Questions for recent UK cruisers on Golden Princess Hawaii RT

[favouriteplaces]

Sailing on 2nd March from San Pedro, flying in on 1st March and staying at LAX Hilton, with Princess hotel/transfer package. Flight arrives at 3.05pm on 1st.

 

Have a few questions for any (UK?) cruisers who have recently returned on the same Princess package:

 

1. What time approx. do you arrive at the hotel, given immigration & customs etc.?

 

We are a family of 3 (myself, DH & DS(15)) and would like to take a night tour of LA (specifically Hollywood) and scheduled pick up from LAX Hilton is at 5.20pm - will this be possible?

 

Plan B would be a taxi/car service ?

 

Plan C would be spend the evening at Manhattan Beach area?

 

 

2. What time is the Princess transfer from hotel to San Pedro for embarkation?

 

If we don't make the night tour, do Princess offer any morning tours from the Hotel which return before transfer time?

 

3. Our return flight is 6.25pm on 16th from LAX. We will be transfered to a hotel 'Hospitality Room' (assuming Hilton LAX) and then transferred to the airport later that day. What is the likely transfer pick up time? Will there be time to do anything?

 

Plan A would like to visit Santa Monica boardwalk for lunch

 

Plan B would be Manhattan Beach for lunch

 

During the little time we have in LA, our DS really wants to visit Hollywood - however briefly!!!

 

Would appreciate comments...Thank you

 

Hayley:)

[cantwaitfornextcruise]

If nobody else can help here I will post for you when we return, we fly 01/02/11. We have booked a tour imo through the hotel pick-up 08:30 take us to the port for 13:00, will just tell the rep when we arrive. In Miami we always get a cab hate waiting for buses, so this time we are doing a tour on the way,got to be better than seating around

[Cruisin' Chick]

Not from the UK (we simply drove from our house to the port for our 12/22 cruise on the Golden), but I'll give you the name of a Santa Monica landmark to check out that's near the beach: The Third Street Promenade. It's an outdoors mall that has restaurants, shops, street performers. Very nice. Best thing, no smoking allowed as far as I know for much of the area.

 

One thing to know about LA in March: it's still part of our brief rainy season. So bring an umbrella. It was pouring rain for an entire week prior to our cruise (raining off and on our first couple of days onboard), but apparently we were breaking some records just like the UK was for snow (in fact, we've heard that about 200 Brits didn't make it onboard our cruise because Heathrow was snowed in). Those we've met onboard all said they made their own flight arrangements and left a few days ahead.

[favouriteplaces]

Cruisin'Chick - we'll sure to check out Third Street Promenade...sounds great! We hoped to leave the umbrellas at home - but heard this morning that we might have snow tomorrow :eek:

 

Cantwaitfornextcruise - hope your plans work out and look forward to hearing all about it on your return. Have a great time...:)

 

Hayley

[dfields1814]

I am not from the UK. But I live in Southern CA. If your flight arrives on time you should be able to make your 5:20 tour. This would be based on getting through customs without any problems. I do not know if non USA citizens take longer. Also it is based on not having to wait a long time for the Princess transfer. A taxi would be OK if you need to get to the Hilton faster. The hotel is close by. I would expect that the hotel would run a shuttle as well.

 

Let me know how all this turned out for you as we are on the same cruise!

[donna5]

e-mail the hotel, they should have someone there to give you some info on tours available that depart from the hotel or close by.