We were told, when the stop in Cabo San Lucas was cancelled, that we would benefit by getting extra time in Los Angeles. Well, not quite. First, our 11pm arrival was delayed until nearly 1am. I was then up until 3:30am blogging. Then in the morning we were required to go through immigration. That was done by floor, starting with the top floor, Deck 11. Our Deck 5 was called around 9:30am. We then waited in line for about 45 minutes. We finally set foot in Los Angeles – or, more specifically, San Pedro – at 10:15am. Not exactly “extra time in Los Angeles.”
Being adventurous, we decided to try to get to the Hollywood Walk of Fame via public transportation. It was about 90 minutes away by bus. We walked about half a mile to the stop for the J bus, an express bus to downtown. We waited just a few minutes and it got us to the downtown transfer point in less than an hour. We were invited to share an Uber by another cruise couple on the bus, but Marlene wanted to do the second bus, so we crossed the street to look for the stop for the B bus. But I could find no mention on the bus stop sign of any such B bus. The I looked behind me and saw the entrance to the subway. I didn’t know LA had a subway! So we went down the escalator, figured out how to get a fare card ($2 for the card, 75 cents for the fare) and followed the signs to the B line platform.
The subway was clean and quite – very much like the Barcelona subway and much nicer than Boston or New York. But we boarded the wrong train – a D line train – which took us a couple of stops in the wrong direction before we discovered the error. But we got back to the station where B and D diverged and got on the right train pretty quickly. In just a few minutes we were back on the street – Hollywood Boulevard.
We walked all along the Walk of Fame, browsed stores on the Hollywood Boulevard and caught a glimpse of the iconic “Hollywood” sign. We had lunch at a Taco Bell Cantina – a Taco Bell that serves margaritas – and met a young couple from Fresno who were in LA to attend a concert – at $550 per ticket!
We made it as far as Grauman’s Chinese Theater, which was a mass of humanity. We stayed for just a few minutes then escaped the crush.
We got back on the subway, paid another 75 cents each to travel an hour to Santa Monica. We spent some time enjoying the bit of crazy that is the Santa Monica Pier. We also marveled that some people were actually in the very cold water on a very chilly day.
We spent some time goofing off in the amusement buildings before walking back to the subway line.
We didn’t have to be back to the ship until 11pm, but it was going to take 2 hours to get there so we headed back around 7pm. We got to the J Line without a problem and had to wait just 10 minutes for the bus. But it was dark by the time we got to the stop and Marlene stumbled and fell just as we got there. Flat on her face. Fortunately, no serious damage – just a skinned knee.
The adventure began when we got about halfway to the ship and were told it was the end of the line. Huh? We needed to get to the port. Oh, the driver said… “That is the 950 J line. This is the 910 J line.” So, we asked, when does the 950 arrive. Well, he said, he wasn’t sure it was running anymore as the last bus was at 8:30pm and it was 8:45.
So we were faced with the possibility that we couldn’t get back to the ship via bus. And the clock was ticking.
We talked to some other people waiting for buses and were told that the 946 bus went to San Pedro and could get us fairly close (where “fairly close” meant “within a mile”) of the cruise terminal. There was a 946 bus there, with the driver on break so when he came back we asked him for advice. He said he thought there was one more 950 J bus that would arrive in about 10 minutes, but, yes, the 946 would get us within a mile. Just get off at O’Farrell Street.
We decided to not wait for the 950 J which might or might not arrive. We rode for 40 minutes on the 946 and talked to some passengers who advised us to get off at 1st St rather than O’Farrell. That is what Google told us to do, too, so that is what we did.
Turns out O’Farrell would have been better. We probably walked an extra 6 blocks to get to the gate which was right at the bottom of O’Farrell. Lesson: ignore Google and listen to the bus driver.
We got on board at 10:15pm, tired and hungry. We had dinner at O’Sheehan’s, the free pub on the Jade. Then to the cabin and straight to bed.
A day filled with adventure and exercise (17,000 steps). And just a little too much drama. But cheap – the total transportation cost was $9.