After reading a few reviews of the Island Princess (Hawaii 2006), I felt compelled to write a review. My partner (43) and I (45) are admittedly Princess fans, despite the fact that we have only sailed on Princess twice. We have sailed on smaller, more expensive lines and appreciate the level of service, accommodations and itineraries that Princess offers at an affordable price point.
We live in the Los Angeles area, so our 15-day cruise to LA-Hawaii (RT) did not require us to use Princess transfers to the Port of Los Angeles. In fact, it was a major factor in choosing our vacation, as we wanted to avoid the hell-that-is-now-air-travel at all costs this year. While I can understand the level of frustration in other reviews regarding the lack of Princess personnel at LAX, one has to understand that it is a huge multi-terminal facility that would require a veritable army to cover. For such a large air terminal, we would probably have opted to skip the cruise line transfer and arrange for our own travel to the port. (By contrast, on our Princess transfer from the much smaller airport to our pre-embarkation hotel in Anchorage (Coral Princess), we were the only people on the bus!)
No doubt, embarkation at the Port of Los Angeles is a nightmare, but what I could see that is a function of the TSA (only 2 lines) and a function of the Port of Los Angeles aged and dysfunctional cruise terminals. Unless youre boarding through the main terminal, the other terminals were built for ships carrying 600-800 people (e.g., the original Love Boats). Now they are servicing numerous vessels (3 on our embarkation day) at a time at 1,500-2,700 people a ship! Theres a reason Carnival has built its own terminal in Long Beach by the Queen Mary and Carnival Corp. should pull the rest of their affiliates out of the Port of Los Angeles. We must have waited 1 ½ hours to go through security. Once we passed the TSA, we were onboard in a matter of minutes. I guess there is a reason Princess tells you to show up at around 3 p.m. and not 1 p.m. like we did. From what I have heard, those at the 3 oclock mark have it much easier.