ATSEAMYLIFE

That's really a personal choice for you to make depending on your late night habits. For me I'm an early to bed early to rise person. So for me I would go to a hotel by LAX and make a leisure day on Saturday to go to San Pedro. But again with the excitement of traveling and getting in at 9:00 PM I might just suck it up and go to San Pedro so I don't have to pack and unpack twice.

We sail her in December and trying to plan a Chef's Table that doesn't conflict with formal night. When are your formal night(s). I see you said Monday is there a second one later in the week?

We use the LAX Hilton if getting in late or leaving early. Food at the bar is excellent and the rooms are very nice. As pointed out the area around anything near LAX is going to be a wasteland. Probably OK for a good walk during the day. The shuttle to/from LAX is excellent. I guess it depends on when you actually get into LAX. If you get in late night and really only have the next day and night it would be good. If you have more daylight on you day of arrival and then a full day and night then I would look more at away from LAX area. The gym is good.

I guess you could be correct in your assumptions.

Wow, 20 is unheard of and 17.5 has been about the average for at least the last several months. I haven't seen 20 for at least a year. You should invest at that rate. The current bank rate today is 16.84 so they were losings money at 20 and 17.5, which I doubt.

Valle de Guadalupe has some very good wines, I'm sure the cruise ship excursions are taking people to the big touristy locations. Most of the excellent ones aren't really large enough to host tours. But it's certainly worth going if it's your only option. Cost at most for tasting and food can now rival Napa Valley. La Estancia is one of our favorites for wine and food, but it's not cheap.

Totally agree, I would do the Safari Park any day instead of the zoo. We did the Safarivan extra tour there and it was awesome. We handfeed the giraffes and got within several feet of rino babies.

100% agree with seeing the La Brea Tar Pits no other place like it.

Interesting I have never seen anything other that a four digit pin for the ones we use in Rosarito.

Cabo will be much better. Sadly Guerrero Negro is to far away. It's the birthing spot for whales. The mothers will bring their babies right up to the boat to be petted. There's dozens of videos on Youtube. We haven't done it yet but it's on the list. February they start heading north but it still should be good watching. We usually start seeing them in front of our condo around mid/end of February going north.

Use pesos for small street vendor purchases and CC for larger purchases like tourist restaurants. You can purchase pesos from some banks in the US before you go. I have bought at Wells Fargo and IBC. The exchange rate is horrible, but you won't be buying that much and won't have to bother with finding an ATM. If you do decide to use a MX bank ATM make sure to use a major banks ATM and decline the conversion rate. Using USD makes the vendor have to convert to pesos and they get ripped off just like us gringos do. You can get a better deal by using pesos in larger restaurants also. We were in a touristy Cabo restaurant in June and they posted their exchange rate, which the law allows the merchant to set their own exchange rate. The restaurant was exchanging at 16.2 pesos to the USD. The bank rate at the time was about 17.5. You would be much better off paying in pesos. That being said, we live in MX and buy stuff every day. You will only be in MX a short time so it might not be worth the trouble to save a few $$$.

Warning: be prepared for a lot Spring breakers in Cabo during March and April. Since the drinking age is 18 it's a hot spot for high school and college kids from the southern US. We were in Cabo early June and it was crazy with drunk high school graduates, mostly from So CA, NV, and AZ.

Worse case hop the Hilton shuttle to the LAX Hilton and hang out there, much more comfortable in the bar than the airport. Maybe even call and see if they will rent you a day room. We had a long layover at Hong Kong airport and had a great day room at the hotel in the terminal.

Isn't there also a ferry? We had friends do it with their motorcycles few years ago

Looks like I had an old www site showing there was one in Tom Bradley terminal. I have not used them only seen them at SMF. I belonged to Priority Pass many years ago and it worked while. During our recent travels to Europe I saw several people being turned away from the Air France lounges who weren't flying AF only trying to use a credit card rewards program or Priority Pass. At CDG I was behind a guy trying to use PP and was turned away due to "over crowding." When we got inside the lounge was almost empty.

There's an Escape Airport Lounge at LAX you can gain entry with certain credit cards or pay the fee.

My suggestion would be very different if it's one or two full days with two or three nights. Two days there's a lot more options for things to do and places to see. Whereas flying in one day and cruising the next day doesn't allow much time to do/see stuff due to the traffic constraints of the LA area. If flying in one day and cruising the next then just find a nice hotel with a few things to walk to and use Uber to the hotel. If having one full day or more then I would rent a car and go see some stuff. My personal MO is to book Hilton hotels as soon as I even consider going some place and then cancel if I don't. Hilton has a great cancelation policy, as do many other hotel chains, and doing it that way has saved me $100's over the years. I have easily seen rooms I booked double in price before we arrive.

Buy a HALO device. Anybody who has any sense will NOT jump start a stranger's car. There's just to much liability involved with jump starting anyone's vehicle with all the electronics.

Rent a car or fly.

Interesting the port schedule shows no NCL ships after January 11th when the Bliss is there. There's nothing after that in 2024, at least until June was the furthest out I looked. Every other lines appears to be stopping there on a regular schedule.

I'm thinking some cruise lines haven't worked out agreements with the tour operators.

Uber can be hit or miss. The taxi operators basically ran them out of TJ and down to Rosarito. We have a private driver we use for trips to the wine country and taking people to/from San Diego airport. If I pull up the Uber app in Rosarito nothing will ever show up. It might be different further down in Ensenada.

There are plenty of warnings before that happens it's not automatic. But always a good idea to be in airplane mode and only connect to WiFi while on the ship.

I'm guessing a dispute with the tour operators.