lx200gps

Seems pretty obvious from the satellite view, but apparently few taxi or Uber drivers know this. Every time we've ever driven into the port, they have always turned right onto Harbor then turned left across traffic to enter the anti-clockwise ring road at the south end of the parking lot at W 1st St. I never could figure that one out, entering at Swinford, as you say, would be much easier

We've done it many times, from Long Beach, Torrance or LAX. 110 South, exit for route 47, the sign will say "Vincent Thomas Bridge - Terminal Island - Long Beach". Once off the 110 it's well less than a mile to the exit for Harbor Blvd. Once you arrive at Harbor Blvd you will be staring your ship in the face. Turn right on Harbor and it's a few hundred yards to the left turn into the parking lot. You can get an accurate route, as always, from Google Maps and Street View. It's a very easy drive. Have a great cruise.

Question for anyone of the few folks who actually managed to book SD reservations and paid by credit card. Exactly how and when did your CC get charged? Did the charge appear immediately, and was it posted the day you booked, or did the charge appear much later, and if so, how much later? Thx....

Yes, you had a freakishly good experience, time to buy a lottery ticket. We've never had anything approaching that easy a time disembarking off a Princess ship anywhere, and we also do very early walkoff. Elevators are murder (trick is to grab an UP elevator then ride it back down), and there are always massive lineups waiting to get off, at least at 7:30AM. Congrats on having avoided that.

That's exactly what we did the last time we Uber'd from SP up to LAX. Did the earliest self walkoff, around 7:30, were among the first off the ship, no surge pricing and our Uber took only 5 minutes to reach us in the pickup area.

Quite possible. The CG tends to be very popular with many folks so it's possible that those new 5:30 slots disappeared very fast. We always book the first dining slots in any restaurant when available and the SD restaurants are usually almost empty until about 6PM, so we rarely, if ever, fail to be seated as soon as the eatery opens. It will be interesting to see what effect the new unlimited package has on SD restaurants and the load factors.

Same here. We're on the Oct 19 sailing and thanks to a post in the Roll Call that new dining slots just opened up, we managed to grab a few extra dates. For some reason the CG was only available at the strange time of 5:50 rather than 5:30 (when it opens) but we grabbed it anyway, while The Catch had plenty of availability on various days at 5:30. The 5:50 slot isn't a problem for us, as we have had this happen a number of times before, when the opening times weren't available but times just a bit later were. We always just showed up when the restaurant opened and of course they were happy to seat us.

Given that you're (?) 9 months away from final payment, why would you expect them to compensate you for something that you haven't yet paid for? I agree that missing the best of the three islands is very unfortunate but but I'm not understanding why they would owe you anything. If Bonaire means that much, just cancel and re-book another trip that does include Bonaire. These itinerary/port changes happen all the time.

Same result here. Picking a random trip from Boston in mid-2025 as well as a trip out of SP in Nov 2024 (both states being subject to this new "rule") and both trips have Premier as an option available for a new booking. If this really was caused by the "unlimited" statement being against these state's laws, wouldn't a simple solution be to limit it to a practically unlimited but still capped number like 50 per day. Even the folks who claim they drink 15 a day would be hard-pressed to drink that much ;o)

We were lucky the last time we Uber'd from SP. We had early walkoff and were among the first off, around 7:30. I called in the driver once we were outside the tent, and he was in front of us in about 5 minutes. There were only a few others waiting for their rideshare, but no doubt it would have been MUCH busier an hour later when the majority of the thundering herd is disembarking. As to getting FROM LAX, we've only done it twice while the LAX-It lot was in force. First time we walked the few feet from T6 to the hidden taxi stand near T7-8 but waited almost 30 minutes for a taxi to show up. The second time we were spared LAX-It by our arriving late and staying at one of the Century Blvd hotels, then Ubering down to SP early on embarkation morning.

We Uber'd from San Pedro back to T6 at LAX in February, "regular" Uber Comfort, not Black. The driver dropped us off at the terminal, AFAIK the LAX-It lot is only for being picked up, rideshares can drop off at the terminals.

Curious as to how you used Lyft AT LAX, as opposed to going TO LAX, as we're back there in a few months. I was under the impression that rideshares like Uber and Lyft could not pick up at the terminals but had to pick up passengers at the LAX-It lot after a shuttle bus ride. Was it because you used the top-tier service which AFAIK is the only variant that is allowed to pick up at the terminals? If so, don't they usually use only the best drivers as befits their massive price?

I'd love to see some recent photos from any of the ships that have had Take 5 decommissioned. There are a few photos in another thread which seem to show that the slot machines only occupy the aft half of the venue and it still retains the old sofas and window seats in the forward half.

Take 5 was our favorite go to place on sea days for peace and quiet (as it was always empty during the day), as well as a great venue for live jazz in the evenings. It was on the Discovery, the Sky and the Enchanted but sadly now seems to be on its way out, replaced by an expansion of the casino which is located right next door. It's possible that one of the justifications that Princess used in deleting it was the fact that, at least during the day, very few people were using it.

I've always found the web version to be convoluted but still usable, and that error is very repeatable. Here's the silly process I go through, and it works perfectly every time. When you first try to access the Web Version off the Personalizer, it defaults to the page that says "Link Your Booking" Hit Cancel (if you enter your Booking # and hit Enter you get the message about it being claimed). Once you get to the login page, use the second option to login with the Booking Number. Enter your personal info and Booking # and select "Login with Booking Number" You will then get booted back to the page that you just came from. Hit Cancel again to leave the page for linking your booking, then re-enter exactly the same personal info you just typed in and hit Enter, and this second time will get you to the starting page for your booking so you can access Dine My way etc.. No idea why it ALWAYS takes two attempts, but it works for me.

That TA with the 3 Day Sale offers very decent OBC and historically, has always offered refundable deposits as part of that Sale. This past June, sadly, their deposits went to non-refundable. We still stocked up on new trips due to the deal, but we are definitely aware of the deposit situation, factoring in the possible loss of the $C268 deposits for the two of us if we had to cancel or re-fare.

Unfortunately those sale prices are for only a small number of flights and in our case, don't give any relief to our existing bookings. I'm also looking at a short trip from Montreal to Halifax for this coming June, again not subject to the Sale. It's actually much cheaper to fly to Fort Lauderdale than it is to fly the one hour to Halifax, and it's only a bit more to fly all the way to LA from Montreal than it is to fly from here to Halifax. Air Canada's pricing never fails to amaze me.

Yes, many of the bigger hotels certainly will pick you up at the LAX terminals. Best to confirm with your chosen hotel just in case.

Would anyone have any tips or tricks for searching for a Princess cruise by an intermediate port stop, and not the Start/End Port as the current search engine defaults to? Searching for now for any cruises stopping in Grand Cayman or the ABCs (Aruba, Bonaire or Curacao) for example. I know it can be done exhaustingly by just searching all Caribbean cruises looking for those names, but is there a way on the Princess site, or through a third party site, that facilitates this kind of search? Thx....

I would strongly suggest you look through this sub-forum, starting with the attached thread from earlier this summer, re the C1 lot. There is a discussion as to whether this C1 lot is actually available to all passengers or not, and the parking company is very confusing on the issue. There was a time when this lot was only open on Fridays for specific Norwegian Bermuda cruises only. In this thread, people were able to book the C1 lot for their non-Norwegian cruise only to have their money refunded unexpectedly by ABM. In particular, check post #58 on page 3. I can't say for sure that this is still the case, but I would suggest you check Lot C1 very carefully. Best of luck

Excellent, thanks all. I was sure they would be classed as balconies given that's exactly what they are, I was just a bit concerned due to the fact that Princess makes you book them, in inexplicably, under Inside. And I can't find any at this moment that offer OBC or that would have been an obvious way to answer my own question ;o) We're planning to load up on a few to take advantage of that one TA's 3 Day Sale next summer, so we'll book them now and refare with BALCONY class OBC during their Sale ;o) Thanks again....

Quite honestly, the last few times I've called in I was connected very quickly, much better than in the bad old pre-Pandemic days. In my case, I would forget to mention that I was calling about a Buddy Pass booking, spend 15+ minutes talking, explaining, on hold etc, then get told that since I was calling about a Buddy Pass, I had to speak with that department, so the whole process is then repeated, after occasional disconnections etc. I've since learned my lesson and now make sure to mention it right up front, but given the number of times I've been disconnected and have to start all over, I sure wish it could be on-line or over a chat function like with Princess

When researching Princess itineraries on their web site, I notice that one finds Obstructed Balconies by first looking under "Inside" rather than "Balcony". Question: Princess and some TAs offer OBC according to cabin class, and usually in those cases, Insides and Oceanviews get less OBC than Balconies, Minis, etc. In cases like that, would an Obstructed Balcony then be classed as Inside (since that's where they are found on the website) and therefore get less OBC, or would they obtain the same OBC as a "proper" balcony cabin? Keep in mind that Obstructed Balconies often sell for much less than regular Balcony cabins. Thanks....

Thanks for the heads up, I'll be looking into it for sure. In our particular case, it's probably not that easy, as half of our trips are on Aeroplan points, and the other half, the refundable ones, are "almost" half-price bookings using our annual Buddy Pass. I do know from experience that anything involving a BP booking has to be done through a separate Air Canada department, which seriously increases the complexity and time spent on the phone. It's too much to hope that I could make such a change to one of those bookings on-line but I'll look into it.

What is your experience in changing/re-faring once a price drop happens? AFAIK you have to call in to cancel/rebook with a refundable fare, you can't do it on-line? The experience of dealing with AC by phone is just annoying enough that I don't even bother unless the fare difference is quite substantial, which it rarely is.