Ensenada, Mexico to San Diego or Los Angelos Airports?

[sherrybaby55]

We are cruising with Carnival from Honolulu ending in Ensenada. Does anyone know how to get from Ensenada Mexico to either San Diego or Los Angelos Airports? Does Carnival shuttle you there or do you have to arrange this yourself? If it is arranged by Carnival, how long does it take? We are deciding on flights and do not know if we could make a morning flight out of these cities. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks:)

[Cruisin' Chick]

Never understood why Carnival or any other cruiseline would end a cruise in Ensenada. Some ships will make a service stop there and then continue back to the U.S.

[wrp96]

The reason they have to start or end the cruise there is because it is a one way cruise. If they start or end in San Diego or LA, then they violate the Passenger Services Act.

 

Ensenada is about 70 miles south of San Diego. However, it can take anywhere from two to several hours to make this drive depending on the border. Per Carnival's website, they recommend no flights before 11:05 am out of San Diego or 1:40pm out of LAX - I personally would add a couple of hours to those recommendations because they cannot control delays at the US border. Unless you will be saving several hundred dollars, I do not recommend flying out of LAX. The added transit time won't be worth it.

 

If you are booking airfare through Carnival, they will provide a shuttle to San Diego. If you are booking independent air, then call Carnival and purchase their transfers to San Diego(you have to purchase them, the shuttle will not be free). I do not recommend a private transfer service back to San Diego.

[LornaT]

Even without booking airfare through Cranival they do provide you with transportation via bus service back into the US, it's included free as part of your cruise, or at least it was last year. Did this sailing this last October, it was pretty easy. Was given a special luggage tag based on the fact that I was only going to San Diego not flying out from either SAN or LAX (my car was at the Best Western Bayside Inn in San Diego, flew from San Diego to Hawaii for this cruise with friends that live there) my luggage was put on the bus for me, all I had to do was get off the ship with my hand carry stuff and find my bus. Easy ride to the border, but when we got to the border we were told to exit the bus with our stuff and walk through the border inspection point in the building, after passport was checked and bags scanned, extied the building and had to walk about a 1-1/2 blocks to the first side street in San Ysidro to meet the bus again, seems they have to fully exit the border area and that's the first place they can park to wait for us. Once back on the bus, off to the San Diego Airport. Once there it was a bit of a mess, one bus (ours) dropped luggage at the beginning of the airport and us at the end and the other bus dropped people where our bus dropped luggage and then dropped the luggage where we were dropped ................. what a mess. But I got all my bags and got picked up by the hotel and on my way home by one o'clock. They do arrange buses that go all the way to LAX, supposed to be a 5 to 5-1/2 hour trip, San Diego was about 3-1/2 hours total.

 

My time to the airport and on my way home was based on the fact that I had no flight arrangements, so we were last off the ship along with folks with late afternoon flights out.

 

Hope this helps.