Category: Canada

Hawaii 2019 (again)

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Star Princess

We are traveling again. Just a reminder that the complete post is not visible in the email. To see the full post and any photo albums you should  click on the Blue “Read The Post” button.

Hawaii Cruise Map

We are once again getting ready to take our private yacht to Hawaii for Christmas and New Year celebrations. We have invited about 2600 of our friends to join us for the 15 day round trip from Los Angeles. We have taken this voyage several times and at least twice aboard this ship. Although we won’t know all of the passengers but there will doubtless be several with whom we have previously shared this voyage. 

The Star Princess was our ship for a 2006 Caribbean cruise and a 2011 cruise from Rome to Venice. She was launched in 2002 and had a minor refit in 2017. Like many cruise lines, Princess appears to have a fondness for ever larger ships. Many of the smaller ships have been given a major refurbishment and a new name with a different cruise line. Golden Princess is next to go to P&O Cruises in 2020 and the Star Princess will follow in 2021, so this will probably be our last cruise aboard Star Princess. Four new large ships are expected to enter service in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025. 

In previous years we have arrived in Los Angeles the day before sailing and stayed at a hotel near the airport. This year we will spend that night in Long Beach for a change. We do this for two reasons. Firstly, because winter air travel can be unpredictable so the extra day allows some time for delays and secondly, because Princess makes luggage handling simple. They take us and luggage from the airport to the hotel then from the hotel to our shipboard stateroom. In Toronto we also stay near the airport on the night before our flight. We have to handle our own luggage at this end.

I have added a few new pages to the site which you should find under the menu item “Ships, Past and Present“. The page “Cruise History” catalogs our cruise history by ship. The page “Ship History” documents the life history of those ships which are no longer sailing under the Princess Cruises brand. The page “Basic Ship Specifications” provides basic data describing the vessels on which we have sailed.

This will serve as journal post number one for this tour. Having done this trip several times it will be hard not to duplicate some photos. I am going to try to provide some new scenes so keep watching. The most recent photos should appear in the sidebar to the right of the post. All of the years photos can be found under the “Photo Gallery” menu in the “Christmas Cruise 2019” page. There is a group of historical photos from our Toronto departures at the end of this post.

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We’re Home

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The photo above is what greeted us as the Emerald Princess arrived in San Pedro harbour, AKA Port of Los Angeles, at about 6 AM with all aboard. Disembarkation day is always a bit of a zoo. Passengers are asked to place luggage outside of staterooms for transport ashore around dinner time on the evening before arrival and then vacate staterooms by 8 AM the next morning. Almost everyone complies so every food service, buffet, cafe and dining room is busier than normal. There are always a few passengers who are able to disembark with all their luggage so they are the first to leave, some live only a few minutes from the port. The remainder of us proceed to various lounges and common rooms to await our departure. They use a colour and number system to tag luggage and schedule departure. We were Yellow 7 scheduled for a 10:10 AM departure but that meant a two hour wait.

Everything proceeded right on schedule and our departure was very quick. Homeland Security just checked our passports and said “have a nice day”. Once outside we were directed to our bus transportation to LAX. The trip to the airport took about 20 minutes, from the time we passed the big LAX sign until we arrived at terminal 6 took another 40 minutes. If you had to drive through LAX airport you’d think Toronto airport traffic a breeze. Check-in and luggage drop, 10 minutes. TSA Pre-check, another 10 minutes, then we wait, again. Flight time, 3:40 PM.

Our Airbus 320-200 delivered us to Toronto Pearson airport on schedule at about 11:15. Thanks again to Nexus and a bit of luck at the luggage carousel we were out of the airport, picked up the car at Park’nFly and arrived home before 1 AM. There was a couple of centimetres of snow on the car but it was gone by the time we reached Burlington.

With access to home internet I have finished uploading the remainder of the photos. Some are in the sidebar, the whole trip is in the slideshow below.

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Mountains

Toronto AM – Los Angeles PM

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Don’t forget to visit the web page to see any photos. The photo above is the first view of mountains as we approached California.

We went to sleep with a wake up call set for 5 AM and the iPhone alarm set for 4:50 AM. Neither was necessary. We awoke almost simultaneously at 4:40 AM. Shower, coffee, repack and off to find the airport shuttle. Terminal 1 was busy when we arrived at about 6 AM. Of course the checkin for USA flights was at the opposite end of the terminal where the shuttle discharged us. For those of you unfamiliar, all shuttles discharge passengers in the sub basement and take the trip to the departures level in a freight elevator large enough to handle a small car. However, it makes for a very short trip between terminals.

The check-in kiosks seem to have improved so we didn’t need to fight with it to get our luggage tags. The luggage drop-off machines were a different story and needed an Air Canada employee to intervene. Perhaps the airport folks need to take lessons from FedEx.

We are always grateful for Nexus. The line to security for the non-Nexus folks seemed to have no end. There were 10 people in the Nexus line and we didn’t have to take out our bag of liquids or take off our shoes.

When we did the actual Nexus check-in we were both directed to passport control rather than the “hi – goodbye” line but that added only about two minutes to the trip. With all formalities completed, we found a breakfast venue that actually served to the table rather than having to order through a faceless tablet device. The prices were typical of airports—way too high.

Boarding was simple enough but there was really no way to get a good photo of the first Dreamliner in which we have been able to travel. When the time came for us to push back from the gate we were informed that security and Border Protection services were running slowly and 50 passengers were being held captive by the delays so wait we would. Push back was delayed only about 15 minutes but its seemed much longer. Once the cabin crew managed to herd errant passengers to their seats away we went.

The Dreamliner is a BIG plane with between 240 and 350 seats. I think ours was a 350 seat version with nine seats across the economy class cabin. Using two doors did seem to help with boarding. In flight, the airplane is noticeably quieter than others and the cabin air seems fresher but nose and leg room is no better. This flight carried quite a large number of children some of whom were barely noticeable while others were quite noticeable. Who knew that some kids can cry for 5 hours. The music in the earbuds helped. The flight itself was smooth except for a couple of bumps as we passed over the mountains.

It took a while for our luggage to fall off the carousel. I had been convinced to gate check a third suitcase (at no cost) and it was, of course, late coming off the belt. Our Princess Cruises representative met us, waited patiently for the luggage and waited even more patiently for the hotel shuttle to arrive at the curb.

It is only a 10 minute ride to the LAX Marriott and although check-in time is normally 3 PM they found a room just after our noon arrival. That’s 3 PM in Ontario isn’t it? After check-in came lunch at a little restaurant operated by a Korean family. Good food, good price.

We managed to wait until after 5 PM to go for dinner, that’s 8 PM at home and we rarely eat dinner at 8 PM. When we arrived in the Marriott Hotel lobby the Princess Cruises representatives were there so we stopped by to get our morning instructions. That delayed dinner by 10 minutes. The plan now is to try to stay awake for a while and avoid the 4 AM automatic wake up.

Today’s photos are in the right sidebar.

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The Christmas trip begins

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Before starting the narrative of this trip I wanted to mention a few changes on the web site. Firstly, the post that arrives in your email is only an extract from the whole journal entry. To see the full post please click on the “Read the post” button. Secondly, The photo galleries are different. On the main web site visit the menu labeled “Photo Gallery”. The main menu page describes the changes. Thirdly, you will find a collection of recent photos at the bottom of the right sidebar. 

This is a short post because we haven’t traveled far. We are at the Toronto Airport Hilton which is adjacent to Park’nFly. We get a night’s sleep and don’t need to rise at 4 AM to get to our flight. This is the no stress way. Tomorrow will begin early enough with an 8 AM departure and all that goes with that in airport procedures.

OK, dinner is over. A very tasty pizza, Hilton style, and some chicken fillets and salad for Gail with some Rickards and wine to wash it down. That was topped off by a very pleasant waitress. Nothing to cook, nothing to wash up. Tomorrow, Los Angeles, hopefully by Dreamliner.

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