hobo1937

We were on a Discovery Coastal in April 2023 that had an itinerary change that had us doing Ensenada-San Diego-LA like your 2025 cruise. They did immigration onboard the ship in San Diego and it was a mess. Passengers received prior notification on what time to show up but no one seemed to pay attention. We were given a time of 9:30 AM. When we got off the midship elevators the line went up to the theatre, around and back down to the vista lounge. It took about 25 minutes to get from the elevator up to the theatre and back to the elevators. DH has mobility issues and it wasn't until some nice lady told us to look for a certain crew member that could help to expedite the process. They did have 5-6 facial recognition devices set up in the Vista so once you got there it went quickly. It took us about 45 minutes to do the whole process but if we had not had the handicapped expedited process it would have been a lot longer. Once you did the immigration you could get off the ship. 

Lots of unhappy passengers, as we were originally scheduled to be in San Diego until 10PM but when they changed the itinerary they changed the departure time to 5PM. Maybe you will not have the same problems but we said we would avoid a cruise that had this type of itinerary. 

Thanks. The event list from Embarkation day showed lunch in Botticelli and today's list showed lunch and breakfast in Botticelli and also in Da Vinci for Reserve Collection. Never remember them using 2 dining rooms for breakfast and lunch. 

Which dining room served Reserve Collection lunch? 

There is no Bart stop near Pier 80. The closest looks to be 24th St Mission Bart Station. Not sure how easy an uber is from that location. Pier 80 is a cargo dock so I doubt there is any kind of parking for cruisers/tourists at that location. It will be interesting to see how they handle immigration, check in etc with no real cruise facilities there. If you want to drive you could park at one of the off site lots at SFO and take an UBER to the Pier.

10 hours ago, molly2kit said:

Thank you so much, I had checked this website but did not find the April update previously 

 

Please excuse my artwork, this clearly shows Pier 80 and I guess I’m rebooking hotel.  Was an easy walk to Pier 35 from the one I had booked.

 

There are no hotels within walking distance in this area. It is a cargo dock in an industrial area. The roll call for the Grand Princess Coastal 4/27 has some posts regarding walking around the area especially with luggage. Best to take a taxi or uber. 

If you go to the website sfport.com and make sure you are looking at the 4/5/24 update it shows Pier 80. The roll call for the Pacific Coastal 4/27 also has some info about this.

Be glad it's not the Grand Princess on 4/27. She is going to Pier 80, which is a cargo pier. Something must be going on with Pier 35, which is where she was originally scheduled, as there are two ships in SF that day. 

14 hours ago, cruzky said:

Just got off the Grand on Feb 25th. She is still in good shape.  She does have a lot of rust on the bow. I also noticed a lot of rust in different places on the ship.  A lot of the teak railings need to be sanded. I had never encountered this on any ship I have ever been on. It must be a Carnival group thing. We seen a P & O ship that looked just as bad. The  stateroom carpet and drapes look they were fairly new. The dust ruffles need to be replaced. 

 

The  problems I encountered had to do with the buffet and the main dining room and pool restaurants:

Dining room. Maximum of 5 entrees, most nights 4 entrees listed for dinner. Always available section of the menu no longer lists salmon or chicken breast. Still have shrimp cocktail and French onion soup. Lobster is no longer available unless you want to pay for it. Several nights at dinner it took a long time to get your food.
 

Buffet. Most of the drink machines were not working. Only water and ice seemed to be working. Coffee and lemonade were only available at wait staff stations. Same most days with coffee. Iced tea was available for about 5 days only, then it disappeared. When I asked for a glass of iced tea I was told they were out. When I voiced my concern to higher ups a glass would mysteriously appear. I do not drink soft drinks. Trying to get drinks sometime became a free for all. The wait staff wanted to bring them to you all the time which was not feasible with the amount of guests on the ship. Went up for breakfast one morning at 8 AM and could not find a coffee cup. The food that was supposed to be chilled or on ice, was not and was room temperature. This included salads and dishes with mayonnaise and salad dressings. The food that should have been hot was cold or lukewarm. There were no heating elements or warmers under the dishes. 

Pool area. Mayonnaise and ketchup were sitting on the counter all day in the sun. They were not chilled. 
 

I can see why gastro illnesses break out on cruise ships.

 

 

We also did the Majestic for a 10 day Great Barrier Reef cruise prior to this and encountered a lot of the same issues on it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So is there anything "always available" or are you stuck choosing between the 4 entrees for that evening?

We have a Stander Fold and Go walker my husband has used on cruises and elsewhere  traveling since 2019. I think Stander is the parent company for Able LIfe, not sure what differences there are between the two walkers. I would not plan on using the seat for any long period of time as it is not that comfortable.The walker itself is great. You can collapse it while you are walking and still keep going to get by those carts in the hallways. Just pull up on the lever near the seat to collapse and push back down to reopen,  Also great when getting on/off an elevator as it takes no room when it is collapsed. We have used it on shore excursions without any problems. You can also use the seat to carry a small suitcase if needed. Amazon sells both items and I think they have a 30 return policy, check it out to make sure. The mesh basket is helpful for carrying "stuff".

19 hours ago, misguy said:

Here is the video from our trip to Volcanoes National Park.

 

 

What was the name of the trail you were on, and who did you use for transportation from the ship to the park and back?

We have a Grand Princess Hawaii cruise booked for 9/29-10/15 out of San Pedro. According to the port schedule the ship is departing from Pier 92 but returning to Pier 93. Can't figure out why as there are no other ships in port on either day. We will be driving and normally park at the port. I am not real happy about leaving the car at 93, which will make it easy when we disembark, but having to walk through the parking lot over to 92 to board.  We would drop off the luggage at 92 before parking the car but will have carry on to contend with.  DH uses a motorized wheelchair so we also have that issue. I can't recall if there is a walkway/sidewalk you can take between those two piers. In all the years of cruising out of LA this is the first time we have ever encountered this situation. Any thoughts would be appreciated. 

Do you know about the SigAlert App for LA traffic. We also live in Las Vegas and drove to San Pedro last year for a Discovery Cruise. It really helped navigating the LA traffic as it shows how the current speeds, traffic flow etc so you can change your routing to avoid problems. 

It looked like the ship was in the anchorage south of the Bay Bridge, which is probably 4 to 5 miles from Pier 27. In addition, the area between Pier 27 and the bridge has lots of ferry traffic. Can’t imagine they would want or could run tenders in that scenario. 

And they just realize there is a so called super low tide tomorrow? The tide tables for 2024 and 2025 are on the NOAA website already so 2023’s were available a long time ago. 

8 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

Of course!  
The Crown did a short cruise over Thanksgiving from SF roundtrip  .. that’s the cruise that the OP was referring to.  It must have stopped in Ensenada first.  
The February 17th cruise has San Diego prior to the stop in Ensenada so, the ports have been arranged so immigration can be done at disembarkation in SF instead.  
I have had cruises where that first US stop after visiting a foreign port is in San Diego and for some reason, it is just always been awful going through immigration there.  They do this process well in other ports that I’ve been to, I don’t know why there’s such a difference.  While it makes for a really quick and easy disembarkation, I would never choose to go through immigration in San Diego ever again.  It’s a day wasted, IMO.  

We had the “pleasure” of doing immigration in San Diego on a Discovery Coastal out of San Pedro in April after Princess moved ports around because Monterey was dropped. What a mess. People were given a time to appear but nobody seemed to abide by that. Lines were all around the deck and moved slowly. . I think they finally cleared everyone around 11AM. When they moved the port stops around they also took 5 hours away from San Diego leaving at 5PM instead of 10PM. A waste of a day. This was done a month prior to sailing so you stuck. 

2 hours ago, boeckli said:

 

Those prices would be in AUD as that is the ship's currency on Majestic Princess during its Australian 

47 minutes ago, c-boy said:

Last night was Crown Grill adventure...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing against California  but. I'm glad I brought my own wine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those prices are ridiculous. We have had the Bonanza, Conundrum and Sea Sun, all ok wines, but we can buy whole bottles at Sams Club or Costco for quite a bit less than the per glass prices listed. 

I think the removal of Monterey and subsequent "musical chairs" with the remaining ports on the Cal Coastals has caused all these problems. We were on a Princess Coastal in April out of San Pedro. They removed Monterey but also switched other ports around so that we went to Ensenada before San Diego and then San Pedro. That required immigration in San Diego and it was a MESS. They did it onboard but no one paid attention to their assigned times and there were lines wrapped around the deck. They started at 8 AM and didn't get done till around 11. And they also shortened the time in San Diego to 5PM instead of 10PM departure. Hope things go better in SF. They were using facial recognition in SD, maybe it would have been worse if they had not been.

A few years ago while on the Royal Princess I checked the Noise levels with my apple watch Noise App. On deck 6 near Bellinis it was in the loud range and down on deck 5 in the main Piazza it was at the highest reading. 

After I read this post I decided to check our Hawaii cruise on the Grand next year. There was a good price drop so I called our TA and they refared the cruise at an even slightly better price. Thanks!

Thanks so much for sharing your photos. We did this Cruisetour in 2012 and it is really bringing back some wonderful  memories. Hope you have a great cruise!

Hopefully they won’t have the situation like at Princess, where they are either working from home or the call center is on a farm, as you can hear dogs, cows and children in the background.

We did this same trip in 2012. The land portion was fantastic. Saw some beautiful fall colors. Superstorm Sandy caused the cruise portion to be totally different from the original plan but we got to visit some smaller ports in Canada that were wonderful and the weather was not a problem. 

10 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

We’ve only gotten a tiny vase with maybe 2-4 flowers each time at our UBD’s.  Still nice, but not a big bouquet.

 

Pre covid we received a lovely floral arrangement on the UBD we did. . On the UBD we did on the Discovery in April it was a few carnations. Evidently the photographer wasn’t impressed either as he used the bouquet I had received as a birthday gift in the photos. 

It says upgraded priority room service menu but nowhere does it say you need a package to get it without a charge.