Panorama parking arrangement

[shuang6]

We just booked Panorama for Aug.  I've heard that we have to park in an off-site parking and take shuttle back to the cruise terminal.

For people who have sailed on Panorama recently, how was the parking experience? Any suggestions for alternative?  Thanks!

[Mike45LC]

Parking was horrible, in part due to poor information from Carnival.

 

We were told to drive up to the pier parking garage, to drop off passengers and luggage.  But the queue to get into the parking garage is huge and completely traffic-jammed.  I followed directions and from the on-site parking garage, I was then directed to the off-site parking garage. 

 

Better:  drive to the off-site garage with your passengers and luggage, avoiding the pier and that traffic jam.  Then, take the shuttle bus to the pier with your passengers and luggage.  Once at the pier, give the baggage to the porters.   This would have saved an hour-long traffic jam to get onto the pier with my car.

 

[VentureMan_2000]

Parking at the cruise terminal is extremely slow... like 45 minutes to go that last half mile to get to the drop-off point.  No reason for this... they need to hire a new parking operator that knows what they are doing.

[Are.we.there.yet?]

The off-site parking is a huge pain in the butt!!!  We had 2 mobilty challenged people with us and the only saving grace was that we got extremely lucky that a mobility friendly sprinter van driver went above and beyond on the back end.  We were in the lot at 11 Golden Shore and that lot is down a very long driveway and the pavement was rough and our cars were filthy.  The van driver was very kind and took us all the way to our cars but that was simply by luck.  

 

On the front end, we waited for an hour to drop our bags off but with our older passengers, it was our best option.  We arrived at 10:00 AM for our 10:30 slots and our full group made it in the dome by 11:45.  We are used to the chaos of Long Beach but off site parking adds more frustration, especially since they either change up the lots or offer multiple lots.  This is our 3rd time parking off site and it's been a different lot each time.  Last time, it was the Convention Center and that was a nice lot but we parked on the roof and the elevator was broken.  Our group was younger that time so it was fine.

 

We pondered Uber but it still would have been more expensive than the $380 we paid for 2 cars.

[pppiglet]

I would agree with Mike.  Skip going to the terminal parking structure. What a waste of time.  We had this happen to us on the Miracle when we went last November.  They sent us to 3 separate parking structures.  We also had a 10-10:30 check in time and didn't get there until 11:30.  Sure makes you start your cruise off in a bad mood. 

[MeganGC1983]

@mkcurran can definitely expound upon this ! 

[mkcurran]

Offsite parking is badly organized, not at all mobile friendly.

You HAVE to drive into the port to get the paper that allows you to park at the offsite garage. There are three garages in the same area. You could get sent to any of them. Took us over an hour to get into port the first time. We were at 2 hours beginning to end for drop off. 

When we debarked, it was a true cluster. We avoided half of it by using a porter that got us to the right bus area. The bus driver got lost going back to the garage. It was a mess. Tempers were short. People got their panties in a twist. I may have run over a few toes because there wasn't enough room to get a suit case away from bus otherwise.

My advice, find a park and cruise hotel. If you find a hotel with parking but no shuttle, have the Uber drop you off the Queen Mary. 

Using the current off site may result in the need for bail money. 

But it might be better by August.

[Ranyw]

There are two hotels about a quarter mile from the port, the hotel maya and I forget the other one.  You could walk over to the port.  I wonder f it’s possible to just park at the queen Mary and walk over next door to the port?

[mkcurran]

7 hours ago, Ranyw said:

There are two hotels about a quarter mile from the port, the hotel maya and I forget the other one.  You could walk over to the port.  I wonder f it’s possible to just park at the queen Mary and walk over next door to the port?

You could. They charge $30/night. At thise prices, I'd do the Maya. You can walk from there or their shuttle driver gets into the port the back way, making it a quick ride.

[herm26]

How early can you arrive at the port to park? Before 10am? Is there a gate or a person letting people in to park? I don't mind arriving early to park and just hanging out before getting into the dome. Has anyone attempted to arrive much earlier in the morning? If so, what has been your experience? Thanks.

[mkcurran]

9 minutes ago, herm26 said:

How early can you arrive at the port to park? Before 10am? Is there a gate or a person letting people in to park? I don't mind arriving early to park and just hanging out before getting into the dome. Has anyone attempted to arrive much earlier in the morning? If so, what has been your experience? Thanks.

You can arrive early, but if you are sailing on the Panorama, then you'll get the sheet to park elsewhere. But if you are early, you may beat the back-up.

 

[tonit964]

I know this is for the Panorama but does anyone know what it's like for the Firenze? Do we use the parking structure at the terminal or is it off-site?

Thanks in advance!

[1city@atime]

5 minutes ago, tonit964 said:

I know this is for the Panorama but does anyone know what it's like for the Firenze? Do we use the parking structure at the terminal or is it off-site?

Thanks in advance!

 

We parked in the structure for our Firenze cruise. Spots open up as cars leave from the previous cruise. We got to the parking structure around 10:45 ish.

 

@Ranyw - You cannot park in the Queen Mary lot for a cruise. We called and asked as we were nervous for parking for our Firenze cruise.

 

It's really sad because they have two huge lots there that just sit empty.

[herm26]

Long Beach Cruise Ship Terminal Directions and Parking

 

This is perhaps a helpful link.

 

[tonit964]

2 minutes ago, 1city@atime said:

 

We parked in the structure for our Firenze cruise. Spots open up as cars leave from the previous cruise. We got to the parking structure around 10:45 ish.

 

@Ranyw - You cannot park in the Queen Mary lot for a cruise. We called and asked as we were nervous for parking for our Firenze cruise.

 

It's really sad because they have two huge lots there that just sit empty.

Thank you for that info!

 

[Theosprey247]

Perhaps choosing a later check in time would alleviate the parking problems. 

[john91498]

There are people arriving to embark and at the same time, people are leaving from the prior cruise. This causes mass chaos.

 

Now, we don't arrive till about 1pm when most of the madness has died down. And when it's time to go home, we try to get off the ship around 8am or so.

[PacificMountain2012]

We cruised out on the Panorama on 5/25 returned on 6/2. I've parked at Galveston and Miami, this is the worst. My advice, avoid parking at the terminal, if they are going to send you to 11 Golden Shore. You first have to deal with the traffic getting into the terminal, then drive to the parking lot. When we arrived at the parking lot, the one to the immediate right of 11 Golden Shore, one of the lot workers had completely lost it and was yelling at drivers going in and out of the little parking lot. When we disembarked, no one appeared in charged of the buses that took passengers to the parking lots and airports, as a result you had no idea which bus to get on; they kept changing the signs on the buses and moving people from to another. When we finally arrived at the lot, the bus parked about a block away, at the bottom of a hill. Baggage was a free for all and the same guy yelling when we arrived was at it again and had added the middle finger to his act, as cars tried to get in and out. You might consider parking at Long Beach Airport and Ubering it over, if you can't find a hotel nearby. Our cruise was great though...Have a great cruise!

[Mike45LC]

1 hour ago, PacificMountain2012 said:

When we disembarked, no one appeared in charged of the buses that took passengers to the parking lots and airports, as a result you had no idea which bus to get on; they kept changing the signs on the buses and moving people from to another. When we finally arrived at the lot, the bus parked about a block away, at the bottom of a hill. Baggage was a free for all and the same guy yelling when we arrived was at it again and had added the middle finger to his act, as cars tried to get in and out.

This!!!

 

I think I'll stay at a local hotel for Park and Sail next time.

 

[VentureMan_2000]

On 6/10/2024 at 2:55 PM, shuang6 said:

We just booked Panorama for Aug.  I've heard that we have to park in an off-site parking and take shuttle back to the cruise terminal.

For people who have sailed on Panorama recently, how was the parking experience? Any suggestions for alternative?  Thanks!

We drove down from Northern California and stayed at the Best Western.  They have a Park, Sleep, and Cruise special $199 which includes 7 days of parking while cruising.  Our cruise was 14-days, so we paid an additional 7 days at $10/day.  Calling this hotel directly is $50 less than trying to book online or calling the BW booking 800 number.

We Uber'd from the hotel to the port -- they were able to drop us off on the backside near the Queen Mary parking lot, so bypassed all the traffic.  And they picked us up in the same spot when we disembarked.  Uber was $28 each way, including Tip.

Best Western Los Angeles Worldport Hotel
1402 West Pacific Coast Hwy
Wilmington, CA

(310) 834-3400
Frontdesk@Bestwesternlaworldport.com

[mkcurran]

1 hour ago, PacificMountain2012 said:

We cruised out on the Panorama on 5/25 returned on 6/2. I've parked at Galveston and Miami, this is the worst. My advice, avoid parking at the terminal, if they are going to send you to 11 Golden Shore. You first have to deal with the traffic getting into the terminal, then drive to the parking lot. When we arrived at the parking lot, the one to the immediate right of 11 Golden Shore, one of the lot workers had completely lost it and was yelling at drivers going in and out of the little parking lot. When we disembarked, no one appeared in charged of the buses that took passengers to the parking lots and airports, as a result you had no idea which bus to get on; they kept changing the signs on the buses and moving people from to another. When we finally arrived at the lot, the bus parked about a block away, at the bottom of a hill. Baggage was a free for all and the same guy yelling when we arrived was at it again and had added the middle finger to his act, as cars tried to get in and out. You might consider parking at Long Beach Airport and Ubering it over, if you can't find a hotel nearby. Our cruise was great though...Have a great cruise!

 

10 minutes ago, Mike45LC said:

This!!!

 

I think I'll stay at a local hotel for Park and Sail next time.

 

I actually got an apology out of Carnival for the fiasco from that cruise.

[BABAZ]

We boarded the Firenze on 5/26/24. No parking in the garage. It was full because they ran out of off site parking for Panorama and directed them to park at the terminal. We kept getting the run around. Nobody had any clue what to do. Tell us to go to one place only to be told no and go back. It was a total cluster that makes me question if we will continue to cruise out of there. 

 

They removed Miracle (2000 pax) replaced it with Firenze (4300 pax) and they thought this was a good idea?

[pppiglet]

1 hour ago, BABAZ said:

They removed Miracle (2000 pax) replaced it with Firenze (4300 pax) and they thought this was a good idea?

That's what I'm worried about for our Firenze cruise coming up in August.  Hopefully they'll get something worked out beforehand. 

[PaddleAddict]

If we Uber to the ship will we also get stuck in the backed up traffic to enter the lot? Or can Uber drop off somewhere different that avoids the backup?

[weezal]

53 minutes ago, PaddleAddict said:

If we Uber to the ship will we also get stuck in the backed up traffic to enter the lot? Or can Uber drop off somewhere different that avoids the backup?

same traffic and route, unless you choose drop off at queen mary