We awoke with the sunrise, docked in Los Angeles cruise port. The port looked quiet but strangely welcoming in the early morning golden glow and long shadows. Strangely welcoming? Well, this was Los Angeles, America. We’d not visited this coast of America before but our experiences of flying into the east of the country on several occasions had not left us with the greatest of impressions of the country – surliness, huge queues, casual racism towards other travellers and our friend; that sort of thing – and, of course, this was 2019, Trump’s America, a place that absolutely hates every foreigner who’s not a white supremacist with more money than sense. We were not particularly looking forward to clearing either the port customs and security or the airport customs and security later on in the day but sandwiched between those events was a debark tour we could hopefully enjoy.

So how was getting through customs and security at Los Angeles cruise port?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to switch on your Sarcasm-O-Meter there just to scan this paragraph but, really, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Thanks to our morning debark tour and desire for Princess Cruises to get us off as quickly as possible, see the sights without hitting too much traffic, and dump us at the airport without running into problems they’d need to resolve (because we booked the tour and flights with them) we were not just amongst the first people off the ship but my wife and I were literally the first passengers off Star Princess. Down the gangway to the port we were greeted by a friendly port worker who made sure we were careful of the forklifts buzzing around before we headed into the tented area for customs and security. Here was another smiling face, quick question or two, short chat and a laugh, and we were done. Found our cases, found the bus for the tour, and just waited for the rest of our group to file in behind us. We were impressed with our first minutes in Los Angeles.

Venice Canals, Los Angeles, California

It was an uneventful, not terribly interesting drive from the port to the first of our stops with hardly any of that famous Los Angeles traffic to mention either, a benefit of this debark tour taking place on a Saturday morning. Our guide offered to simply stop and tell us about the area of Venice Canals – where we were – or we could go for a quick walk through it and meet up with the bus at the end. There seemed to be a distinct look of shock and disappointment on the guide’s face when we all said we wanted the walk. I’m not sure exactly what she was expecting or what the response to that offer had been on previous tours she’d led but she certainly seemed crestfallen to discover she’d have to get off and walk with us too. We didn’t pay the money for a tour just to gaze at sights from a bus and even had everyone else been content to stay where they were we’d have gotten off and made them all wait for us regardless. We’re like that, you know.

There followed a fairly brisk walk around the canals which started out as one big group and rapidly became one long line as those of us with cameras kept stopping to take pictures. It was hard not to; the clear blue sky of the morning, no wind, and subsequent mirror-like surface of the water produced too many opportunities for pleasing-looking photos to pass up.

It’s entirely possible that our guide was talking a little more about the area while she walked ahead with the leaders in our group but none of that drifted back to where I was. Here, then, is what the internet says about the Venice Canals of Los Angeles: the canals, obviously, are artificial, having been built early in the twentieth century as part of a plan to recreate the look and feel of the canals associated with Venice in Italy. We’ve never been to Venice in Italy but we have seen photos and can honestly say that the attempt to recreate that look and feel here in America was an abject failure. But they’re still nice. Okay, that’s not fair. The canals in Los Angeles these days are only really connected with the ones of the early 1900s by name alone. The originals may once have resembled their Italian counterparts but the canals fell into disrepair and many were filled in and turned into roads as Americans rejected boating and gentle walks in favour of a love affair with traffic jams. It takes all sorts.

After a lot of dealing and double-dealing and committees (and probably threats with weaponry if American TV has taught us anything) new canals were opened in the 1990s and the area became a tourist attraction and a very desirable location to live for the insanely rich who don’t mind strangers walking past their windows and photographing them at all hours of the day and night. It takes all sorts.

There was a quirkiness to the historic Venice Canals area that seemed a little forced to my cynical mind, but artificial quirkiness is okay too and it all added to the pleasing character present. This was evident in the architecture of the buildings – that uniformity you associate with American housing was nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably a privilege of the almighty dollar at work – and with artwork in places, the presence of bird-shaped boats, and a book exchange. An upturned boat in poor condition was potentially a damning statement about society from the residents – Behold! We, the wealthy owners of houses in the Venice Canals area of Los Angeles, see this sign of decay and do nothing! Nothing! – or an artistic homage to the classic half-submerged shopping trolley you’d find in a British canal or maybe simply the victim of gang warfare between the humans and cormorants, the latter group of which was casually flaunting their victory as we strolled through.

The weather conditions were perfect for a 10-minute morning walk around the Venice Canals. Its appeal as a tourist destination if we were staying in Los Angeles seemed a little limited but it made for some pleasing views.

Santa Monica Pier

Our bus then took us along the coastline and deposited us at the place where we would have free time to explore. Our guide told us what time to be back and pointed out the two main attractions of the area: a pedestrianised shopping area running parallel to the beach a few roads back or Santa Monica Pier. I know we all have different priorities in life but for us this Los Angeles debark tour was a chance to see some of the sights of the city ahead of our flight back to the UK so it was to the pier we headed first. Besides, we are quite fond of a pier, in case you didn’t know.

Santa Monica Pier is really two piers with the narrower one being the longest and oldest, opening in 1909, and the shorter, wider one with the funfair on it opening seven years later. Being sited in the heart of movie-making in America it’s unsurprising to learn that the pier has featured in a huge range of films and TV shows, with the Forrest Gump-inspired restaurant chain of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company taking advantage of its connection to the location and having a venue there. That and the marker to signify the western end of Route 66 made for a lot of photo opportunities for other tourists to the spot during our visit.

The funfair is called Pacific Park and is mostly notable for its ferris wheel which is solar-powered. We don’t do amusement rides half as much as we should typically because we only tend to visit these sorts of places when I’m laden with camera equipment and I have a natural aversion to leaving it in the hands of the thieving carnies who run amusement parks in my mind while we’re off on a roller coaster ride. That is a terrible slur against carnies but luckily for me no carnies can read or use the internet so they’ll never learn of it.

We headed down to the farthest end of the pier for the views out to sea and back towards land because that’s what piers are for. If you’re after the toilet and don’t have time to strip down and pretend you’re wading in the sea while you release your bodily fluids into it then you’ll be pleased to know that there are public conveniences on the pier here.

Heading back along the pier we were intrigued by a crowd gathering so joined them for a look. This turned out to be one of those street troupes performing acrobatics then dragging members of the public in to keep them from leaving before they’d been fleeced of money. We stayed on the fringes of the entertained audience where we could ensure no participation and keep an eye out for anything untowards that may be taking place (there wasn’t; 99% of those warnings you receive about people working crowds when they’re distracted are just garbage).

That marked the end of our short time on Santa Monica Pier so we left it and headed inland a few blocks in order to see what we could find in the Third Street Promenade.

Third Street Promenade

The very first part of Third Street Promenade we walked through was a circular mall that, because there were very few people around and because it was fairly enclosed, I didn’t take any photos within. I wished I had taken pictures and paid a little more attention to the space because I hadn’t realised that this was Santa Monica Place, originally one of Frank Gehry‘s designs although subsequently renovated by another architectural firm.

The Third Street Promenade dates back to the 1960s when three blocks were pedestrianised and named the Santa Monica Mall. The present day incarnation with its new name follows modernisation and redevelopment in the late 1980s. There were some fabulous-looking styles of building along its length with some art deco designs standing out.

The most obvious attraction for the eyes was a public art piece titled The Dinosaurs Of Santa Monica. Added as part of the late 80s redesign of the area, this artwork consists of topiary-covered, stainless steel and copper fountains in the shapes of dinosaurs and we could see that they were a hit with young children as we walked the promenade. And me. Who doesn’t like dinosaurs vomiting out water?

We didn’t see any shops along the Third Street Promenade interesting enough to entice us inside but I dare say that there was plenty there for certain types of shoppers and if we’d had more time then we might have forced some browsing time upon ourselves. We reached the end of the promenade and the marker pole indicating we were on Wilshere Boulevard, having passed some more public art pieces along the way, so we decided to loop back towards Santa Monica Beach in order to return to our meeting point for the bus.

Palisades Park

Along the sandstone clifftop overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and Pacific Ocean, between Santa Monica Pier and Wilshere Boulevard (and many more blocks beyond that) lies Palisades Park. It was through this area that we slowly wound our way back. The very first thing to photograph was a statue of the person from whom Santa Monica gained its name. My Catholic upbringing and education by monks hadn’t furnished me with any background information on Saint Monica at all but the internet tells me she was also known as Monica of Hippo and I think that gives me everything I need.

In addition to the lovely views out to sea there was an abundance of flora and fauna although I couldn’t possibly tell you what most of them were. Palm trees and squirrels is about as good as you’re going to get from me.

A memorial to veterans of the army, navy, marines, air force, and coast guard was simple but highly effective.

And so we finally found some shade under a tree near where other passengers on our debark tour were gathering and waited for our bus to return. Joggers jogged past, homeless people slept on the grass, helicopters scanned the waters off the beach in search of kaiju.

Obviously, we only saw a small part of Los Angeles and a pretty affluent part at that, and for a short amount of time too, but we’d not expected to like what we saw as much as we did. Our experiences of big cities in America to this point has been that they are okay to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there, but Los Angeles felt far more welcoming and far more appealing.

Departure

With everyone back on board and nobody late – cruise ships might wait for you but airplanes certainly won’t so that probably accounts for that – we were then driven to Los Angeles International Airport. The first terminal at which the bus pulled up at was the one for us and, it turned out, only us. We were apparently the only people flying with Virgin. We grabbed our cases and headed inside with that tiny little grip inside the stomach as we waited to see what hell would await us in our attempt to leave the country.

So how was getting through check-in and security at Los Angeles airport?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to pick up your Sarcasm-O-Meter from where you’ve dropped it in shock earlier just to scan this paragraph but, really, again, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Check-in people were smiling, happy, wonderfully efficient. Security people were joking, having a laugh and a chat with everyone. And despite the large amount of people trying to get through what was a rather cramped pre-security area it was all organised as well as possible, processed incredibly quickly, and we came through into the duty-free and restaurants area with grins on our faces. A chalk-and-cheese comparison with our experiences in Washington D.C. and New York.

With a while until our flight we decided to grab something to eat before we finally headed home and an establishment called Barney’s Beanery seemed to fit our tastes best. It’s an airport restaurant so, yes, the prices aren’t great, but we couldn’t fault the quality, loved the fact that they had locally-brewed ales available, and our waitress Uneeda was absolutely fabulous. On top of all that, as we were shown to our table we discovered we were sitting next to Patricia, a solo traveller with whom we’d been on excursions with aboard Star Princess and with whom we’d shared many drinks with in bars on the ship during the cruise. She was overjoyed to see us too and it was a lovely finish to our time in America and our trip as a whole.

We try to get debark tours if we can when we take cruises as it extends the holiday just that little bit more and if it’s a place we’ve not visited before then it makes sense to get a feel for the location for future planning. This Venice Canals and Santa Monica disembarkation excursion did a fantastic job of giving us a final, positive memory of both the trip as a whole and of Los Angeles specifically. We saw some attractive areas and there was plenty of time for shopping if that’s the sort of thing that appeals to you as a traveller.

This concludes the cruise travelogues for our Star Princess cruise from Chile to Los Angeles in March 2019.