Long Beach Passport Bus - disembarking

[billslowsky]

Has anyone tried getting this as an alternative to having someone pick you up at the Carnival terminal itself?  It looks like you can take it into downtown Long Beach from outside of the Queen Mary.  Just trying to save my driver a little hassle on a Sunday morning.

 

Thanks.

[princeton123211]

2 minutes ago, billslowsky said:

Has anyone tried getting this as an alternative to having someone pick you up at the Carnival terminal itself?  It looks like you can take it into downtown Long Beach from outside of the Queen Mary.  Just trying to save my driver a little hassle on a Sunday morning.

This bus has zero luggage carrying capability-- its a city bus with seats everywhere. Not like an airport shuttle that has luggage racks. 

[billslowsky]

14 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

This bus has zero luggage carrying capability-- its a city bus with seats everywhere. Not like an airport shuttle that has luggage racks. 

Thanks, I didn't figure any more than that.

 

I'm taking a three-nighter solo and just bringing a tote bag.  The bus seems pretty convenient for my circumstances, but I have never taken it.

[princeton123211]

5 minutes ago, billslowsky said:

I'm taking a three-nighter solo and just bringing a tote bag.  The bus seems pretty convenient for my circumstances, but I have never taken it.

I mean it's a bus. If you are going to downtown Long Beach and don't have luggage it could work. If you are going anywhere else it might just make more sense to take an Uber directly there from the port and not waste time with the bus. 

[AgentMinusOne]

I sometimes take the Passport bus from/to work. It's fairly reliable, and it's free, but on the way back to downtown it does take a little bit of a detour. Instead of heading on the Queens Way bridge that is the most direct route, Passport North (Passport South is the bus TO Queen Mary) stops at The Reef (Restaurant), Hotel Maya and Residence Inn by Marriott before taking the left side of LA River and on to a bridge over it back toward Long Beach. After that it goes all the way to the other side to Shoreline Village before heading for the hotels/Transit Mall. See https://ridelbt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/PASSPORT.pdf on Long Beach Transit's web site. Very seldom do they stop the traffic to Queen Mary if there is a big event outside the QM or somewhere else, such as the Long Beach GP or Marathon.

 

From Queen Mary it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to reach downtown Long Beach. Below a map of possible walking routes from the exit doors of the cruise terminal to the Passport stop. Keep in mind, you get out from a different set of doors than where you enter the terminal when embarking.

 

Your biggest problem I can think of would be to have to wait for the next bus. On weekday mornings Passport runs only every 30 minutes. As commented earlier, there are no luggage racks on the buses. Sometimes there are transients with their bags onboard taking up the space by the "disability seats", but if you don't mind holding on to your bags while the bus is in motion, Passport has most of the time a plenty of space.

 

If these inconveniences are okay, you'll save 7-9 bucks by choosing to take the Passport downtown instead of Uber or Lyft. On some occasions I have had the drive share driver cancel on me as they couldn't find the way to the parking structure (right gate to the cruise terminal, left gate to Queen Mary => if you pick the left gate, you won't be able to get to the parking structure without first exiting the ticket gates).

 

[AgentMinusOne]

Didn't realize that the schedules were in the same PDF file with the map. So yeah, your choices would likely be 07:30, 08:00, 08:30 or 09:00 departures from the Queen Mary. Once you have cleared the customs at the terminal, it should take you 5-6 minutes to walk to the Passport.