Catalina Island, California Port Reviews

This was a tender port. We took the bus and went to the botanical gardens. It was interesting.

Visited: Nov 25, 2017

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Golf Cart self guided tour was so much fun!

Visited: May 30, 2022

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Loved this little town! Fun riding golf cart first 2 hours and taking in all of the beautiful views. We then ate lunch at The Lobster Trap and it was delicious, drinks were great too. We enjoyed to beach club for a few hours, we rented a cabana and the staff came by often checking to see if we needed anything. Staff a came by offering nice cold rags, grapes, and even popsicles! We even had time to fit in a bit of shopping, I found a wonderful piece of art in a store called Twos Company of Avalon.

Had been a long time since we were there. We ate lunch in town. I would recommend eating on the ship and then going ashore. Food is very high for so so quality. Typical tourist town. Best thing to do is rent a golf cart for a couple of hours and drive around the town. You can see most everything. But there are only 2 rental places on island they do run out. So just get in line. 1 of the places takes reservations.

We rented golf carts. It was easy and the long line was quick.

No complaints with Catalina. Avalon is a wonderful little town. We didn't do any specific excursions but there were plenty to choose from. The shuttle boats were efficient and helped to stagger the number of people coming and going at any given time.

Unless you are renting a cart or doing an excursion, it takes about 20 minutes to wander the town, a little longer if you stop to eat.

Loved the walk and the view and the shops...it was perfect.

No excursion. Walked around the quaint town of Avalon.

The ship to shore transportation was clumsily accomplished. The tenders (4 of them) were at the mercy of ship personnel. You don't make those boarding a tender wait for more passengers if another tender is sitting in open water waiting to dock - dumb. Those ship personnel in charge of letting the tenders leave was an idiot. We sat in open water for 10 minutes so we could get to the ship. There were two tenders loading and 2 waiting. Not very good coordination. Several cruisers got sick bobbing up and down and side to side on the tenders. That needed lots of training and work. I have been on six different cruise lines and never experienced such a cockup of coordination. First and possibly last cruise with Carnival. This was NOT acceptable.