What do a cruise ship, a Uhaul, Costco pizza, and Kindergarten Cop have in common?
My trip to Astoria, Oregon!
I took my first cruise on the Princess Majestic, and one of our port stops was in Astoria, Oregon. Being an east-coaster, coastal Oregon was never really on my radar, but I absolutely fell in love with the striking scenery and rainforest trails. I seek out natural places and experiences over cityscapes and this hit a lot of interesting elements from my list. I thrive on affordable travel, so what did it all cost me? Price info at the end!
Prior to my cruise, the only info I could find about our Astoria stop on my Princess Alaskan cruise was that it was a small town with the house from The Goonies. That didn't really excite me.
I was clicking around on Google Maps and Trip Advisor to see what else there was to do, and saw photos from Cannon Beach, which was 30-40 minutes away from Astoria, where the Majestic would be docked.
Getting Around
Checking out the price of rental cars gave me a hard swallow. Prices were $100+ USD for 8 hours - that's the cruise-ship-day-tax in action! I live in a popular cruise port stop so I know it well. I went back and forth on booking a car, as I wasn't sure if it would be worth it for me travelling solo to pay almost $200 CAD for one day just to see some rocks in the ocean. The Pacific Northwest is also known for rainy and miserable days - not great for expansive views and cheery beach days. I booked a rental car on costcotravel.ca with the intention that as the date approached I could check the weather and decide if it was worth my money or not. Well. I THOUGHT I booked a rental car. The night before arriving in Astoria, as we were leaving port in Victoria, British Columbia (and where I would last have cell service) I searched through my account and emails and concluded I certainly had not booked a rental car. No cars were available to be booked -no surprise considering 3,000 extra people were flooding into a town with 1 rental car location. So I went to my plan ....U? Renting an alternative vehicle.
Yes. A moving van. In this case, a Uhaul. Adventures taken in named vehicles are 97% less likely to be boring, so for our short time together, I called her Boxie.
If you ever stuck somewhere and desperately need a vehicle when rentals are sold out, there are a few options you can try.
A hardware store.
This is usually Home Deport, but other brands may have some options! This comes in the form of a truck or van rental. These are usually rented in shorter periods, like 90 minutes, but often provide pretty good valuein a pinch
.
A private car rental.
Turo is like Airbnb but for cars. You rent a private car from a local. These can vary in quality, just like airbnb type rentals, but are sometimes a very affordable option. In this case, Astoria was a small town with no local cars on Turo.
A moving truck company.
Sure, these aren't meant to be vehicles for huge road trips, but if you need to do a couple hours of driving to get around, these can be a great option. Some places even have pickup truck or cube van sizes that are even more affordable to rent. In Astoria I lucked out- there was a Uhaul rental spot a mere 15 minute walk from where our ship docked, so I didn't have to go far to meet up my partner, Boxie. I spell out the costs of this irental at the end of this blog.
All three of these options likely aren't covered by your credit card rental car insurance as they are treated differently than a normal vehicle rental. Make sure you know all your terms and conditions or your card and your rental before you decline or buy the rental company's insurance options.
Cannon Beach
Boxie and I's first stop was Cannon Beach. I was referring to the rocks as Cannon Beach, but the town and beach are Cannon Beach. The iconic rock was in a sea stack called Haystack Rock. Parking in Cannon Beach wasn't a problem, at least in shoulder season when I visited (late September). There was lots of on street and free parking, but they had designated RV parking signs as soon as you entered the town and I followed those signs to where I could post up Boxie with the other RVs as I travelled the rest of the way to the beach on foot. They were a little surprised at her looks but by the time I came back they were all sharing tales of roads and adventures.
The town was a cute little town with tons of shops, small cottages, and hotels but the beach was the absolute draw for me. I wasn't alone on the beach, but on a day that fluctuated from rainy to sunshine to fog in 15 minutes, the beach had 50 other people on it, spread out over about 1km of beach I walked.
You could absolutely spend an entire day grabbing a meal and hanging on the beach and the little shops, but since I had a ticking clock of an all-on-board time in about 6 hours, I had to head to my next stop - Ecola State Park. Before I drove the 10 minutes to the trailhead, I had a quick lunch in Boxie of food I had liberated from the buffet on the ship that morning - a tuna sandwich, a carrot muffin, and stashed the cereal in my bag for a mid-hike sugar and food dye snack later.
Ecola State Park
Ecola State Park is 3 miles north of Cannon Beach which is almost completely uphill. I initially thought about renting a bike to get here, but thank goodness I did NOT. The park has many miles of hilly natural coast and cliff line and 8 trails to hike. I'm not sure what started the trend, but the park has also been a backdrop to quite a few movie scenes from: The Goonies Kindergarten Cop
Twilight If you are a film buff, the info from the Oregon Film Trail will be useful in planning your visit. A saw a few of these signs and they definitely added a dimension to the locations. I wanted to do a hike, but hadn't really chose which one beforehand. The information centre in Cannon Beach was helpful and had a 1 page handout of the trail options for this an other parks nearby. I stopped at the Ecola Point parking lot as that was the only parking lot that indicated a pay station on my map to pay my park fee ($5 per vehicle) but there as also was one at my final parking point at the Indian Beach day use area.
I took the Clatsop Loop Trail up Bald Mountain (797 ft elevation) to check out the view of Tillamook Lighthouse in the distance. Part of the appeal of this trail was it as a loop instead of an out-and-back trail. However, one half of the loop (the side I chose to walk UP) is a wide old road. It's is much more of a wide groomed dirt trail than it was hiking trail, but that did reserve the nice trail for my way down the mountain as my reward.
Admittedly, hiking straight up a mountain on what seemed to be an old logging trail during a rain storm with a ticking clock of when I had to leave to get back to the ship on time wasn't exactly a soul-fulling dream experience, but on the way down the rain started to ease and I got to see some gorgeous views and stunning rainforest growth through the fog and mist.
I think the ultimate test of if something was worth doing for others would be if I would do it all over again knowing what I know now, and in the conditions I did them in. With this trail it was a YES! It wasn't a sun-shiny day but the moodyness of the mist and fog made the quiet trail hike extremely memorable. I left thinking that the wet weather really gave me a perspective that I didn't expect, but still loved. I had a 45 minute drive back to the ship and with suppertime approaching, I went for a cheap meal option to hold me over until I could fuel off and drop off Boxie, walk back to the ship, board, change into dry clothes and get up to dinner. I stopped at a secret local eatery for a cheap meal - Costco Warehouse. As a Canadian, the option for a churro the size of my arm for $1.49 to accompany my normal pizza slice was exciting, but wow did it suck. 2/10. The pizza with cheese thicker than a loonie is always A+
After my quick meal I hopped back in Boxie, dropped her off, and walked back to the ship. Farewell, coastal Oregon, you were a moody, misty, and memorable day! What Did It Cost? $ 191.63 CAD Uhaul - $ 140.08 A Uhaul can be much cheaper than a rental car, or sadly much more expnesive- the kicker is the fact that they charge you $0.98-0.99 USD per mile on top of your rental price. I knew this cost when I went on the site to book the uhaul and was okay with it. I would normally not splurge so much *snort laugh - SPLURGE on a uhaul* but I knew I would likely never seek out this area again and treated it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to see something really neat. The rental was 19.99 and insurance another $20, but I drove over 50 miles to get to and from Cannon Beach so the price was slightly above what a rental car was going to be ($130) with unlimited miles. If you wanted it just to get around town, you would save a lot. Gas - $ 38.78 Gas in Oregon is quite expensive compared to most of the southern states I have been spending more time in, but still was cheaper than Canada, and surprisingly cheap for such a large vehicle not built for efficiency. Park Pass - $ 6.77 The state park had a day-fee of $5 for vehicle. This would have been the same if there was 8 in the car or 1, so another one of those solo traveller taxes that is kind of a bummer, but $5 is still a very fair rate. Gourmet Dinner $ 6.00
With exchange my super cheap dinner was more than my go-to at Canadian Mcdonalds. I had planned to go to a local fish and chip shop that I had spotted on google maps, but when I ran the numbers of going out of my way and paying $0.99 for each and every mile, I stuck with the option that was cheap and directly on my route back to the ship instead of $13 more for gas and $15 for fish and chips.
THANKS FOR READING! Stay tuned for more cruise ship stops from my Princess Majestic Alaskan Cruise Sept 2023.
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