West Coast cruise - LAX or Long Beach Airport?

[twinglez]

Long Beach airport appears closer than LAX

I know LA is horrible as far as traffic goes, how is Long Beach?

Thanks

 

[Miss Eeyore]

It is a dream and a half to fly in and out of Long Beach, but you have to look at transportation issues. Last year we went out of Los Angeles on Princess, and really wanted to fly in and out of Long Beach again, but the transfer issues were just too overwhelming. We have gotten used to arranging our own transfers out of PC, but this was different. We could get no info about taxis, and there was no town car service, so we just had to take a deep breath and fly into LAX and take the Princess transfers. It was the right decision, but a horrible outcome, since some IDIOT woman decided she needed my luggage more than I did, and I set sail with just my meds, my swim suit and an extra pair of panties. ARGH!!!!!

But maybe Disney will be doing transfers out of Long Beach for the summer....that would be awesome. It is such a cute LITTLE airport.....no airways....you walk out to the planes on the tarmac, and getting luggage is so easy.

Marilee

 

[AnnaS]

We have been wondering the same thing. Continental to LAX or Jet Blue to Long Beach. Jet Blue does not have prices out yet for July 05 but we are ready to book now. We are used to Newark and JFK - will we be shocked if we fly into LAX? We are flying in the day before we cruise, so we will have a little bit of time to get to port.

 

[tchoney]

We are flying USAIR (Hopefully, thats who we've booked through-haha) and our TA told us we will fly into LAX. Having never been to California, we chose to purchase Disney Transfers and they are out of LAX...

 

[SandraLee]

Does anyone remember what the one way price for transfers will be?

I'm on the May repo and I'll probably get a one way transfer from the port to LAX.

 

[endkaos]

Here's a tip from my bil.

Fly in the day before and stay at one of the Disneyland resort hotels. There is a shuttle from LAX to the Disneyland resort hotels. From there, I know Disney will have transfers from the hotels to the port.

Or just pick up one of the shuttles to the Disneyland resort hotels and pick up the transfer from there.

I don't believe the ships are sailing from Long Beach though. I thought they were sailing from a port north of Los Angeles.

 

[Miss Eeyore]

It is a LOOOONG way from LAX to Disneyland, believe me. If we are going to the Disney area, Anaheim, we NEVER fly into LAX if we can help it. If we are going to Anaheim we fly in and out of John Wayne airport, about 5 minutes from Disneyland.

If you fly into LAX, it is at least and hour, if the traffic is NOT normal, then it is expensive to stay at the resorts hotels, and then y9u would have the hour (at least) drive back to the port the next day. If you were going to do several days in Anaheim it might be worthwhile, but not for overnight.

Ships out of Los Angeles come and go from docks nearest to Long Beach, though most of the cruise ships do their transfers from LAX. Not enough people could ever come and go from Long Beach to make it financially viable to provide transfers.

So what I would do, especially if I could book on Jet Blue, my personal favorite, would be to use Long Beach. Arrive the day before, if possible, and take a cab to a nearby hotel.....there are many. And then a town car or taxi could be hired, pre-arranged, to take you to port.

From experience, I HAte LAX and would do anything not to fly there.

Marilee

 

[jlmarr]

Here's a link to the cruise ship info page for the Port of San Pedro, which the Disney ships will be using next year:

http://www.sanpedro.com/spcom/crusshp.htm

Near the bottom there is a link to a Mapquest map of the area, and if you zoom out one level you'll see that San Pedro is adjacent to Long Beach.

We just used Prime Time Shuttle http://www.primetimeshuttle.com/SoCal.htm when returning from an NCL cruise and that worked just fine. You can get quotes and make reservations online, which sealed the deal for me. They took us to our home in Anaheim for $44 (2 people). LGB is much closer to San Pedro and should be fairly cheap.

 

[LiserAnn]

Personally I would do Long Beach as opposed to LAX. It's just easier all the way around, although I don't know about the transfer situation. San Pedro is easier to get to from Long Beach than LAX in my opinion.

AnnaS: you will not be shocke coming into LAX!!! My dad lives in Northern Jersey and I fly into Newark all the time...if you've done JFK or Newark then going to LAX will not be any different. BUT, like someone else said, Anaheim (Disneyland) is far away from LAX so if you're planning to go there, be prepared for a drive. I'm sure with the Disney provided transfers it won't be that bad, I would say it would be more of an issue if you weren't going on Disney transfers.

Oh, and traffic in Southern California is bad all the way around, regardless of Long Beach or LAX. It will just take longer coming from LAX. Traffic is a way of life in California...the weekends are usually better than the weekdays. Whatever you do, don't plan on being on the freeway, heading south from LAX at any time between 4-7pm during the week. If you do, you'll learn the true meaning of the term "rush hour"....gives new life to the word "parking lot".

Lisa