balcony view deck 6, kids were 2 doors away in a bunk room set up. We didn't care much about how the kids were set up, it was just a spot to sleep so they had a small cabin with twin bunk beds. Immediately, we signed the kids up on the camp ocean roster.

Camp Ocean 12-17- the kids really enjoyed the program throughout the duration of the cruise. They spent a lot of time with the kids they met and made some great friends. Some of the activities seemed pretty good, lots of dancing. There was enough activities to keep the kids occupied everyday, we got back together before dinner did an activity like PG comedy or one of the chincy shows then they ran around the ship back by 11:30 midnight every night. They did some group activities and for the most part I thought it was ok. We are pretty protective and felt safe with the kids most of the time. One kids parents got their kid drunk in Mexico then put him in the basketball court cage. That was annoying but it opened up a great dinner conversation with my kids. Read more