Jeff in Torrance

If "by far cheapest" is part of the "best" definition, the cheapest BY FAR is taking the airport "C" shuttle bus to "Lot C," walk a short distance to the Metro station adjacent, get on the "232 bus," which will take you to the end of that line in downtown Long Beach. The city's FREE shuttle will drop you off at the Queen Mary, which is a very short walk (next door) to the Carnival Cruise Terminal. I don't know the current fare on the Metro 232 bus, but it's probably less than $2 per person.

Here is a website so that you can follow the water level at several points. Just point the cursor at any station, and the data will appear:

http://www.umwelt.sachsen.de/umwelt/infosysteme/hwims/portal/web/wasserstand-uebersicht

The USS Iowa opens for touring at 10:00am. There is also an interesting Maritime Museum adjacent to the USS Iowa.

http://www.sanpedro.com/SP_POINT/lamartmu.htm

https://tickets.labattleship.com/mainstore.asp

This is very interesting...about how many hours per day did you spend in the car? Only question is if you spent $5000 for two, not including airfare from LAX did you really save much? I would be flying from NY so air would probably be a wash, but I'm thinking it would be fun, but not necessarily cheaper.

We drove 2002 miles over 13 travel days, plus two flying days, 3 nights in New Orleans, 2 nights in Memphis, 2 nights in St. Louis, 2 nights with friends in Minnesota, and 2 nights in St. Paul before flying home. Typically, we drove only 2 to 3 hours per day with one day over 200 miles. It was a very leisurely trip.

Since we were playing it by ear I was somewhat nervous at first about how many miles we should be traveling at first; but after five or six days it became obvious that we could go at what ever rate we wanted. I had no preconception about exactly what highways we would be on, but wanted to at least travel through every state along the Mississippi. We eventually did not make it to Kentucky. We did travel about 30 or 40 miles along the Natchez Trace between Natchez and Vicksburg MS. Very interesting. We discovered that looking at the river itself was not that scenic after we'd seen it a few times, while the various areas away from the river were the more interesting and varied. Serendipity played a significant part of the things we discovered........a plantation in St. Francisville, LA, a lovely small winery outside of St. Genevieve, MO, a great brewery in New Ulm, MN, the World War II National Museum in New Orleans, riding the street trolley in New Orleans, a river cruise at St. Paul, MN, staying at a somewhat strange gambling resort that we stayed at outside of Greenville, MS, the small town of Galena, IL (US Grant's home town) where we stayed at a hotel with an Irish theme. Discovering the quaint town of Wilson, AK which was a company town belonging to the Wilson family for more than 100 years, that is being vastly improved by a wealthy man who (evidently) wants to save it from decay. We discovered it only by accident because my lady needed to find a restroom, so that I veered about five miles off the highway that we had been traveling on.

http://www.wilsonarkansas.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=%7Bkeyword%7D&utm_content=Music%20%2B%20Arts&utm_campaign=Wilson

http://www.nationalww2museum.org/?referrer=https://www.google.com/

http://schellsbrewery.com/

http://www.riverridgewinery.com/

Experiencing the changes in food from south to north..........I describe it as going from the land of everything fried, to the BBQ belt, to meat and potatoes. The changes in the ethnicity as one travels from south to north.

I superficially checked the prices listed for the cheapest cabin for two cruise lines at about $6000 pp and about $13,000 pp. I don't know what people actually pay. We stayed mostly in 3-diamond AAA hotels/motels, with the cheapest rate being a weekend in St. Louis at the Hyatt Regency (4-diamond not incl breakfast). Car rental was more than $1050 for some reason for the nearly 3 weeks we had the car. I would have expected a better rate, but that was the best we could do when we signed up.

One way that the American river cruises seem to exceed the European ones is in their cost. When I checked out how much a Mississippi River cruise costs I decided to just drive it. We spent three weeks going from New Orleans to Minneapolis, including a couple days with friends in central Minnesota, three nights in NO, two nights in Memphis and St. Louis, and spent about $5000 for two people, plus airfares from Los Angeles. We more or less used much of the itinerary that the river boats use while mostly just winging it along the river. I think we got much more of a flavor of that part of the United States while saving a pile of $$$.

We did this same trip last year, named by the passengers as the "cruise to nowhere." Viking had cancelled the "cruise" for about eight consecutive weeks prior to the one that we had scheduled before (surprisingly) letting use know 5 days before scheduled departure from home that ours was a GO. Most people that had scheduled had no idea that water levels were a problem, so were surprised to learn at the last week that we would be staying on stationary ships on the Elbe. Many passengers were very unhappy.

An attorney in our group had extensive correspondence with Viking after the trip to get compensation for the somewhat altered itinerary. In the end, Viking sent each passenger a certificate for $1000 as "credit" on a future Viking trip, which had to be scheduled within 12 months.

Except for the fact that we stayed and ate on the two boats, so were not actually "cruising," I and my lady enjoyed the trip and were very happy with the food and drink aboard the Fontane and Schuman, which are sister ships. That part of Germany is not particularly scenic, so the cruising was not missing a lot of beauty. Eastern Germany, and Prague were very interesting.

Given the frequent water level problems on the Elbe it is somewhat surprising that Viking continues to schedule this trip.

The Santa Barbara Courthouse is a beautiful and interesting thing to visit, and it's free.

http://www.santabarbaracourthouse.org/sbch/Welcome.html

I don't know if boarding in San Francisco is much different that in San Pedro or Long Beach, but we've usually carried our luggage onto the ship. We each use a roller bag that fits in most airline overheads, plus say a day pack. Works very well for us, and we disembark when we want at the end. Princess, for instance, has coin-op laundries on the ship, so we do a single load between us mid-cruise per each week.

We took this same trip several years, but in the late summer. It will probably be somewhat warm with occasional rain. But, that's just my guess. Check some weather sites to get better information.

That part of the Danube is not very pretty, while the area has very interesting history.............much of it very recent. For instance, you will probably have a home visit meal at someones home in Croatia near Vukovar, which will have evidence of the terrible war which took place in the 1990's. Then, you will visit Belgrade, with some additional evidence of that war.

Budapest and Bucharest are interesting places, as the port of Constanta. You will see evidence of the projects built under the former Eastern Block, with lots of abandoned factories. Be prepared to be in countries that are NOT under the euro.

Here is a website that monitors the Elbe. We took the Prague to Berlin last year with Viking in which we ate and slept on Viking ships tied up at Dresden and Wittenberg, but never cruised on the river. Many people were very angry at Viking because of their "less-than-forthcoming" manner. The previous eight weeks' trips had been cancelled, but ours (and subsequent trips) were open, even though nobody cruised. We still had a pretty good time, and met great people.

The Elbe depth got as low as 50 cm before our particular trip. It appears to be about 250 cm at Dresden at this time.

http://www.umwelt.sachsen.de/umwelt/infosysteme/hwims/portal/web/wasserstand-uebersicht

Is it possible to do the Pacifico Brewery on our own or after a morning ship city tour or is it too far away or only available to tour groups?

It's my impression from trying to answer your very question that Pacifico no longer offers individual tours. We were able to tour the brewery several years ago as individuals, and would love to do it again.

Your could easily walk the distance by yourselves, as it's probably only about a mile or less each way, although the city now seems to require that you "follow the blue line" in visiting the city. We were just there the last week of January, and were stopped from walking without following the line. There are many locals posted along the "official route" to make sure visitors are "safe."

In two weeks we're going to be doing the wine excursion. In case we find some we just have to have, what might we run into? We know we can't bring it back to our room, that the ship will take it and return it later. That's fine. Any issues with quantity, packaging, etc. for either Carnival or US Customs?

We have not done the wine tour with Carnival, but have several times on Princess and Royal Caribbean. They have always allowed us to take the wine back to our cabin. Usually, of course, Ensenada is the stop the day before returning back to Los Angeles.

No problem with just a bottle of wine from the Customs people.

It appears to be a "one off." The Jewell does a trip through the Panama Canal following the "one off" California Coastal, relocating from the Alaska season to the winter Caribbean season. Royal Caribbean used to cruise routinely with two ships for a number of years, but they and their sister line Celebrity have "abandoned" us in Los Angeles. Shame on them. Bring back the Monarch and the Vision.

First I would like to confirm that if we are sailing on the Jewel of the Seas we will be leaving out of the LA Harbor - World Cruise Center (I called Royal and they couldn't tell me). Second, is the LA Waterfront webcam the same place ? ( Can family watch us sail away) Thanks!

The LA Cruise Center is located on the San Pedro waterfront, typically berths 91, 92 or 93. In those rare occasions when they have four ships in port they also use berth 46 in the outer harbor. Family will certainly be able to see the ship sail down the main channel and out to sea, although I don't think that they can be inside the terminal building. A good place to view ships leaving or arriving the harbor is at the Acapulco Restaurant, which is about 1/3 mile to the south of the terminal, or even just from the nearby harbor dock areas.

If you are sailing on October 3, there WILL be four ships in port, so that you MIGHT be using the berth 46 location. If you are on the October 10 sailing, only one other ship is in port, so you would sail from berths 91-93.

Here's the cruise schedule for the port in October 2015:

http://www.sanpedrocalendar.com/scripts/calcium40.pl?Op=ShowIt&CalendarName=sanpedrocruiseship&Op=ShowIt&Amount=Month&NavType=Absolute&Type=Block&Date=2015/10/1

I'm not familiar with the webcam, but if it's showing the cruise terminal it is at berths 91-93.

Has anyone ever stayed in areas other than San Pedro and Long Beach. We need 3 hotel rooms and will have a car for 1 day pre cruise. Any info on the Torrence area?

Thanks

I live in Torrance. About ten miles to the San Pedro cruise dock. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants throughout the area.

http://discovertorrance.com/

Really appreciate all the information. The fare to fly directly to Basel is really expensive. The train sounds like the way to go.

Make sure to get tickets to the "Zurich Flughafen" (the airport) not to "Zurich." The airport is a separate destination from Zurich city center.

We always just walk up the hill to the Wrigley Memorial and gardens. Not a very hard walk; and, all downhill on the return. You can also walk past the gate up to the zip line facility, which is off the ridge road.

We thought that we were to be bussed to Meissen to meet the fontane, but are actually on her sister ship Clara Schumann at dreßden, where we stay until Monday. There we will be bussed to contains further down stream. Meañwhile,we are being treated very well. Not exactly the trip we hoped,but still enjoyable. Lot of cancellation so the ship is nowhere full.

looks like our trip is a "go," with significant modifications. I just received the following email:

Thank you for choosing Viking Cruises for your upcoming European voyage.

This message is to let you know that the Elbe River is currently experiencing unusually low water levels. Viking’s nautical department, a team of professionals that continually monitors all the rivers we sail on, anticipate that levels will increase somewhat this week due to recent rainfall. However, parts of the river are likely to remain unnavigable, and as a consequence it will be necessary to make some changes to your itinerary.

At this point it is unlikely that your ship, Viking Fontane, will be able to reach its regular embarkation port of Melnik in time for your departure. Following the start of your journey in Prague, you will therefore instead be transferred to Meissen in Germany on Day 2 for embarkation on identical sister ship Viking Schumann.

Further details are not available at this point as conditions are still changing. We expect all included excursions to take place, although some may be operated by motorcoach from your ship. If and when water levels rise further, Viking will do everything possible to restore your itinerary as it was originally planned.

We are confident that you will still enjoy your trip with us very much, but wanted to make you aware of the necessary alterations as soon as we ourselves learned. As an additional gesture of goodwill, we are extending a Future Cruise Voucher valued at $1,000 per person. Future Cruise Vouchers will be emailed to you separately; please allow two weeks for delivery.

Should you need to contact the ship on arrival, please call Viking Schumann at +49 174 346 34 53.

If you have any questions, please call Customer Relations at customerrelations@vikingcruises.com or 1-877-668-4546, extension 4525, Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., PDT.

We look forward to welcoming you to Prague and wish you a wonderful journey.

Sincerely,

Stephanie K. Maldonado

Senior Manager, Customer Relations

Viking Cruises

Jeff in Torrance did you book direct ? Did you buy Travel Insurance thru someone other than Viking?? Third party not sold by Viking.... I would call them this is Friday, I don't think their CS dept is open over the weekend. Have you been checking "booked passengers" on their website for alerts???

All of our arrangements, including travel insurance, are through Viking. We have a hotel room for two additional nights in Prague, that we arranged on our own. We have been in direct contact with the hotel.

We're scheduled to fly to Prague on Monday, August 24 for our August 27 Elbe cruise on Viking Fontane. So far, no word one way or another on whether it's "go" or "no go." We booked air through Viking and have a hotel for two nights before the "official" part of the trip, so time is getting really short for us to make decisions and take care of details at home prior to the (maybe) trip. I can understand that Viking does NOT want to cancel if they can justify running our trip. But, really, we need a definitive decision NOW.

There is no reason to bring a case of water on board. The water on board is as pure, if not more pure, than bottled water, is FREE, tastes great, and doesn't have a plastic waste problem. The better idea is to just bring one refillable bottle per person.

I'm in total agreement. Bottled water is one huge scam.

We really enjoy the THINK CAFE on 5th street. Good food at reasonable prices. And, about a two-block walk from the hotel.

http://www.sanpedro.com/spcom/restur.htm

We've been on three river cruises so far, with another coming up soon, assuming the Elbe has enough water. We've always booked "aquarium" class, which I would also consider to be "swan" class on the Rhine. We got lucky (or, possibly fit the criteria for 'upgrade" to balcony) on our first cruise. Great if you want to pay the extra $$ (we won't). We have only been on GC so far, checking out the competition on Viking. Their reluctance to tell us whether our cruise will go or be cancelled is NOT winning points. thus far. In any event, the cabin is not that important to us. Price wins.

I assume that you could get there by aiga (pronounced "eye-inga") bus. You will be able to flag them down from anywhere along the main road. I have not been there, but image it's very nice. I see by the map that it's east of Pago harbor, and outside of the harbor. I would guess that the bus would take about 15-20 minutes to get there from the inner harbor.