San Francisco Explorations

The last three days of the trip were spent in San Francisco. We have been there a few times before, but Norm and Barb have only been there for one day with us and the boys around 2005 during a Las Vegas long weekend - but that's another story.

We left the ship and caught two taxis to the hotel. The taxis in southern California are for the most part rather small, even the SUVs, since energy conservation and pollution control are obviously very important to all residents. We even noticed that there is preferred parking in some places for hybrid or electric vehicles! So we couldn't fit 4 people and 4 suitcases into any one of the taxis or vans we saw. Our routes were rather roundabout due to construction all over the place, even in front of the hotel, but we managed to get there.

After check-in, a quick stop at the concierge desk armed us with city maps and information on where we could buy passes for the municipal transit system. And then we were off! The 'F' Streetcar Line is really amazing. It is the main tourist line, along with the cable car system. The streetcars run along the Embarcadero from Fisherman's Wharf, then goes up Market Street to Union Square. The other neat thing about the line is that they have bought streetcars from all over the world to use - even from the TTC! We saw one of the old 'Red Rocket' cars, but never had an opportunity to ride on one.

We took the streetcar to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf, checked out the Pier and headed over to the wharf to find something for lunch. We ended up at Alioto's, one of the oldest restaurants in the area, having been on the wharf since 1926.

 

The view from Alioto's at Fisherman's Wharf

 

 

 

The Hyde Street turnaround. Just a block away from
Ghirardelli Square

 

 

And after lunch we decided to walk around to the cable car track to see if we could get aboard the Hyde Street car to Union Square. And, after a half hour or so waiting, we finally boarded and took the car all the way to the end. It was quite a trip, and a lot of fun. And since our hotel was down at the end of Market Street, we decided to walk back...Of course, on the way we passed one of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Shops and had to go in for 'dessert'.

 

Friday evening was rather low-key, and then we discovered that our planned trip to Alcatraz was a bust because of the US Federal Government shutdown. We had forgotten that the island is actually a federal park, and was closed to visitors. Once we determined that the tour company would credit back our credit card for the tickets, we decided to do a harbour tour instead and still see some of the prison. Here are some of the photos from that tour:

The sea lion rafts at Pier 39. Always a big hit with the tourists

 

 The fireboat in the harbour didn't have any other reason to
be spouting but it accompanied us all the way out to the bridge.
That's Sausalito in the background.

The Golden Gate Bridge and the south side building. The north
side doesn't have that extra little span and has a much smaller building.

Some fishing boats off the cliffs near the north side
of the bridge.

Alcatraz Island, the prison of last resort. They say that even
the bodies of dead prisoners were taken off the island
in chains.

 

Do you think this warning was clear enough?

The Ferry Building from the water side. Our hotel is the
one in the bottom right corner with the tiered balconies.

The Atrium of the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero.

 

Our view of the old span of the Oakland Bay Bridge at night.
The lights move constantly; it is the largest light sculpture
in the world.

Saturday evening we went to see the long-running musical 'Beach Blanket Babylon'. This is a spoof of current celebrities, mainly politicians and singers, and is quite funny and current. Especially the wig parts of the outfits, all highly exaggerated. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos but you can see more about it if you Google the name.

Sunday, we (Larry and Monica) went back to Neptune's Palace for our traditional Dungeness Crab lunch. Need we say much more?

 

And for dinner, we met up to finally get to the oyster bar at the Ferry Building and then headed for the BART rapid transit system to get out to the O.co Stadium in Oakland for the NFL game between the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers. It was certainly different, but not as manic as we had been led to believe. Maybe that was because the game wasn't being televised, or maybe because it was originally a 1:00 game that got moved to 8:30. We found out why when they showed a time-lapse video of the conversion from a baseball stadium to a football stadium, that must take about 14 hours to complete - and you have to remember that the Oakland Athletics are in the playoffs this year and played on Saturday evening.

 

 

All in all, a very interesting experience! And having returned to the hotel just before midnight, we had to be prepared for a 9:15 pickup for the airport.

The last photo of the trip, taken from the plane:

The Oakland Bay Bridge in the foreground, Golden Gate
in the back, and the City by the Bay waiting for
our return.

 

It was a great trip; we saw much more of California that we had ever done before, and discovered that it is a wonderful place to visit for the scenery, the food, the wine and the very friendly people. Thanks to everyone we met along the way for being so welcoming, and thanks to you for following along. Hope you enjoyed!

 

 

California Coastal Cruise - San Diego, Long Beach and Ensenada

Monday dawned much the same as usual - bright blue cloudless sky and comfortable temperatures, as we set off by taxi to the San Diego Zoo. There were quite a number of ship's tours, some of which even just going to the zoo, but as we found out later, they added quite a premium for the 'city tour' part of the drive, and probably got there when the zoo was starting to get busy. Even adding the cab fare to the zoo and back to downtown, it wasn't nearly the same cost.

Here are a few photos from this visit:

A Red Panda just hangin' in the afternoon

The newest panda, 14 months old. He had been sleeping high
in a tree but came down to play with Mom

One of the Koalas in the Australasian area

Penelope the baby giraffe with mom in the background

One of the cheetahs at the drinking fountain

Afterward, we headed to downtown San Diego to look around. The Gaslamp District is one of the more historical, and we only managed to see a little of it. We did, however, stop for lunch at what someone from out of town (like us) might call 'California organic' cuisine. The meals, however, were a good size and quite delicious, even Barb's grilled cheese sandwich!

Monica's salad of Baby Kale, Quinoa, Feta Cheese and White Peach.
May not sound so great to some of you but it sure was tasty - and huge!

 

Larry, of course, couldn't resist the burger

A little more R&R time on the ship was due, so we relaxed for a while, listening and watching the military jets flying around the North Island Naval Air Station on Coronado Island. The sailaway from San Diego is also very pretty:

Tuesday was our day in Long Beach, in south Los Angeles. Never having spent much time here before, and not getting much information from our tour book, we had no idea what to expect. Most of the ship's tours went into downtown LA, doing the things we had already done while in Santa Monica, so there was no point to doing them again. So we decided to take the local transit shuttle into town and see what was there. And we found that, really, there's not that much. Long Beach is a port area, along with San Pedro which is just around the bay a little ways, and otherwise a residential area for Los Angeles. The biggest draw is the Queen Mary, which is now a floating hotel and event venue. We happened to be docked just behind her so we got a pretty good view, although we decided not to tour the ship this time.

 We had lunch at Tequila Jack's at one of the harbourside areas.
Who can resist a 20 oz. Margarita? Not these two!

 The view of the marina and the shops nearby

 We did say Mexican, right? Well, at least it was a
salad, for the size of it!

 The Queen Mary, above by day and below, lit up in the evening

We were in Long Beach until 10:00 Tuesday night, which was not announced by the Captain until about 3:00 in the afternoon. We were originally scheduled until 6:00, so we hadn't planned anything that might be a longer excursion, like maybe a ferry trip over to Catalina Island to see what was there. This must have been a last-minute decision, because the ship's tours didn't offer anything like that either. So we hung around the ship for the evening, since there was no easy way to go anywhere other than to the Queen Mary.

We arrived in Ensenada right on schedule Wednesday morning - how could it be anything else when the whole distance between ports was only about 130 miles? Again, there weren't very many interesting tours offered by the ship, and we had heard reports that there wasn't really much to see or do in Ensenada. So we took the ship's shuttle bus into town. On the way, the 'escort' told us all about a tour to the famous Blowhole - a natural geyser formation in the rocks on a small beach about an hour outside of town. Visit the blowhole and an outdoor market to buy souvenirs and get some fresh cooked seafood for lunch. Sounded OK but the timing she described didn't seem to work out - and Monica had an afternoon spa appointment that she might not get to on time. So we had to opt out. Norm and Barb had left the ship a little earlier than we did, and did go to the Blowhole, etc. even though they originally weren't expecting to stay on land for very long at all. They apparently did have a really good time out there, and some freshly barbecued (yes!) oysters with cheese. Barb even has a photo of the guy melting the cheese on top with a hair blow dryer! Maybe she'll give me a copy to include here. Until then, here are a couple of pictures around town.

We didn't go far, but we did find a shop that sold some really nice plates, and found one to add to the collection in our kitchen.

So that was the end of our port stops. It was a nice cruise and a way for Americans to see some of their own west coast. Did we mention that the ship was, as usual, about 80% American and 20% everywhere else, and most of the 80% of the Americans were from California? Many lines are taking to having more cruises start and end in the US so Americans don't have to travel out of the country to take cruises, and this is called homeporting. So does this cruise qualify as 'extreme homeporting'?

The last sea day of the cruise was typical of our previous experiences - the Pacific definitely didn't live up to its name. Not that it was really rough, but much rougher than any other time. And for some reason, Grand Princess is pretty creaky and noisy in 20 foot waves, especially overnight. We wonder how many of the newbies who were so happy in the smooth seas were having second thoughts by the end of Thursday. And the roughness lasted almost until we passed back into San Francisco Bay at 5:30 on Friday morning.

We disembarked the ship around 9:30 in the morning, ready for the final part of our adventure - exploring San Francisco.

California Coastal Cruise on Grand Princess - Santa Barbara

Finally getting a chance to update the blog now that we're home. Actual dates for the cruise were Friday Sept. 27 to Friday Oct. 4...

After nine days of living out of our suitcases, we packed up and left Napa to drive to San Francisco and board Grand Princess.

From the Oakland Bay Bridge our first glimpse of
Grand Princess and downtown San Francisco

We had dropped our bags with the porters at the Cruise Ship Terminal, then Larry and Barb went to drop the van off at the rental agency. Norm and Monica got a little hot and tired of waiting in the sun so they set off to find someplace for lunch. Instead of walking toward Pier 39, they went the other way down the Embarcadero to the Pier 23 Cafe. This little place has been around for a long time and along with being noted in the local 'Where to Go/Eat/Shop' guides, it has also been visited by Guy Fieri of Food TV's 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' show. Once Barb and Larry got there we had a delicious lunch on the patio overlooking the bay.

Pier 23 Cafe was just the next pier down from the big America's Cup Plaza, where the spectators, boats, and shops were located. In the three days that we were in Napa, they'd run the last race, done the celebrating, dismantled (we assume) the boats and sent them off to their next destinations. The only thing left was the shop, where most of the merchandise was at fire sale prices. If we'd known anybody who was a huge sailing fan (and if we missed someone, please accept our apologies), we would have stopped in and bought a t-shirt or something. We had heard that the spectator building is supposed to become the new cruise ship terminal. It certainly would be nice, since the current one really isn't set up for the purpose and there are more and more cruises every year using San Francisco as an embarkation port.

After lunch, when we figured the worst of the lines would be over, we wandered back to Pier 35 to check in. In July our British Isles cruise was on Caribbean Princess, one of her sister ships in terms of size and design, with a few small differences, so it didn't take much time to familiarize ourselves with the ship. Norm and Barb had also cruised on her in January of this year so we didn't have to spend any time at all in finding our way around. The only problem we had was that we had already been noticing that a large proportion of the passengers was in the over-65 category, and of those there were quite a few walkers, scooters and canes. So we knew we were in for a week of shuffling along behind walkers and dodging out of the way of canes.

The big event of the day was going to be the sailout under the Golden Gate Bridge, so we made sure we were at the aft pool as we left San Francisco behind.

The view from our balcony

No, the ship didn't leave without us! This is Star Princess
who was docked on the other side of the pier, on her
way out

The Skyline including the Coit Tower on the hill in the middle,the TransAmerica Pyramid
on the right, and Pier 39 in the front. The famous sea lions are on the flat rafts
just behind the wooden breakwater of the marina. If you zoom in on the picture you might see a few!

Larry, Barb and Norm just as we sailed under
the Golden Gate Bridge

Our first port stop on Sunday was Santa Barbara, where we had stopped for lunch on the rainy Saturday of the week before. This time we had booked a trolley tour of the city to see what was there outside of a block or so from the highway. It is a beautiful city, more residential than big business. There are no high buildings in town, mainly because of a law that was passed when a wealthy resident left some land for a seaside park. The land was already planted with some palm trees, and when she donated it, she stipulated that no buildings in town could be higher than those trees so that the residents would always be guaranteed a view of the ocean.

 

 

Part of the City Hall. The building and grounds are so
beautiful that it is a very popular venue for wedding photos
and other celebrations.

 

The Mission Santa Barbara is probably the oldest building in town. As you know from your history, California was once a Spanish holding that was sold to the United States. Spanish missionaries were sent along the coast to establish settlements, and as a result there are numerous missions all along the coast, and the cities have names like San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. They say that the missionaries decided to establish new missions only a day's walk apart from each other as they proceeded northward. This road is now known as 'El Camino Real', and has also become Highway 101, which we drove along from Malibu to Monterey (and through San Luis Obispo - see the pattern here?) The route is easily identified by posts along the side of the road with bells hanging from them, whether or not it is part of the highway.

One of the main attractions of the waterfront is Stearns Wharf. This wharf has also been around for quite a long time and has shops and restaurants, although not as many as the Monterey Wharf or Pier 39 in San Francisco. Thinking about it, we could call this tour the 'Piers of the California Coast', since we visited 4 of the most well-known in the south over the course of our trip.

 

 

One of the locals. And that's a piece of
seaweed beside him, NOT pelican poop!

 

After our trolley tour, we wandered around a little and found a nice Mexican style restaurant for lunch. Of course it was literally around the corner from the parking lot where we had left the car during our drive.

The outside patio at the Roadhouse restaurant

Norm said he wanted oysters. Take a look at
the size of this one!!

 Another brief walk around town and we were headed back to the ship for the evening and our dinner at Crown Grill. This is the onboard steakhouse, which is one of the best dining options on the ship. The only problem is that the portions are always too big! The smallest steak is a 7 oz. filet mignon - even the pork chop is a double-cut about 12 oz. - so if you're not really, really hungry it can be difficult to find something that won't generate too much left on your plate. Not only is the Grill known for its meats, it has a pretty interesting dessert selection, including one for the chocolate lover in you:

Chocolate ice cream AND chocolate pudding, anyone?

 A visit to the theatre for the production show, and we were off to bed. Our next stop was San Diego where we had already planned our day including a visit to the world-famous zoo.