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.

 

 

Our Private Wine Tasting Tour of Napa

Hi! We're finally back online, after a week of extremely frustrating attempts to post the blog. So this means that the dates on these entries are really, really out of whack. This blog should be dated September 26...

This morning we were picked up by Frank, our driver/guide, in his Cadillac Escalade. We had heard from various people that arranging a private wine tasting tour was the best way to see and taste our way around the wine country. Barb's cousin had done just that last year and recommended this company to us. Barb made arrangements for the car; our driver made the arrangements for the wineries.

Many of the older wineries in the Napa Valley will allow you to just drop in and purchase a tasting 'flight', usually four or five wines, two whites and two or three reds. With the number of wineries increasing almost exponentially in the past decade or so, the county government passed a law a few years ago that any new winery applying for a licence to hold tastings had to make them 'by appointment only', ostensibly to get some measure of control over the numbers of visitors drinking their way around the area. So now it is easier if you have an idea of where you want to go beforehand so you can call and arrange a time for your tasting. Many of the high end wineries, although some have been around for a long time, also insist on pre-arranging your visit. We had given Frank a short list of wineries for basing a route plan; of these, he made arrangements at Cakebread Cellars. The others we visited didn't require reservations.

 

We drove around a little, and visited one winery that comes with quite a history along with a very well-known ownership. The photo below is of the 'chateau' of the Inglenook Winery.

Anyone who has been around wines for a long time will wonder if we've already had too much to drink in saying that Inglenook is good wine. Well, we have to agree that in the 1960s and 1970s Inglenook was one of the biggest names in $5 plonk, but that's because the company that the original owners, the Niebaum family, sold it to just wanted to make money from the grapes and didn't care too much about the quality. Well, that changed a number of years ago when Francis Ford Coppola bought most of the original land from that company, put his own name on the label and teamed up with winemakers to produce some really high class stuff. (So if you go into a liquor store and find Coppola wine from the Niebaum-Coppola winery, this is precisely where those grapes came from). Just recently, he apparently purchased the last few acres of the original Niebaum holdings, and has now renamed the winery Inglenook, taking the long history of the house and the land around full circle, and expecting to revitalize the brand name to its original grandeur.

We didn't have more than a few minutes to stop to see the house and the vineyard - apparently Mr. Coppola has another house on the estate, out of sight of the visitors, and spends quite a bit of time there - before we headed off to another tasting.

These are actually table grapes growing on an
overhead canopy. They taste a lot different
than wine grapes.

 

Along the way, we passed a very interesting looking building that turned out to be the Opus One winery. Very high end - the cheapest bottle we've ever seen on a wine list is about $150 per bottle, and that's in the US where the taxes aren't anywhere near as high as they are at home!

Our next stop was the very small Elizabeth Spencer winery, only about 10 years old and owned by a husband and wife. They don't grow any of their own grapes, but buy from growers around the valley to make their offerings. Some of them were extremely tasty, but the bottles were too oddly shaped to be able to carry them for any distance - like onto a cruise ship...

 

 

 

And Larry says that if he was ever allowed to
have only ONE bottle of wine, this would
be it!!

One more stop before lunch - Caymus Vineyards. This is the winery that makes Conundrum, so called because it is almost impossible to guess just which varietals are in this proprietary blend. Now they have a red version as well as a white, so you can drink bottle after bottle of either one to try to figure out exactly what's in it.

And finally - food! Because we weren't sure where we would be stopping, and Frank had told us that he had a cooler on board for anything we wanted to bring along, AND Barb's cousin had recommended that we do so, we picked up sandwiches and fruit to go at the resort in the morning. Frank knew of a couple of wineries with nice gardens where visitors were allowed to 'picnic'. He took us to Sequoia Grove, another fairly small place. We bought a bottle of wine there (like we really needed more wine at that point) to have with our lunch, and spent a nice hour there.

Norm standing in the grove of Coast Redwoods
that he had wanted to see

Our final stop in the afternoon was at Silverado Winery. Some people we met in July had recommended it for the lovely view, and the wine was quite good, too! The only disappointment we had here was that, unlike the other wineries where we got some really good information on the individual wines we were tasting, the winemaking process and the history of the winery, at Silverado we were given a glass of wine and told that we could go out on the terrace if we wanted to. Nothing more. Oh, well; but as Norm said, by the time we got to the last glass it was getting hard to tell the difference between them. Not that we had had too much to drink, but our taste buds had been assailed constantly all day and were starting to wear out!

The view over Napa Valley from Silverado

Oh, yeah, can't forget to mention that all the wineries gave you your tasting glasses as souvenirs. There was no way we'd get them all home intact in our suitcases, so our final stop in Napa was at the local UPS office, where the very helpful gentleman helped us put together a box to ship home.

Our advice to anyone who wants to do a private tour like this: Map out your route. Figure out ahead of time which wineries you want to visit and see if they need reservations. Plan your reservations or your visits with enough time between wineries to be able to have a small snack, partly to cleanse your palate and partly to absorb the alcohol you've already taken in. Take the time to really taste each wine; you'll be amazed at the differences between them all. And most of all, just enjoy the scenery!

Of course, all that wine meant we needed dinner!! In our wanderings on the day before we found Morimoto Napa, one of the restaurants owned by 'Iron Chef' Morimoto. Since Norm has always been a fan of the show, and has already eaten in restaurants owned by Mario Batali and Bobby Flay, we had to add this one to his list. Here are a few photos from dinner:

The entrance and waiting area

At our table. The only problem we had here was that
it was so loud it reminded us of a cafeteria!

Monica's Crispy Whole Fish - branzino, or Mediterranean Snapper.
Only she would order a dinner that looked at her while she ate it!

 

Barb with her seafood soup. Looked delicious and Barb
said it tasted that way too.

Wow! What an amazing three days we had here! Tomorrow it will be back into San Francisco and onto Grand Princess for seven days of cruising back the way we came.