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.