Sorry, I didn't get back to post fast enough, you should be able to get a 3 star hotel for around $60 without using priceline or hotwire. If you use name your own price on Priceline, then you should be able to get a 4-5 star hotel for about that.
I have not stayed at the Westin, so I am not aware of how nice or poor of a hotel it is, we will occasionally do a wekend "away" locally and will use name your own price on priceline or hotwire, as long as you stick to 3 star or higher, you should have no problems.
If it is the Westin in downtown Long Beach, it is fairly close. You could even take public transit to get to the port very easily, most of which would be free from there. It does look like a nice hotel, we have just never got it through priceline or hotwire.
Also, if you book with Priceline or Hotwire, be sure to call the hotel as soon as possible to make any requests, such as non-smoking rooms, the sooner you make the requests, the better the chance you have of getting them honored.
Just a heads up: Parking at the Westin appears to be $16 per day according to reviews on Yelp!
For those that choose to stay downtown, there are a lot of good restaurants there as well:
On Pine, there are:
Another location of George's Greek cafe (they have three locations in total)
Cafe Seville (Spanish Food)
At shoreline village there is Yard House, Parker's Light House.
There are also several chains around here:
Skarky's (Mexican food)
Islands (Burgers and Fries)
California Pizza Kitchen (Italian)
The free passport runs by all of these places, in downtown parking can run you a small fortune, so i recommend hopping on the passport from the hotel. For information on the passport bus, see the following site:
http://lbtransit.com/Services/Passport.aspx
If you want good entertainment, there is the Melodrama at shoreline village. They will be running Back From the Future. The person that owns it plays the mayor of Frontierland at
Disneyland, so there is usually a strong disney influence. It may be cheesy humor, but it is a lot fun and always family friendly. I know I tried seeing if anyone wanted to do the red car in San Pedro the day before and there was no real interest there, so I will fly the idea of a group going for the Melodrama and see if anyone is interested, I think it would make a fun start to the week.
On Saturday there are shows at 4:30 and 7:30 P.M. The costs are:
ADULTS $20.00
SENIORS (62 & over)
STUDENTS (with ID) $18.00
MILITARY(Active)
CHILDREN $14.00
(12 & under)
Special for phone orders only...Children 12 & under PAY THEIR AGE!
You can also usually get
discount tickets on
http://www.Goldstar.com
After looking at multiple sites, I have realized that there is a total lack of information about the Port of Los Angeles on the web, so I am going to add a section to the website listed in my signature below with this information and much more, so feel free to check it out. I am going to add it to that site, so that other cruise dates have a chance at seeing it as well. I ill also try to get the information posted to our group's site as well. It may take a few days to get everything in place though.
What was the Westin categorized as 3.5 or 4? They have a 3.5 listed as $82 would that be worth the gamble? Any tips would be great!
We are planning on doing the aquarium and the whale watching tour on the Saturday.
So I will put you back on the FE list. It's fine to let me know at the meet your cabin #, as mny won't know until on the ship. See ya there!
