About Me: A review is only good if you can understand the perspective it is being seen from. I’m a 32 year old male who cruised with his 60 something year old mother. This was my twenty-eighth cruise overall with more than half of them being on Norwegian Cruise Line. I’ve cruised on other cruise lines including the Princess whose ship Island Princess is doing a similar Panama Canal itinerary this season. I sailed on the Coral Princess (Island’s older sister) on a 10 day Caribbean partial Canal transit in 2003. I’ve also sailed on Celebrity (4x), Royal Caribbean and once on Carnival (and never again on Carnival).

Pre-Cruise Stay: Crowne Plaza San Pedro

After being awake for 24 hours and a long series of flights and connections, this hotel couldn’t have been more welcoming and inviting. The front desk guy gave us a room overlooking the port but on a feather free floor. When I woke up finally in the morning I was so excited to look out the window and see the ship. The hotel offers complimentary shuttle service to the pier which isn’t that far away. To get to this hotel from LAX airport I used the Prime-Time Shuttle (red shuttles) and I wouldn’t recommend using them. We waited for close to an hour for a shuttle to arrive, when en route to the location of the first drop off the driver got lost while using a GPS! Stay away from Prime Time shuttle. A long day of travel was made much worse by taking a scenic tour of Los Angeles that I didn’t want. Read more