Port of San Diego Cruise Ship Terminal

San Diego’s cruise ships tie up on the downtown waterfront, at the cruise ship terminal on B Street Pier and the Port Pavilion on Broadway Pier, and a few minutes’ walk north along the Embarcadero, the city’s bayfront promenade, the Maritime Museum keeps a fleet of historic ships open to board, from an 1898 steam ferry to a Navy submarine.

B Street Pier and Broadway Pier on the Embarcadero

The Port of San Diego’s main cruise ship terminal stands on B Street Pier, at 1140 North Harbor Drive, and a second, the Port Pavilion, on Broadway Pier a few minutes’ walk south. Holland America, which uses San Diego as a home port, Disney and Celebrity mostly sail from B Street; smaller and visiting ships often use Broadway Pier. Neither terminal stores bags. Harbor Drive and the Embarcadero promenade run along the water outside, and the main San Diego guide follows them south to the aircraft carrier Midway and the 1863 Star of India; Little Italy is a few blocks inland.

The steam ferry Berkeley and the submarine Dolphin at the Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum of San Diego is moored at 1492 North Harbor Drive, a few minutes’ walk north of B Street Pier, and its fleet goes well beyond the Star of India. The steam ferry Berkeley, built in 1898, crossed San Francisco Bay for 60 years, and now holds the museum’s galleries under her long white upper deck. Alongside her lies the Dolphin, a diesel-electric Navy research submarine commissioned in 1968 that made the deepest dive on record for a submarine, more than 3,000 feet, and has been open to walk through since 2009.

Further along are the HMS Surprise, a replica eighteenth-century Royal Navy frigate that played the Surprise in the 2003 film Master and Commander, and the San Salvador, a full-size recreation of the ship Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into San Diego Bay in 1542. The museum opens daily from 10am to 5pm, with last entry at 4pm, and a Maritime Museum ticket is about $24 for an adult, covering every ship.

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument

Cabrillo National Monument covers the southern tip of Point Loma, the peninsula that shelters San Diego Bay, about 25 minutes by taxi from the cruise terminal, and marks where Cabrillo’s expedition, the first European one to reach the west coast of what is now the United States, came ashore in 1542. On its ridge, the Old Point Loma Lighthouse was first lit in 1855, and its light went out for good in 1891: at 462 feet above the sea, it was too often lost in fog and low cloud, and a new light was built lower down. Inside, the keepers’ rooms are furnished as they were.

From the lookout near the visitor center, the view runs across the entrance to the bay, past the naval air station on North Island and Coronado to the downtown towers, and on clear days south toward Mexico. The monument opens daily from 9am to 5pm; entry is $20 for a car, or $10 a person on foot, and children 15 and under go free.

Luggage storage near the San Diego cruise terminal

Neither B Street Pier nor Broadway Pier has a left-luggage office, so bags come off the ship and out onto Harbor Drive with their owners. Luggage storage points operate downtown, around Santa Fe Depot, the train station five minutes inland from Broadway Pier, and in the Little Italy streets just north, which leaves the morning free for the museum ships or a taxi out to Point Loma.

San Diego’s airport is 10 minutes from B Street Pier

San Diego International Airport (SAN) is about 2.5 miles up Harbor Drive from the cruise terminal, roughly 10 minutes by taxi or rideshare, at around $18 to $22 by taxi. The city bus from outside baggage claim runs to Santa Fe Depot, five minutes’ walk from Broadway Pier. From Cabrillo National Monument, allow about 25 minutes by road to the airport, plus the time to check in and clear security.