Carnival Spirit timings, please, on April 21, 2007

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canuk

Guest
Carnival Spirit ends its series of Baha Coast cruises on Sunday April 21, docking at 8:00am in San Diego.

It then "ferries" (empty of passengers) down to Ensenada, the same day, where passengers embark for a cruise to Hawaii, leaving at 9:00pm.

Does anyone know the ship's expected departure time from San Diego or its arrival time in Ensenada, please? It's about 70 miles from San Diego to Ensenada. No doubt it will take on supplies in San Diego, not Ensenada, which would suggest it might leave there around 3pm? At an average of, say, 15 knots, it should berth in Ensenada around 7:00pm.
How does that wag* sound?

We're on the Hawaii cruise and I've read horror stories about the bus transit of passengers from San Diego to Ensenada on the 2006 version of this trip, being forced to sit in a bus for over 7 hours, a good deal of that time on the dock at Ensenada, just looking at the ship, waiting to be told to board. Eauchhh!

*wild-ass guess
 
G

geezer

Guest
hi Canuk,

Are you sure about those dates??? i am scheduled to leave on the 11 day Hawaii cruise leaving Honolulu on April 27. The Carnival website shows a cruise leaving Ensenada on April 15.
 
C

canuk

Guest
Geezer,

Thanks for the "heads up". You are absolutely right, the cruise leaves Ensenada on April 15, not April 21. Apologies to you and to all.

Anyway, a special letter has arrived today from Carnival which gives different details of what is to happen, which make a lot more sense! For anyone interested, here's the new arrangements.

1. Passengers arriving by air (who booked air with Carnival) at either Los Angeles or San Diego (we're flying to San diego) will be shuttled by bus to the cruise terminal in San Diego. (Note: the buses from the airports do NOT take you to Ensenada, as previously announced by Carnival).

2. Passengers use the cruise ship terminal to check in, as if they were embarking in San diego (they aren't, they're just using the port facilities there. My guess is that the ship will be moored right there at least some of the time during the check-in process). Non-air passengers are advised not to arrive at the check-in before 3:00 pm.

3. A second bus trip will then take all (repeat, all) checked-in passengers from the San Diego cruise terminal to the port at Ensenada, Mexico for embarkation. These transfers will not begin until about 5:00pm and, according to Carnival will take "2 hours including a brief inspection at the border." I personally think that's a bit optimistic, but never mind.

This special letter explains things well and is, I believe, a much better arrangement than previously advised.

In case anyone is wondering about 'why do all this?', it's because of something called the "Jones Act", a piece of old legislation that will not allow foreign-registered vessels (I believe the Carnival Spirit is registered in Panama) to travel directly between two USA ports (to protect US-registered vessels' trade). So the ship picks up its passengers in Ensenada, just over the frontier in Mexico, then heads off to Hawaii.

This will not be an issue for the Hawaii - Vancouver leg (its next cruise) because, of course, Vancouver is not in the USA.

What a carry-on! The good news is that the shuttle to the cruise terminal is included in the fare of passengers who booked air travel through Carnival and the transfer to Ensenada is free to all passengers, no matter how they booked.

The good news is that passengers arriving in San Diego from elsewhere (like us) may have time to do a little exploring of San Diego before they head to Ensenada - a port of call, if you like. Our plan is to get on one of the last transfer buses, to maximize our time in
San Diego, which we have never been to before.

Hope this helps.
 
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