Customs/Immigration in San Diego - coming from Ensenada

[greenbeanie]

Booked Discovery Princess, California Coastal, April 2025.  The itinerary is LA to Catalina to SFO to Ensenada to San Diego and returning to LA.

 

Took a Celebrity cruise in April, 2023 which sailed from Ensenada into San Diego.  Every single person on the ship had to disembark and go through customs/immigration.  This took quite a bit of time - we actually completed the customs and left the ship, but it started raining and we thought:  "The process must be over ... we can rebound and then head back out."  (People could leave the ship, but if they returned they could not leave again until the whole ship completed this process.). So we get on, and the ship is looking for ten people to finish the process.  Finding these ten people took 45 minutes, and we were stuck on the ship until done.

 

So, my question is:  Does Princess handle San Diego in the same way - requiring the entire ship to disembark for customs?  (I'm hoping not, but I think the issue is port related.  Coming into LA, its all facial recognition and takes zero time.)

 

We just got off Discovery on April 27 - California Coastal.  This itinerary routed us to San Diego, then Ensenada, and then back to LA.  I was a bit surprised that this 2025 itinerary has Ensenada before San Diego.

 

 

Edited May 4 by greenbeanie

[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. 

[cheetosrevil]

I’ve done several CA Coast cruises on Discovery and never had any experience like that. All predicated on departing / arriving USA.

 

Edited May 4 by cheetosrevil

[STLCARDS82]

I'm wondering if, all this mess be the same if you go from Vancouver to Victoria and your first American stop is San Francisco?? 

Looking at the cruise

Thanks

Edited May 4 by STLCARDS82

[STLCARDS82]

8 minutes ago, cheetosrevil said:

I’ve done several CA Coast cruises on Discovery and never had any experience like that.

May I ask what your experience was?

thanks

[cheetosrevil]

1 minute ago, STLCARDS82 said:

May I ask what your experience was?

thanks

Very easy for all ports. Are you interested in something particular?

[STLCARDS82]

4 minutes ago, cheetosrevil said:

Very easy for all ports. Are you interested in something particular?

Thanks for replying. I posted the itinerary a couple post back that I was looking at.. I saw on the SF board that one guy was talking about not purchasing tickets to Alcatraz until at least noon because there were so many problems with trying to get off the ship

Thanks

[cheetosrevil]

You’re welcome! My experiences departing in San Francisco were very quick. I would suggest buying tickets ahead of time…just makes things better for you and your experience. Enjoy your visit! SF seems daunting now but there’s so much wonderful to explore.

Edited May 4 by cheetosrevil

[STLCARDS82]

2 hours ago, cheetosrevil said:

You’re welcome! My experiences departing in San Francisco were very quick. I would suggest buying tickets ahead of time…just makes things better for you and your experience. Enjoy your visit! SF seems daunting now but there’s so much wonderful to explore.

Thanks for your response.   this cruise has people getting off in San Francisco getting on in San Francisco and then it's got the rest of us going on to other port Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. I think where I was getting confused at is passengers that are staying on the ship and continuing on (Port Stop)When did they get to get off the boat? I think that was concern of another poster on the SF boards. 

[skynight]

9 hours ago, greenbeanie said:

Booked Discovery Princess, California Coastal, April 2025.  The itinerary is LA to Catalina to SFO to Ensenada to San Diego and returning to LA.

Yes, U.S. law requires every passenger to clear immigration in San Diego. The standard practice is what you describe happened on your Celebrity cruise. Everyone must clear. If everyone pays attention it goes fairly quickly. But, there are always those that don't believe it applies to them. Princess should be able to locate them using the medallion location system. If you pass through immigration and leave the ship you will not be allowed to return until everyone has been processed. If you do not wish to leave the ship you may be held in the terminal until all have cleared. It's the same procedure as b2bs at U.S. ports.

7 hours ago, STLCARDS82 said:

I'm wondering if, all this mess be the same if you go from Vancouver to Victoria and your first American stop is San Francisco?? 

Looking at the cruise

Thanks

Yes. All passengers, those remaining on board and those disembarking, will be required to clear immigration in San Francisco. Those continuing on will have specific instructions in their cabins. Read and follow them exactly.  

[cheetosrevil]

8 hours ago, STLCARDS82 said:

Thanks for your response.   this cruise has people getting off in San Francisco getting on in San Francisco and then it's got the rest of us going on to other port Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. I think where I was getting confused at is passengers that are staying on the ship and continuing on (Port Stop)When did they get to get off the boat? I think that was concern of another poster on the SF boards. 

My CA Coast cruises were all closed looped and only those who boarded in San Pedro were on the ship so my experiences do not match what you are describing. Re: clearing customs, never required to do that in San Francisco--merely the usual security scanners.

 

The Mexican Riviera cruise right after the CA Coast cruise has no stops in Costa Rica, etc. I've also done that cruise and again, no one got on or off the ship aside from where we boarded initially.