Day 83 - A tiny touch of Los Angeles - Aug 15th

Having been to LA many times, it is a place that can cater for most tastes.  It marked the end of sector four and the beginning of the last leg. We were awake for the 5am sail in to San Pedro, which is a massive container port, though the passenger terminal is modern and spotless.  As expected, the Immigration system slows things down a fair bit and our scheduled call up at 8:25am wasn’t until 9:15 and the queue was from the Vista lounge stage, out the theatre and along the corridor, right up to Magnums, which is a long queue! Pity those scheduled for a 10:55am interview as I don’t think they managed to get off until at least 11:30am.  As a major port, it is real shame that this isn’t an overnight stop, giving those visiting for the first time, an opportunity to get a full day in at Disneyland or Universal Studios for example, or one of the many tours in the area other than those offered by Princess.  Needless to say, their tour passengers were off early!  We all had to be back on board by 4:30pm and we elected to catch the Princess shuttle at $15 each (Megan & Malcolm caught a local bus for 45c...) from the terminal to the Aquarium, where we were then able to catch a free shopper shuttle.

The shopper shuttle was full to overflowing with Dawn Princess passengers keen to get to the area’s number one Long Beach attraction “Wal-Mart”...  Followed by attraction number 2, just a few yards away – Ross “Dress For Less”.  All seats outside were occupied with patient males.  Apart from Paula buying a couple of tops and a pack of sport socks, plus my purchase of a $7 pair of reading glasses and a pack of socks, that was it for LA for us!

Our Captain is now Vincenzo Lubrano and from past blogs, we don’t really expect to hear much from him.  Sailaway was a sunny 5:30pm departure, heading for Honolulu on Saturday, with a great Dixieland set by the resident orchestra, who seemed to have a couple of new members.

It really does feel like the downhill run for home now, yet we still have more holiday than many people get in a year, so we are treating it as another new holiday and still count our blessings that we are able to enjoy this.

Not sure that there will be much to post over the next few days, but we’ll try.  Hi to Helen who got off in Dover and is now back at work in Australia and is missing the ocean already, though the first part of the cruise was her first ever trip out of Australia.