San Pedro (Los Angeles), California

Hello from San Pedro!

While the itinerary says we are in Los Angeles we are really docked in San Pedro. Several Princess tours went to Los Angeles to see some of those things Ed and I saw on our own 10 years ago, but my plan today was to stay close to port. San Pedro has been our turnaround port for our winters-at-sea cruises so I’ve been here upwards of two dozen times in the last two years. Usually on turnaround days here all aboard is 2:30 PM so there isn’t a lot of time to get out and about. But today being a port day instead, all aboard was 6:30 PM. Plenty of time for me to do my thing both on the ship and ashore.

After breakfast I watched the loading/unloading of cargo.

Always interesting

Had some phone calls and texts to deal with from home. Had a morning nap. And finished charging the scooter to be ready for today.

Just a short 15 minute walk (or scooter) from the ship is the Green Onion Mexican restaurant. It’s next to the Crowne Plaza Hotel which is where we always stay pre-cruise in San Pedro. The Green Onion has delicious food in large portions for a cheap price. I chose a beef taco and cheese enchilada combo for lunch. The price? $13.95! No way in the world I even came close to even finishing a third of it.

Guess who has dinner tonight too?

As I was already overstuffed I figured I might as well start heading back to the ship. But how can I come so close to The Happy Diner without getting a churro waffle? I had no room in my stomach for more food but I sure could take one back to the ship for tomorrow’s breakfast. It’s not like I haven’t had it for breakfast before.

Thanksgiving breakfast 2023 in San Pedro

This time I got the ice cream on the side and rolled my way down to the waterfront and ate the ice cream there.

Lots to watch on the busy waterway

As I sat there I spied something else across the way at the fire department. When I was done eating, I had to go check it out. 

Their fire dog is a Dalmatian sculpture.

Occasionally, the sun would break through the clouds today and it would feel oh so good. It made the colors of the flowers and trees pop.

I made my way back to the ship by 3:30 with an extremely full stomach and Mexican food left over for dinner. With a churro waffle ready for breakfast I guess there will be no need to go to Richard Walker’s Pancake House for an apple pancake tomorrow. So now I’ll see you in San Diego tomorrow where I’ll have time for things other than breakfast. 

Santa Barbara, California

Hello from a cool, drizzly, dreary and kind of depressing looking day in Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara is a tender port, meaning we anchor offshore and use the lifeboats to send passengers back and forth. 

Since I’ve been here plenty of times and done all I care to do (Ed and I even walked 7.5 miles here once), I had already decided to stay on the ship today. 

After a highly unsatisfying breakfast (bad food, bad service) I went straight across the deck over to the gym. I realized I really wasn’t feeling it so I turned around, went to the elevator, and headed right back to my cabin. Kicked off my shoes, cracked open the balcony door for cool fresh air (and sea lion singing from the buoy), covered up with a blanket, and watched a selection of movies for the day. Dirty Dancing, My Penguin Friend, Barbie, Back to Black. Princess has a large variety of free on demand movies you can watch in your cabin.

I don’t know how many they have but I’m guessing it’s over 100.

I skipped lunch because I knew I was having a bigger dinner at Crown Grill tonight. (Technically I didn’t skip lunch. I had a cup of M&Ms while watching movies. What was I thinking?!)

Also I should have thought through my choice of food at Crown Grill a little better. 

Shrimp cocktail appetizer

More shrimp and Seabass just like I had yesterday at lunch

Keylime pie bar for dessert was a little too citrusy
when paired with my lemon drop martini

Every time I cruise for a long period of time, at some point I hit a wall. The combination of the last three days, along with the weather, may have made today the wall day. Tomorrow we’re in LA (technically San Pedro) where I’ll see if I can break out of this funk. See you there.

Sea Day

Welcome to the first sea day of just two on this seven day cruise. It’s a cool and cloudy one as we slowly sail our way towards Santa Barbara.

View from the promenade deck

Since I skipped breakfast my first order of business today was the slot tournament at 9:00 AM. The players with the top 60 scores moved onto the next round and I landed at number 66. Darn. And the top prize for this tournament is $10,000! Oh well.

To kill some time after the tournament, I used the $400 in free play the casino gave me for this cruise. You have to run it through the machine and play the entire $400 but you get to keep the winnings and, lucky me, I walked away with $400.41. Pretty unusual to be able to get back that high of a percentage.

Then to kill some time before the Most Traveled Guest luncheon I sat outside, tucked away from the wind, and watched part of Moana 2.

Lunch was the exact same menu as last cruise and I again chose the sea bass. I didn’t take a picture of the fish this time since I did last time so instead I took a picture of the seafood trio starter and the dessert. I’m not a big fan of chocolate, but it sure was pretty.

Oyster, crab, tuna

Beautiful chocolate

I watched a movie in the afternoon during my phone calls with my daughter and hubby and came away not understanding the movie. Not like I can’t watch it again. Then off pre dinner drinks where I tried a sour apple martini. 

After two sips I wasn’t a fan

Tonight was formal night and I went to dinner at the time I was told, 7 PM. But my table was occupied and the only other table to accommodate me was squished in with another. I don’t do squished so I decided to go up for pizza. Still in my nice clothes, freezing on deck, I had a slice of vegetarian and pepperoni. 

Probably better than formal night dinner 

Not wanting to get any colder, not wanting to go to the casino, and not wanting to be around crowds on formal night I came back to the cabin at 7:30, the earliest I have this entire trip. 

Off to Santa Barbara tomorrow. See you there. 

San Francisco Turnaround Day

Welcome to my turnaround day in San Francisco when one cruise ended and another began. 

A cloudy morning

A sunny afternoon 

And welcome to the day I had a meltdown. 

It started when we were leaving the ship to go through immigration. Just as we left the deck the scooter’s belt started going whack, whack, whack. I had to get off the scooter and push it off the ship, down the line outside the terminal, through immigration, and back onto the ship. I made it all the way to my new cabin and took things apart and found a piece of black rubber imbedded in the grooves of the belt. It could have been a complete disaster but thank goodness it was easily fixable.

While I was in the cabin I noticed something unusual.

Where are my clothes and suitcase and bags?

When you’re in transit and change cabins they move your things from one cabin to another while you do immigration. (So my clothes should be here in this picture.) Giving them the benefit of the doubt of maybe a running late situation, I cleaned out my scooter belt, reassembled all the pieces and headed to get some sun before lunch.  

A beautiful day for an outdoor concert 

Embarkation day lunch is typically the same for me, salmon and orange soufflé. 

 

I had an invitation for a slot tournament so I went straight from lunch to the casino where I got my tournament time - 9 AM tomorrow - and a nice gift. 

I returned to my cabin and found the closet still empty. So I spoke to a supervisor about the missing things. And a supervisor. And a supervisor. And guest services and guest services. No one could find my things. In all of our days sailing with Princess - 1,000 days for me this week - we have never had our things not get transferred. 

The meltdown then began.

I almost thought someone was playing a joke on me but it sure wasn’t funny. I stewed in my cabin (yeah there were tears, too) throughout the afternoon until everything arrived. They had been delivered to a completely different cabin. Thank goodness a cabin steward reported my things in one of his cabins (not even close to my cabin). I tipped him $20 in some ones and fives I had on hand and gave him some things from my mini bar. Boy, that was a big mess up by someone. 

Honey, I’m home

At the exact moment the clothes and bags were being delivered the future cruise consultant was calling me on the phone making sure I was coming to tomorrow’s Most Traveled Guest Luncheon. Umm…I didn’t get an invitation? She insisted it was supposed to have already been delivered to me. Another mess up by someone. (Later I asked my cabin steward about the missing invite and he said he has a bunch of VIPs in his section and has been too busy taking care of them to deliver the invitations.)

I’m trying hard to clear my head but it’s, well, hard. So happy to be back in a balcony cabin to clear my head with fresh air.

I was in no mood to attend the sailaway party so I sat on my balcony instead. 

The seagulls loved water stirred up by the ship as we left the dock. 

Alcatraz

And the Golden Gate Bridge on the way out

If fresh air wasn’t going to clear my head it was going to be lemon drop martinis. I planned on cutting back on them this cruise but I don’t think tonight’s the night to start. Yellow is an Easter color anyway. 

Being Easter and all I chose the ham for dinner. It really was good.

I turned in early so I’ll be ready to start pushing buttons during the slot tournament right after breakfast. Tomorrow’s a sea day so I’ll see you then!

Sea Day #10

Hello from our last sea day of the Hawaiian cruise! As I’ve told people before, if you want to sail from the mainland to Hawaii you better love sea days and be okay with a bumpy ride and cold temperatures. I would not recommend a cruise to Hawaii for your first one.

Seas may be smooth now but they weren’t for most of the voyage. 

This morning we had a meeting for all the in transits, the people who will be on board for the next voyage. They provided mimosas and some breakfast snacks for the meeting but I did not partake in either one. Go me! There are 50 of us who will be staying on to go south to Santa Barbara, LA (San Pedro), San Diego, and Ensenada, Mexico for a seven day cruise.

After the meeting I needed to use the comp I received from the casino. I had a choice of specialty dinners, spa treatments, or credit to use for shopping. I didn’t need any more dinners, I’m not a fan of the spa here onboard, but I knew from past experience I could buy snacks for the crew in one of the shops. I bought a couple things for myself, and for crew members I bought multiple packages of overpriced Ferrero Rochers and Kinder Buenos.

Only one person watching Movies Under the Stars.
It’s just too darn cold out there for anything. 

This evening I had my usual pre dinner Lemon Drop Martini along with some chicken dumplings from the Elite Lounge. 

I also tried something new I heard about, peanut butter whiskey. I’ve never had whiskey before and I’m not sure how I feel about what I drank tonight. It smelled like peanut butter and did taste like peanut butter and what I would think whiskey would taste like. Glad I tried it but won’t do it again. 

Served on the rocks

Earlier I pulled tonight’s dinner menu from the app. Unfortunately, it’s the same last night dinner that you’ll find on about every Princess ship. You’d think with prime rib as a choice it would be my favorite but the prime rib isn’t the greatest and when you have the same choices on the same last night of a cruise week after week, months at a time, it becomes uninspiring.

    

Thankfully the special meal in my section of the dining room was a pork chop. I had the double pork chop earlier in the cruise but this one was so much better. I almost ate the whole thing and had no room for dessert. 

Oh. My. Goodness.

When I got back to my cabin I had received another comp from the casino. It was a good one. I was hoping to use this one on another Hawaiian cruise on this ship, but the Ruby Princess doesn’t go back to Hawaii until after the expiration date so I may have to choose a different ship. 

Princess has solid casino offers but they make it difficult to redeem them  

We’ll be going under the Golden Gate Bridge around 5 AM tomorrow and I doubt I’ll be awake for it. But I will be out of my cabin by 8 AM, and if it looks to be a nice day I’ll be off the ship and down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Otherwise I’ll be at the Wheelhouse Bar with all the other in transits who will go through the terminal together for immigration. See you tomorrow!