Port of San Diego Cruise Ship Terminal — Attraction in San Diego

Compared to Long Beach Cruise terminal, this place sucked really bad. You can only drop off your luggage or people, there is no parking here. Since this place is so small, you've got pour police yelling at you to move faster. The port police won't even give you 30 seconds 2 stop and say goodbye. You're stuck having to find parking for 15 to $25 a day then have to take a long shuttle ride back to your car. We paid $20 a day and it was not even covered parking. Came back to a dirty car. When you are getting off the cruise ship, there are no signs telling you where you need to pick up your transportation. You basically have to sit in one place and observe where the buses and vans quickly stopped pick up passengers and leave before the pork police officer loses his mind yelling at the drivers that they need to move. There is no set place of where they stopped to pick you up. It's wherever there is an opening. So what ends up happening is that everyone rushes once they see the van or bus stop, and people start pushing. I had a guy try to pick a fight with me because he thought there was a line when in reality you don't know if people ARE waiting at the curb for Uber, for a hotel van, the San Diego Park buses or something else. At the Long Beach Cruise terminal, there's a covered parking structure and you are right next to where you board the ship. I will never board a cruise at this terminal again. I would rather pay $100 more on a cruise price, used to Long Beach Cruise terminal, and save myself $100 on the parking. Not only that, but the time it takes to wait for your bus which was 20 minutes from the time we called, to request the bus, the ride to the parking lot, we wasted about an hour each way. If you don't mind wasting 2 hours on a bus and an extra $100 in parking fees, by all means use...

By far the WORST cruise port! Compared to Long Beach, Los Angeles and others on the east coast, San Diego is absolutely clueless, incompetent, and inefficient.

Clueless - meaning we’re all waiting outside in the heat to board at the scheduled boarding time and none of the workers no why or when we’re supposed to move. Workers ask each other and they have no idea what’s going on.

Incompetent - as they’re all just saying we’re doing what we’re told and are afraid to ask whoever is in charge for an update. Elderly, kids, pregnant women are all standing outside in the heat waiting to board past their scheduled time. No other cruise port is like this.

Inefficient - San Diego is the most inefficient port I’ve ever been to, people that drop off bags cut the line of others standing in the heat with their carryons because the bag drop off is closer to the entry of the building. There is plenty of space to wait indoors thru the multiple checkpoints. Why are there multiple checkpoints? Drop off your bags Get a blue ticket Wait outside in line in the heat Walk in the empty building and give your blue ticket (would have been nice to have waited inside vs in the heat Stand in line to have someone check your QR code Stand in line to go thru security check point Walk thru empty building with empty seats where we could have been waiting Stand in line for passport check Wait to board well past scheduled boarding group time (we’re group one)

Fire and replace management with people that know how to run things, i.e. Long Beach and Los Angeles ports know what...

The most frustrating and poorly managed terminal in the world. I go on dozens of cruises a year from terminals all over the globe and the San Diego Port Authority consistently provides the most chaotic and miserable experience. Traffic is a nightmare, the terminal building is dingy, and the police are either abusive or clueless. If there are two ships docked, good luck boarding in under two hours. The most insulting part is that it’s been this way for decades and while the port fees continue to increase, there have been zero improvements to the facilities. The only redeeming quality is the friendly porters. If you want to start your cruise off with a good atmosphere, pick an itinerary that sails out of a different city.

UPDATE: They had a chance to redeem themselves when we arrived back today from a wonderful cruise. There were hundreds of people stuck waiting in the Uber queue because they were only letting taxis into the gate. People were so stressed a fistfight broke out and the police were on their phones hiding in the shade. We gave up and walked two blocks away to find our Uber driver, who unfortunately has to go through this several times a week. Thankfully we made it to our flight on time, and after this experience going through TSA felt like checking into the...