Though it wasn't the shortest route, we went through Yuma, AZ on the way to San Diego. Our idea was to fill-up in Yuma then return to Yuma without having to pay California gas prices. The last part did not work out as well as we would have liked. We probably would have made it back to Yuma, but we would have been sweating it out toward the end so we stopped and paid $15 dollars for a little over 3 gallons of gas.
We used hotelnparking.com to find a hotel in San Diego where we could spend a night and park the car while on the cruise. We found Howard Johnson Seaworld which offers a reasonable rate for a 1 night stay and 14-night parking with $10 a night for the extra nights. According to the website the shuttle to the cruise terminal was $10 per room, when we checked in we discovered the cost of the shuttle was $10 per person which is still a good price. In the morning Ernie asked how we contact the shuttle when we return, we were told that the shuttle was only one way we would need to get a taxi back to the hotel on our return. We will probably not use hotelnparking.com in the future, at the least we will more closely check the details of the deal if we do use this site to book parking.
The cruise check-in process went smoothly and quickly. Upon boarding we went to our cabin, went to lunch, wandered around the ship, took pictures of the San Diego port area, went to dinner and some of the entertainment sites. While taking pictures we were told the aircraft carrier docked near the terminal is the USS Midway. (Pictures)
On our return to San Diego our biggest concern was finding a taxi with a driver willing to bring us to the hotel where our car was parked, most drivers want to do the quick airport run so they can get back in line for the next run. After the easiest it has ever been finding our luggage and the quickest pass through customs, we went to where the taxis are parked. We walked up to the next available taxi and had a quick pleasant ride to the hotel. Upon reaching the hotel we discovered everything was OK with the car and were soon on our way. The cab ride including a generous tip was just slightly more that the shuttle to the cruise terminal had been.
Since we did not know how long it would take to get a taxi, we thought we would need to stop in Yuma for gas anyway, and we wanted to stop someplace in time to see the Super Bowl, we booked a room in Yuma before we boarded the ship. It took no time to get the taxi and having bought some gas in California, we had more than ¼ tank of gas when we got to Yuma. We were in plenty of time to see the Super Bowl, but the local NBC station was having a dispute with Charter so Charter was not supplying any NBC shows. Luckily, Ernie found that nbcsports.com was streaming the game for free so we watched it on our laptop.
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