Taking the Bus to Hawaii



Redondo Beach, California



While all of us love those comfortable seats and bargain-priced meals at airports, not to mention the delights of missed connections or 8 hour layovers in Moscow, sometimes it's nice to go on vacation without boarding a plane.

As such, a roundtrip cruise to Hawaii from Los Angeles World Cruise Terminal, which is a twenty minute drive from our home in Redondo Beach, seemed like just the ticket for our next "someday" vacation.

Not wanting to make the trip too stress free, we decided to take the bus to the port. 

We dragged our suitcases to Pacific Coast Highway, arriving at the bus stop fifteen minutes early in case our transportation arrived ahead of schedule, which I'm sure must happen all the time in Los Angeles.  Just ask OJ Simpson.



Liliuokalani Gardens, Hilo

For those of you who have never ridden a city bus in L.A. County, keep in mind that while there is a bike rack above the front bumper, there's no place to store luggage, which means you have to figure out what to do with large suitcases (in our case, large enough to contain two weeks worth of clothes) in a crowded vehicle with a two-foot wide corridor down the middle for ingress and egress.



Yep, those "cramped" economy class airline seats with overhead bins don't seem too shabby about the time that reality sets in.

Nonetheless, we hopped on Metro Local 232 and headed up Pacific Coast Highway.

Black Rock on Ka'anapali Beach, Maui

Juggling our suitcases between the floor where our feet should have been and our laps proved to be an excellent full-body exercise program, and I'm thinking about boarding the bus with increasingly burdensome loads as a daily exercise regimen.  Once I become an expert, you may be able to pay $59 to join my Learning Annex course, "Battling Bus Stops for a Better Booty."

When we arrived at the 110 Freeway, it was time to get off the bus, but we were still a few miles from the cruise port.

Surprisingly, you don't need a car to take the 110 Freeway, but you do need to haul your bags down the boulevard, across a popular intersection and then up about 120 feet to the elevated expressway to transfer to the Harbor Transitway 450 Bus.

You can wait for the elevator, but concerned about making the connection to the bus that comes along only once an hour, I hefted our two fifty pound suitcases while Julie lugged our "carry-on" bags up the stairway to heaven.



Cruising out of Los Angeles Harbor

That bus stop along the primary truck route for one of the busiest ports in the country turned out to be less tranquil and quiet, not to mention fresh smelling, than you might believe, so we were happy that we made our connection for the final leg with five minutes to spare.



The 450 bus doesn't actually stop at the cruise terminal but rather across the street, so after wrestling our bags off the bus, we still had to drag them across two intersections and through the terminal parking lot to check in and pose for that inevitable welcome aboard photo. 

It takes four days to get to Hawaii from Los Angeles, so this isn't exactly a weekend escape.  As such, it isn't surprising that this cruise doesn't attract many of the young and the restless.  In fact, I felt a kid at the adult table on this cruise.



Cruising Into Kauai Past Golf Course

However, it turns out these old folks are actually just young hippies wearing perfect disguises.  They love the Beatles and cheer for the opening notes of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.


If you have a couple of weeks to relax, you can enjoy a few days in Hawaii along with lots of leisurely sea days coming and going for about the price of a traditional four or five night Hawaiian vacation once you factor in air, hotel, transportation, entertainment and meals, unless you stay in a crappy hotel where you spend your evenings watching TV and eating Spam straight out of the can.