Is this feasable/doable/sane??

[kayelbee]

I'm based in the UK and next year I'm taking a cruise out of San Pedro/Los Angeles Cruise Port on a Princess ship.

As it's a reasonable trek across the Atlantic my plan is to fly into LAX 2 or 3 weeks earlier and combine the cruise with a road trip.

I plan to fly into LAX and spend one night in a hotel there and then the next morning collect my rental car at the airport and start my road trip.

 

My thought is rather than drive into LA and to LAX to return the car to Long Beach Airport instead. I could then travel to the cruise port on the morning of cruise.

So...is that a reasonable idea, if so which hotels near Long Beach Airport do people recommend and bonus points if any if them have a shuttle to the Post of Los Angeles.

or...

Am I better travelling to the San Pedro area on the day I drop the car off at LGB and staying in San Pedro. I have stayed in the Crowne Plaza there many years ago and thought it good, however, I have read reports its gone downhill recently, is it that bad, is it scheduled for a referbishment anytime soon?

or...

Should I return the car to LAX stay the night there and either get an Uber or Princess shuttle to the port the next day?

or...

Is there another scenario I haven't considered?

 

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly received.

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

What a great holiday that will be.  I think anyone of those plans would be workable.  My question would be where are you coming from the day of coming back into the LA area and how long of a drive will that be?  The earlier you get into LA area the more options.  Also, returning a rental at another location than the original rental location can add to the overall cost.  Realistically, no matter where you drop the car and stay the night before you will have plenty of time to get to the port morning of embarkation.  If you want to share your road trip thoughts I'm sure you will get plenty of input.  

[kayelbee]

I'm still at the very early stages of planning. We've done the area before and want to travel to Arizona and New Mexico this time. We would fly into LAX about 20 days before the cruise starts so we have plenty of time to get ourselves to be in the greater LA the night before our cruise. 

The cruise starts on a Saturday, if we returned the car and stayed at LAX would it be too stressful to travel from there to San Pedro on the day of the cruise?

[Tonya1965]

We have a similar plan but coming from the East Coast of the United States instead of the UK. We will be flying into Long Beach and picking up/returning our rental there.  Our plan right now is to keep the rental car until the morning of the cruise and drop off some of us (6 altogether) at the cruise port with the luggage.  Then one or two of us will return the rental and Uber back to the cruise port. 

 

It is more expensive to return to a different location, as a previous poster said.  Another option I don't think you mentioned was to return your rental to LAX, Uber to a hotel near the cruise port, and then Uber/shuttle to the cruise port the next morning.  

 

We're staying in an AirBnb near Santa Monica, so thinking about drive times to the cruise port and airport are part of our considerations.  We don't do hotel shuttles to cruise ports anymore - we waited and waited for a shuttle in Miami a few years ago and ended up calling an Uber to take us, as the extended wait was getting stressful!  I think most of the time, the shuttles work out well, though.  

 

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

10 hours ago, kayelbee said:

The cruise starts on a Saturday, if we returned the car and stayed at LAX would it be too stressful to travel from there to San Pedro on the day of the cruise?

No, Saturday would be a great day to get to the port.  Depending on time of the year you might want to rent an AWD due to snow in parts of AZ and NM.