LAX airport transfer for Bliss Mexican Riviera: A cautionary tale

[Shellbelle28]

My husband and I enjoyed a great Mexican Riviera cruise on the Bliss last week (10/24/21-10/31-21). I took the BOGO airfare offer and our flights from SEA to LAX were pretty good and we arrived at LAX at 11:15am. However, the included  airport transfer service was not good. Many people on our sailing had a smooth experience with the service, so it's variable, I think the earlier in the day flights arrived, the smoother the transfers ran. I also think the terminal you arrive at has an impact. If I were to do it again and was flying the day of sailing, I would make my own arrangements to get to the ship. We were never at risk of missing the sailing, so there's no need to say "you should never fly the same day." The flights were fine, the issue was more the willingness of the transfer operator to make people deal with lengthy waits rather than have more busses running for the job. Both arriving and returning we experienced long wait times and uninformed and indifferent staff. 

NCL uses a contractor for the transfer, it's not their own staff and this contractor doesn't do NCL justice.

At LAX it is impossible to operate using the typical "park bus - escort passengers with luggage to bus until full - drive full bus to pier" system. So the contractor collects passengers in baggage claim and when they have a group assembled they call for a bus to come through the arrivals lane and they haul bags and people out to the bus. Sounds easy. But in operation it was pretty rough on the passenger! If you have physical issues or limited patience you may want to explore alternatives. 

The problems we encountered :

• The NCL representative in Terminal 7 when we arrived was a nice but quite elderly lady. She was hunched over her clipboard that said "NCL" on it flat on a luggage cart trying to locate names on a list to check off not looking up or holding the sign up. We couldn't tell she was there to run the transfer to the pier! 
• She and another woman that randomly came in and out of baggage claim put our bags on a luggage cart and told us to stand in front of an exit door. No effort was made to keep the growing group informed or in any kind of order. After about 30 minutes the random in and out woman stepped up and told everyone (now a large crowd of 50+ people) that we needed to move to a different door in baggage claim. Essentially it meant the people who had waited longest were now at the back of the line. At that time we were were told the bus was "on the way." 
• Ten minutes later we were told to move out to the walkway in the middle of the airport arrivals pickup lanes. Oh, but the transfer operator (elderly lady, remember?) had to ask the waiting cruise passengers to move all the loaded luggage carts out to the street as well. Then we got to watch a nearly empty NCL bus drive past us. 
• After another wait, a bus finally stopped where we were standing. Everyone piled in while the driver loaded the bags. And, no surprise, there weren't enough seats for the whole line of people waiting. Thank goodness we got seats! At this point, it's been two hours since our arrival in baggage claim. As the bus was ready to pull away, a woman jumped on and told everyone "look out on the sidewalk and double check we didn't leave your bag sitting there." Reassuring. 
• The trip to the pier in the bus was decent, traffic was light. Then we got to the pier and it made its way to the front of the building where the COVID-19 testing was to be performed. The procedure is, they unload all the bags first and then the passengers get off, identify their bags and hand them over to a porter. Then you get to go in for testing. It would have been good to have known this instead of just sitting on the bus with the words "you'll need to stay on the bus for a little while." 
• Bonus issue: We had four people on the bus that needed wheelchairs. Driver had to run off to find those while we waited some more! 

Our arrival wasn't ready to be easy yet! The power had gone off in the building where the testing was being done and the escalator was out of order. So, up the stairs we dragged our sweaty selves. Luckily, Eurofins was powered up and there were no delays in checking in or testing. We had results in less than ten minutes and were on the shuttle to NCL check-in. Haven check-in was fast, there was nobody in front of us since it was so late. Our escort almost ran us to our muster station and we were finally done and ready to get some beverages!

It was after 3:00pm. Just enough time to get to our cabin, dump our stuff and get to our sailaway drinks gathering! 

TLDR- LAX is a cluster and it would help if someone could do some outside of the box thinking to work around the obstacles and improve the passenger experience! 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Shellbelle28

[LaCal]

We’ve used a cruise lines bus transport once and once only out of all our cruises and never would again.  Same long waits and problems you encountered 

 

Now it’s so simple and quick to just use Uber or Lyft….Saves so much aggravation and time 

[phillygwm]

58 minutes ago, LaCal said:

We’ve used a cruise lines bus transport once and once only out of all our cruises and never would again.  Same long waits and problems you encountered 

 

Now it’s so simple and quick to just use Uber or Lyft….Saves so much aggravation and time 

That's going to be my plan.  I've heard of others staying near LAX who will double back on Sunday to catch the NCL shuttle.  We're at the Residence Inn on Century but will Uber it.  The cost for 3 of us will probably be no more than the shuttle and we can leave at our leisure.

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by phillygwm

[roger001]

How did you like the Bliss Haven?  What type cabin did you have?   Thanks.

[aubreyc1988]

3 hours ago, phillygwm said:

That's going to be my plan.  I've heard of others staying near LAX who will double back on Sunday to catch the NCL shuttle.  We're at the Residence Inn on Century but will Uber it.  The cost for 3 of us will probably be no more than the shuttle and we can leave at our leisure.

 

Please keep in mind the Uber/Lyft situation right now can be be good or REALLY bad. It's not as reliable as pre pandemic. 

[hallux]

3 hours ago, phillygwm said:

I've heard of others staying near LAX who will double back on Sunday to catch the NCL shuttle

I've done that, twice.  Both experiences were marginally better than the OP's.  I think one of them was complicated by a passenger "sneaking" into the group boarding the bus (they boarded only a portion of the group waiting so that the bus could stop at other terminals ad pick some up there) and making for more people on the bus than expected.  They must have counted 10x!

 

The first time was great - there were porters right at the bus when we got to the terminal and we didn't have to lift a finger for our checked bags, they just told us to head into the terminal and check in while the driver and porters dealt with the luggage.

[Selion]

Glad to see things back to the pre-pandemic normal!

 

Snark aside, OP could've described our Princess Cruise transfer at Ft. Lauderdale 5 years ago.  This sets my expectations for the NCL transfers for December.  We'll arrive at LAX at 1 PM.  Guess we won't board the ship until 3:30 or 4.  Is terminal runners a thing?

[StolidCruiser]

Thanks for outlining the cons of mass/group port transfers.  You described just about all the ways it could go horribly wrong (and often does). 

[bookbabe]

@Shellbelle28 How was the return shuttle to LAX?  Our (international) flight home is at 1pm, and we had planned to do the NCL shuttle to avoid any unreliability with Uber/Lyft.  But if the shuttle is unreliable and chaotic, we may rethink that plan…

[coastcat]

1 hour ago, bookbabe said:

@Shellbelle28 How was the return shuttle to LAX?  Our (international) flight home is at 1pm, and we had planned to do the NCL shuttle to avoid any unreliability with Uber/Lyft.  But if the shuttle is unreliable and chaotic, we may rethink that plan…

The return shuttle… not fabulous. I had a 3:45pm flight and was in the final departure group scheduled to disembark at 9:45. Our group was called at 8:30. Huh? So when we made it through Customs, we arrived outside to find no transfer buses. We were hustled out so early that the first batch of transfer buses had not yet returned. This was a NCL problem, not a transport vendor one.

 

Luckily my LAX -> cruise port experience wasn’t as bad (stayed at an LAX hotel, doubled back in the morning). Our rep was more competent than the one @Shellbelle28 encountered. 
 

As a solo cruiser, a $25 shuttle makes more sense than a $50 Uber/Lyft. On the other hand, ugh. 

[Shellbelle28]

4 hours ago, roger001 said:

How did you like the Bliss Haven?  What type cabin did you have?   Thanks.

We were in an Aft Penthouse suite with large balcony. It was fabulous! So we weren't within the Haven space and were the full ship length to get there. The lounge and pool area were nice. We ate breakfast and lunch there a couple of times and it didn't impress. Food was fine but very slow. Lunch took two hours the second time we went!

That was my overall impression of the Bliss food and bar service and I don't know if it's a big ship thing (I've only been on Jewel Class ships before this) or if it is a first time out since shutdown thing. Most of the bartenders were slow and several were bad. At the mojito bar one forgot to put the rum in the drinks! At the A List bar, they didn't know how to make a standard Margarita, only the special one listed on their menu (and this is the bar that serves Los Lobos!). 

[Shellbelle28]

2 hours ago, bookbabe said:

@Shellbelle28 How was the return shuttle to LAX?  Our (international) flight home is at 1pm, and we had planned to do the NCL shuttle to avoid any unreliability with Uber/Lyft.  But if the shuttle is unreliable and chaotic, we may rethink that plan…

The return shuttle was slightly better, but only in comparison to the horrible one from the airport. We again waited a long time standing on the sidewalk and were shuffled from position to position before a bus eventually came. 

@coastcat I can't believe I didn't see you, we were in the last of the brown tag group too. 

[coastcat]

9 minutes ago, Shellbelle28 said:

The return shuttle was slightly better, but only in comparison to the horrible one from the airport. We again waited a long time standing on the sidewalk and were shuffled from position to position before a bus eventually came. 

@coastcat I can't believe I didn't see you, we were in the last of the brown tag group too. 

I didn’t see you either! I was probably too grumpy by then to notice much. Then again, it was a good segue into the general unpleasantness of LAX… 😆

[milolii]

Please note that traffic situations at LAX change frequently due to construction. Pick ups for ride shares and taxis now occur at LAX-it  This is an offsite(as compared to curbside from baggage claim) area near terminal 1.  It requires a shuttle or a walk.  A new multi model system is scheduled to open in 2023.  

 

https://www.flylax.com/lax-it

[Shellbelle28]

9 hours ago, LaCal said:

We’ve used a cruise lines bus transport once and once only out of all our cruises and never would again.  Same long waits and problems you encountered 

 

Now it’s so simple and quick to just use Uber or Lyft….Saves so much aggravation and time 

It would have been 100% worth it to me to even pay for a town car service to do airport pick up if I'd known how chaotic it was going to be. 

[phillygwm]

9 hours ago, aubreyc1988 said:

Please keep in mind the Uber/Lyft situation right now can be be good or REALLY bad. It's not as reliable as pre pandemic. 

Understood.  I use Uber a lot when I'm in cities other than my own.  Hoping the fact that I'll be leaving Sunday morning will be in my favor.  We'll see!

[ChiefMateJRK]

17 hours ago, Shellbelle28 said:

TLDR- LAX is a cluster and it would help if someone could do some outside of the box thinking to work around the obstacles and improve the passenger experience! 

Thanks for sharing this.  I used to gravitate towards using NCL transfers but, with the advent of Uber/Lyft and my recent NCL SeaTac transfer I'll likely steer clear of the NCL transfers in most cases.  Like others, I haven't traveled much during recent years and didn't really try out Uber and Lyft until my October cruise.  I was very impressed with both experiences.  We had planned to take one of those back to SeaTac but NCL was hawking their buses in the baggage area and gave us a $40 price for three of us.  We all wished we would have just paid the $75 for Uber/Lyft.  We waited in line for an hour and getting on and off the bus just wasn't any fun at all.  We may still use the NCL transfers in Hawaii next 
Spring.  Those worked out very well during our last POA cruise.

[roger001]

6 hours ago, Shellbelle28 said:

We were in an Aft Penthouse suite with large balcony. It was fabulous! So we weren't within the Haven space and were the full ship length to get there. The lounge and pool area were nice. We ate breakfast and lunch there a couple of times and it didn't impress. Food was fine but very slow. Lunch took two hours the second time we went!

That was my overall impression of the Bliss food and bar service and I don't know if it's a big ship thing (I've only been on Jewel Class ships before this) or if it is a first time out since shutdown thing. Most of the bartenders were slow and several were bad. At the mojito bar one forgot to put the rum in the drinks! At the A List bar, they didn't know how to make a standard Margarita, only the special one listed on their menu (and this is the bar that serves Los Lobos!). 

Yuck.   Was thinking about trying.  For the Haven price would expect excellence.  We’ve done suites on Jewel class before and enjoyed that. 

[Shellbelle28]

16 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Thanks for sharing this.  I used to gravitate towards using NCL transfers but, with the advent of Uber/Lyft and my recent NCL SeaTac transfer I'll likely steer clear of the NCL transfers in most cases.  Like others, I haven't traveled much during recent years and didn't really try out Uber and Lyft until my October cruise.  I was very impressed with both experiences.  We had planned to take one of those back to SeaTac but NCL was hawking their buses in the baggage area and gave us a $40 price for three of us.  We all wished we would have just paid the $75 for Uber/Lyft.  We waited in line for an hour and getting on and off the bus just wasn't any fun at all.  We may still use the NCL transfers in Hawaii next 
Spring.  Those worked out very well during our last POA cruise.

The only place I think I've had a good NCL transfer experience was Hawaii! We can drive to Seattle, though now I use a town car service to avoid punishing anyone I know by asking them to drive to Seattle and Alaskan Way or SeaTac! A lot of people are willing to suffer some inconvenience to save money but I'm the opposite. I'll spend to avoid lines and crowds. When we got to SEA Sunday and the driver pulled up outside baggage claim with a comfy Lincoln SUV and took my bag out of my hand it was such a relief I didn't care about the cost! 

Oh, and on our Aus/NZ cruise in 2020, I told my husband I was calling an Uber to take us from the ship to our hotel and he was like "so just some stranger you call from your phone is going to drive here and pick us up??" But afterwards, he was sold on how easy and economical it was. 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Shellbelle28

[ChiefMateJRK]

6 minutes ago, Shellbelle28 said:

A lot of people are willing to suffer some inconvenience to save money but I'm the opposite.

Same here.  I'll spend a few bucks to get a better seat on the airplane and nicer rides to/from.  I would rather do that and take one less shore excursion than the other way around.

[Shellbelle28]

11 minutes ago, roger001 said:

Yuck.   Was thinking about trying.  For the Haven price would expect excellence.  We’ve done suites on Jewel class before and enjoyed that. 

Yeah, unless it was a one of a kind itinerary or ridiculously low price, I don't think I'll be back to the big ships. I hope the Jewel Class will be sailing for a long while more! 

[aero777]

6 hours ago, Shellbelle28 said:

We were in an Aft Penthouse suite with large balcony. It was fabulous!

Thanks for the report. Any problem with soot on the balcony?

[Shellbelle28]

25 minutes ago, aero777 said:

Thanks for the report. Any problem with soot on the balcony?

Only one day. On Saturday, heading back home there was just a little ash/soot on outside edge of the decking. Not enough to stop us sitting out there, but I noticed my bare feet were dirty when I went back inside. 

[coastcat]

43 minutes ago, Shellbelle28 said:

The only place I think I've had a good NCL transfer experience was Hawaii! We can drive to Seattle, though now I use a town car service to avoid punishing anyone I know by asking them to drive to Seattle and Alaskan Way or SeaTac! A lot of people are willing to suffer some inconvenience to save money but I'm the opposite. I'll spend to avoid lines and crowds. When we got to SEA Sunday and the driver pulled up outside baggage claim with a comfy Lincoln SUV and took my bag out of my hand it was such a relief I didn't care about the cost! 

Oh, and on our Aus/NZ cruise in 2020, I told my husband I was calling an Uber to take us from the ship to our hotel and he was like "so just some stranger you call from your phone is going to drive here and pick us up??" But afterwards, he was sold on how easy and economical it was. 

I have no problem asking my husband to drive me to either location. 😆

 

Handy tip for Pier 66 departures/arrivals: arrange for dropoff/pickup at either the Edgewater Hotel or the other end of the Bell Street Pedestrian Bridge (Elliott Avenue at Bell Street, aka the Bell Street garage). Short walk, no Alaskan Way traffic mess.

 

For my December cruise out of LA, I'm sorely tempted to change my flights to SNA. No transfer service, but the Lyft/Uber ride should cost about the same and more importantly, it's not LAX.

[aubreyc1988]

3 hours ago, phillygwm said:

Understood.  I use Uber a lot when I'm in cities other than my own.  Hoping the fact that I'll be leaving Sunday morning will be in my favor.  We'll see!

When I was in Vegas in August, could never really get one and very expensive. I also live in DFW area, a bigger city, and ubers are hard to get here. Sometimes they will be like en route to pick you up, then drop you as a rider for no reason. I personally wasn't willing to risk that.