We are a couple in our mid fifties, wife is retired but I am still working with limited time off. I need to bid my vacation dates each November for the entire next year. I put in for this week but as it approached, I wanted to change it to later in the year. Unfortunately, by the time I was notified that I could not change it, we only had days to try to book a cruise. Longer cruises out of Galveston were full or only had upper/lower cabins remaining. We decided to roll the dice and use our travel benefits to get out to the west coast. We booked this cruise because we had previously done a short Ensenada cruise on the Carnival Paradise many years ago and enjoyed it and this one had the bonus of a port call in Catalina which is a place we wanted to visit.

I watched to loads from our home airport to LAX for weeks and was confident that we would be able to get out and back. As it turned out, seats were no problem but the weather gave us a bit of a delay. Still we arrived at LAX at 8 in the morning the day prior to boarding. I didn't preplan a hotel room since our travel plans were flexible but was able to secure a room at the Courtyard by Marriott through an interlink provider for a reasonable rate. We took the hotel shuttle, and although our room was not ready, we were able to check in and store our luggage. There is a shuttle bus from LAX hotels down to Manhattan Beach and that is how we spent our day. Was a beautiful day for walking the beach and finding a nice lunch. In the afternoon, we went back to LAX, got into our room and then walked over to Ralph's for some fruit, salad, cheese and wine for a light in-room dinner.

Cruise morning, we were up early, walked over to Panera for a light breakfast, stopped into CVS for some last minute items and returned to the hotel to check out. In the past, I have been satisfied with the service of Prime Time Shuttle from LAX to Long Beach and San Pedro. As I tried to set up on line with Prime Time, I grew very frustrated with their website. I decided to try Super Shuttle and their website was much easier to use. We received our confirmation number and checked in at their kiosk outside the American terminal. We were in a van and on our way in less than 20 minutes. Read more