Absent from the Long Beach harbor nearly since the start of the pandemic, the 1,060-foot-long Carnival Panorama cruise ship is sailing home, set to return Tuesday morning after an eight-month absence.

Normally stationed in Long Beach, the Panorama left in late April, bound for the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia to repatriate stranded crew members to their home countries.

Most recently, the ship had an extended anchorage near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.

Fans and followers of the ship on a Facebook group were the first to spot last week that the Panorama had left Panamanian waters and was headed north, with Long Beach listed as the destination.

Online vessel tracking services last showed the ship off the coast of Baja California, south of Ensenada, expected to arrive in Long Beach around 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

The year-old Panorama has already logged several long-distance journeys and is the largest cruise ship based in Long Beach.

The 5,000-passenger, 133,500-ton ship departed from the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy on Nov. 1 and made its way around the tip of South America in December. After a 17,000 mile journey, the Panorama arrived at its new home in Long Beach, marking the first new Carnival cruise vessel to be based on the West Coast in 20 years.

Just months after starting regular operations, the Panorama suspended sailings, caught up in pandemic-related shutdowns impacting the global cruise industry.

Last month, Carnival announced that all Long Beach-based cruises would continue to be canceled through at least the end of February 2021.

Nevertheless, Long Beach will also become home to another Carnival ship, the 3,000-passenger Radiance, in April. The Radiance recently underwent a $200 million retrofit and upgrade and will redeploy to Long Beach from Europe.