We booked the May 7, 2006 Pacific Coastal repositioning cruise, from Los Angeles to Vancouver, via an online travel agency approximately 6 months before the cruise. During that time we had two price drops and were promptly refunded the difference to our credit card when we inquired about it.
We arranged our air travel ourselves (via frequent flier miles) and arrived in LA the evening before the cruise. We booked a hotel (using hotel points) near the LA airport and took the hotel's free shuttle to the hotel for the evening. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Lawndale, which was about 15 minutes away. Decent basic hotel with free breakfast the next morning.
We arranged for the hotel shuttle to take us back to the airport at 9 am, in order to meet our reservation for Prime Time Shuttle for the trip to the San Pedro Port (our reservation as at 9:50 am). Because it was Sunday morning, there was very little traffic and we made it there very quickly. The Prime Time people were very nice and called an earlier van for us, and we were at the port by 9:45 am! We had planned to be there by 11:30 am (which is why the shuttle company planned our trip for 9:50 am). The shuttle driver dropped us at the Celebrity ship instead of the RCCI ship, but it was no big deal to walk next door.