Feb 20, 2011 - Presidents' Week - Mexican Riviera

[Mich123]

We just traveled from San Diego to DL/DCA and it was so easy--I highly recommend it. Give yourself a good amount of time for traffic, on our way from Carlsbad to Anaheim, it took about an hour and fifty minutes on a Sunday afternoon. It took us a little over an hour to get from Carlsbad to Anaheim on a Friday morning. We are doing the same before our cruise.

We are planning to stay in Long Beach (great deal at the Marriott Renaissance) and I'd love input from the group: My plan at this point is to fly into San Diego, rent a car and then drive up to Long Beach a few days later. We'll bring the car back to the Long Beach airport and take a cab to the hotel. Then, on Sunday morning, we'll take a cab to the port. I've been researching Super Shuttle (which we'll use to get us back to LAX) and other options (Amtrak), but this seems to be the most economical.

Is this a crazy plan? I need to have the car because we're visiting my brother in San Diego and it's essential!

 

[LKFan]

We are planning to stay in Long Beach (great deal at the Marriott Renaissance) and I'd love input from the group: My plan at this point is to fly into San Diego, rent a car and then drive up to Long Beach a few days later. We'll bring the car back to the Long Beach airport and take a cab to the hotel. Then, on Sunday morning, we'll take a cab to the port. I've been researching Super Shuttle (which we'll use to get us back to LAX) and other options (Amtrak), but this seems to be the most economical.

Is this a crazy plan? I need to have the car because we're visiting my brother in San Diego and it's essential!

The Marriott is a nice hotel.

Long Beach is a big city and has a lot more to offer (compared to San Pedro) with respect to rental car companies. Depending on what company you use, you can most likely find a drop off location closer to the hotel. For instance, Enterprise has an office a couple blocks away from the Renaissance. Once you drop it off, they will most likely shuttle you to your hotel.

Just checking... are you saying that you are flying into SD and out of LAX? How many people are in your family?

 

[LKFan]

We're not returning until Monday morning after the cruise. For that we plan to stay someplace near LAX.

If anybody has any comments on any hotels please feel free to comment.

The area around LAX isn't the best. You might be better off spending Sunday night in Manhattan Beach again.

ETA, if you do stay at a LAX hotel, you might look into taking the trolley into MB for dinner, shopping, etc. http://www.gatewaytola.org/

 

[LKFan]

Thank you for all the info on the FE project. We would definitely like to participate.
We've booked our flights and are really looking forward to everything. I just started to look at the excursions and with young kids (5&7)we will probably be doing the beach excursions.

We are trying to figure out where to stay in LA, we've got 3 nights before the cruise.

Where are you coming from and what types of things do you want to see and do in Los Angeles?

 

[Aurora76]

Where are you coming from and what types of things do you want to see and do in Los Angeles?

We are coming from Edmonton and we're not too sure what we want to see, we were just in Disney last month and last year we did San Diego. We've booked a room at the Marriott Residence Inn in Long Beach, i'm hoping its ok! i'm hoping we can get to universal for one day and disneyland for one day but we will see how it goes.

 

[LKFan]

We are coming from Edmonton and we're not too sure what we want to see, we were just in Disney last month and last year we did San Diego. We've booked a room at the Marriott Residence Inn in Long Beach, i'm hoping its ok! i'm hoping we can get to universal for one day and disneyland for one day but we will see how it goes.

Which Residence Inn are you staying at in LB?

Getting to Disneyland won't be too bad but Universal is going to be a trek. To get from LB to Universal, you need to go through downtown LA which means a lot of traffic on weekdays.

 

[Aurora76]

Which Residence Inn are you staying at in LB?

Getting to Disneyland won't be too bad but Universal is going to be a trek. To get from LB to Universal, you need to go through downtown LA which means a lot of traffic on weekdays.

Thank you so much for the tips, if you have any more that would be great. We are staying at the Residence Inn by Marriott Downtown Long Beach. Is there any other tourist things that we could do instead of Universal?

 

[Bruins]

Thank you so much for the tips, if you have any more that would be great. We are staying at the Residence Inn by Marriott Downtown Long Beach. Is there any other tourist things that we could do instead of Universal?

You could go whale watching for gray whales. The coast off of Long Beach is part of the gray whale migration pattern, and they should be in the area around the time of our cruise.

A couple weeks ago, I took the kids blue whale watching on a boat out of Long Beach, literally next to the Long Beach Aquarium. The company is called Harbor Breeze cruises, and their website is
2seewhales.com. They had tour guides from the Long Beach Aquarium narrating.

It cost $40 (with printable coupon) for adults and $25 for kids. It was a 3 hour cruise, and was amazing. We saw something like 20 whales.

Another option would be to take a boat across to Catalina Island for the day. I think the terminal for the Catalina Express is next to the Queen Mary. I've never been to Catalina in the wintertime, so I have no idea what would be open in February.

A final aside: since you're staying in Long Beach, the city offers free bus service throughout downtown Long Beach, and also an Aquabus which costs $1.

http://www.lbtransit.com/Services/Passport.aspx
http://www.lbtransit.com/Services/Aquabus.aspx

 

[Mich123]

Just checking... are you saying that you are flying into SD and out of LAX? How many people are in your family?

Yes, we are flying into SD and out of LAX, family of 4...I was thinking of getting to LAX via SuperShuttle...does that make sense?

 

[LKFan]

Yes, we are flying into SD and out of LAX, family of 4...I was thinking of getting to LAX via SuperShuttle...does that make sense?

Super Shuttle makes sense for four people. There are often discounts for a couple dollars off so keep your eyes open.

 

[Mich123]

Thanks for the tip! I'll be on the lookout for discounts.

 

[betsy2010]

Hi all,
We are also on this cruise - booked the KSF (switched from a Eastern Caribbean cruise that was going to be 4x the price with airfare)! We are a family of 4:

NorCalBruins: Mom, Dad, Boy 5, Boy 9 & Grandma!

We haven't sailed Disney before and haven't done the FE thing but what the heck, count us in

thanks for organizing
Betsy

 

[minie_meese]

Hi all,
We are also on this cruise - booked the KSF (switched from a Eastern Caribbean cruise that was going to be 4x the price with airfare)! We are a family of 4:

NorCalBruins: Mom, Dad, Boy 5, Boy 9 & Grandma!

We haven't sailed Disney before and haven't done the FE thing but what the heck, count us in

thanks for organizing
Betsy

Hi Betsy - And welcome - glad you will be joining us. I'll add you to the FE list on the first cruise meet page. I'll start to get FE things more organized after my October WDW trip but for now everyone traveling with us is listed on that first page and FE participants have a red FE next to their names. There are quite a few veterans on this cruise so please post any questions you might have.

Just noticed - it's just a little over 5 months away- it's coming up fast. We're all getting excited. It's going to be a great cruise!

Elaine

 

[Mich123]

Does anyone have tips on the excursions??

 

[LKFan]

Does anyone have tips on the excursions??

I keep going back and forth between Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor to see what people suggest. It seems as if most things are easy (and cheaper) to book on your own.

We're considering doing a dolphin encounter at one port and I've read that you need to do that through the ship.

 

[Dishy24]

This looks REALLY cool... thinking about booking it for myself & 10 year old son (still working on Mom)!

http://puertovallartacruiseexcursions.com/CanopyZiplineMuleTour.html

Anybody else interested?

 

[Bruins]

Hi all,
We are also on this cruise - booked the KSF (switched from a Eastern Caribbean cruise that was going to be 4x the price with airfare)! We are a family of 4:

NorCalBruins: Mom, Dad, Boy 5, Boy 9 & Grandma!

We haven't sailed Disney before and haven't done the FE thing but what the heck, count us in

thanks for organizing
Betsy

Betsy and family:
Nice to have you as part of the FE/ meet...and go Bruins!

Ken

 

[CeCe]

We were considering joining the FE group. However, my daughter, age 10, has some severe allergies to milk and egg. Is there any way we could work around this?

 

[minie_meese]

Hi Cece - On our last cruise we had a family who had a child with a severe allergy to some food items (don't remember what) and they participated.

For the FE group we put together a spreadsheet that was distributed to each family participating. On the spreadsheet was a list of each family, their room(s) and the number of adults and children. There was a comment area on the spreadsheet for each room where we could note things like allergies. We also used it to note people celebrating anything special like a birthday, anniversary or wedding vow renewal. I think we had something like "child with severe food allergies - no food items please" for the family with the allergic child.

I was figuring on doing this for our FE group too. I could note whatever you want on the sheet. Would that work for you and your child? With that said I'm sure you would look at whatever was left for your family just to make sure. If you have any other suggestions that would help make things work for you please let me know.

Elaine

 

[EricaG]

Yesterday was exactly 5 months to go!

(I have to celebrate the small milestones.)