Grand Princess in Santa Barbara

Hello from Santa Barbara!

Actually we’re technically anchored off the coast of Santa Barbara. While we do like Santa Barbara, we have a different priority today.

A crew member.

Like I mentioned yesterday, today is our bartender buddy’s last day on the ship so we are spending it with him. He is scheduled to work all day and into the evening so we scheduled our time so we could plant our bums on his barstools every moment he was there. It’s always hard to say goodbye to people we consider family.

While he was on break we hung out at the pool - all by ourselves. Unfortunately the pool has been drained since the first night but it actually works out better because it limits the number of people (and kids) hanging around it. 

Sun + warmth + a closed pool + everyone off the ship + screaming kids in the covered pool area = pure bliss.

Not much else to report from the day. This morning I watched the Wake Show to see if the cruise director mentioned the encouraging words money pocket. We were on with him in December and sometimes he read them off so I was anxious to see if he would. He didn't. (I do like when kind and positive words are spread, but oh well.) Tonight we have the Most Traveled Guest cocktail party  in the One5Lounge. Other than eating breakfast, hanging out at the bar, sitting in the sun, and heading to the Most Traveled party tonight we pretty much didn’t do anything else.

Tomorrow we’re off to San Pedro. Maybe. Or maybe Long Beach. San Pedro is usually the embarkation/disembarkation port for Princess Cruises. However, many times when it’s just a port stop (like with us tomorrow) the ship docks in Long Beach. But…

• the San Pedro port schedule shows us in San Pedro.
• But the itinerary showed only Los Angeles without a mention of San Pedro or Long Beach. 
• But the itinerary in the first day’s Patter showed Long Beach.
• But the excursion list show tours leaving from San Pedro.
• But the crew says we’re docking in Long Beach.
• But the ship announcements only mention Los Angeles.

So we have no idea where we’ll be tomorrow. It’s fine for us because we had some loosey-goosey plans anyway.

For those interested today's Patter can be found here.