Our last stop on the first “segment” of our cruise was Los Angeles. Our ship docked in the Port of Los Angeles, located in the San Pedro neighborhood.
We have been to Los Angeles many times, visiting Kevin’s Aunt Anita and Uncle Ed, and on layovers because we stopped flying multiple hops in one day years ago. We have been to many of the tourist sites in the past. But we have never spent any time in the San Pedro neighborhood, so we decided to spend the day within walking distance of the ship.
The Port of Los Angeles handles approximately 20% of the port traffic in the United States, so it obviously is a huge and busy port! However, we were pleasantly surprised with San Pedro, with a beautiful waterfront park/walkway, and a downtown area with what looked like many interesting restaurants. We might return in the future if we are starting a cruise in Los Angeles.
Because this was a “turnaround day,” meaning that some people were ending or starting their cruise in Los Angeles, and because of US Customs and Border Control regulations, we had to leave the ship by 9 am, earlier than we often get off (we like to be fairly leisure with our morning most of the time). We had some time to kill before the lunch restaurant and museum we were planning to go to opened, so we walked the waterfront and then went to a coffee/tea shop to hang out for a while and take care of some business. We also walked around the downtown area looking in thrift stores for tea mugs because the plastic ones on the ship result in tea sometimes tasting like coffee; we didn’t find any we liked but we will have future opportunities to find them.
We eventually made our way to the San Pedro Fish Market for lunch. We had their famous “fish plate” which was more than enough food for two and very good. It is somewhat like shrimp fajitas, but also had potatoes. The restaurant has outdoor seating at picnic tables. It was cool but sunny, in the 60s Fahrenheit, quite pleasant.
After lunch we went to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, highly recommended for those into boating or maritime history. We have been to many maritime museums worldwide and probably will go to several more on this trip. This one takes about an hour or so to go through, includes many boats and scale models of boats, and covers the history of various communities that have called San Pedro home in the past, usually centered around fishing in some way. It also is free with a suggested donation of $5 per adult, so quite a bargain.
We then walked back to the ship by way of West Marine to look again for tea mugs (no luck).
This is our last stop in the Americas before heading to Polynesia. We have 5 days at sea before we arrive in Hawaii for two stops. We love sea days, so this isn’t a problem for us at all.
