The Zaandam sailed silently onto the San Diego Bay so early this morning, it was still dark. There was fog too, which kept the temperatures down as well as the visibility. This is a very scenic port, so we will be sure to watch it on the way out.
Breakfast was early at 6:30am on the Pinnacle Grill. It was also the same time for the dining room. For the super early risers, you could go to the Lido at 6am. Of course today was the official start of the Legendary Tales of the South Pacific. We heard later that about 300 guests stayed on like us, and close to 900 joined the ship. So we are not totally full, and there may be some folks that are able to get onboard in some of the bigger ports.
Disembarkation began at 7:30am with those who could take all of their stuff with them. Expedited we think it is called. We took advantage of this time to do computer work until about 9:30am. By then we figured most of the guests had left. Since we had some necessary shopping to do, we figured we could do all of that on the way to lunch around 1pm.
We had our "Legendary" intransit sticky labels with us to wear on our way back. No sense putting them on now, as we would surely lose them. We took a right turn outside the terminal, and headed towards the Midway, and the iconic soldier/nurse statue nearby the ship. People are able to buy tickets to visit this museum at nearby kiosks. Also available are ticket vendors for the Coronado Island Ferry, and boat charters. We had already seen a couple of young kids on jet skies circling the ship this morning at 9am.
Many street vendors had set up tables long this stretch of waterfront selling t-shirts, sweatshirts, and costume jewelry, much of what we usually see in Mexico. You never know what the weather will be like here. Today the fog ceiling was high, but there was a chill in the breeze. If you stayed in the shade, you would be cold. So we bet these vendors sell a lot of those warm sweatshirts.
We entered Seaport Village, where a few of the seafood restaurants were being re-modeled. There seems to always be a project here. We passed the Tuna Harbor where all of the local fishing boats are moored. They appeared to be more commercial-type vessels. Continuing on, we passed by the Convention Center and some high rise hotels like the Marriott and Hyatt.
Getting closer to the Bayfront Hilton, we began hearing what sounded like a protest demonstration happening. All of the entrances on the harbor side were shut off, and the only way inside this hotel was sneaking through an outdoor restaurant (not opened yet), and entering where the swimming pool is located. And that's where we discovered where that noise was coming from. It was a strike of some kind in the front entrance of the Hilton. To get through this hotel, we had to take an escalator up to the main lobby, then down another one to find the main entrance.
Of course, this door brought us right into the crowd of people that were holding signs and chanting mostly in Spanish. It appeared these people were employees of the hotel. They attempted to hand us flyers, assuming we were staying at this hotel. We said no thanks, we are just passing through to the parking garage. Using loudspeakers and noise -makers, we could not get away from them fast enough. Once in the parking garage, we found our way to the bridge that crosses over the highway below.
The bridge brought us to Petco Park, where the San Diego Padres play their games. Walking around the stadium, we found the streets we needed to find a CVS Pharmacy. This one is a larger one than we used to go to, and had what we needed. There were some locked up products there, but not everything. Nothing like what we saw in San Francisco.
The next stop was at Ace Hardware for a new wall clock, as our old one bit the dust. And when we moved from our room on deck one, one of us accidently left the night light in the bathroom. It would have been more trouble trying to get it back and since it was old, we decided to look for some new ones. Found what we needed in both stores.
It was lunchtime, so we hiked the rest of the way back down to the Cheesecake Factory. We seated ourselves in the high-top tables in the bar area. That's where we always sit in the Cheesecake Factory in Walnut Creek. We have a favorite salad there called the Mexican Tortilla Salad in the Skinnylicious Menu. We doubt that it is light in calories, because we always add extra sides of their ranch dressing. Our nice bartender/waitress brought us extra French bread along with the brown bread. Needless to say we enjoyed every bite along with some Stella Artois beers.
The hike back was not so long, as we ended up close to the Midway aircraft carrier. It must have been the warmth of the day or perhaps the beer, one of us was really beat. Oh yeah…we also got up a 5am….that's what did it. We stopped for a few minutes to put on our intransit tags for the shore staff to identify us. We were sent directly to the xray checkpoint, where a belt buckle set off the sensor. My knee made it through without detection. We don't remember if there was facial recognition today, but we would say no.
We did have a little wait to board the ship since the locals were playing with the connections to deck two. It was sure nice getting back to our room by 2:30pm. Once again, we had an invite to a President's Club, 5, 4 & 3 stars Mariners welcome onboard event. It was held in the Lido Pool area at 6:45 to 7:30pm. One of us was so tired, we decided not to attend again.
Then at 4pm, there was a mandatory passenger emergency muster drill. It had been announced that it applied to everyone, including those of us in transit. It did not count that we just did this in Vancouver. Anyway, we assumed this was the same procedure that we have done on all four cruises. Just have our cards scanned, listen to the drill on TV, then we would be done. Surprise, surprise. Waiting until most of the crowd was checked it, we walked down the stairs to deck three to find the old-fashioned drill taking place. People were lined up like sardines in their assigned life boat areas. Ours was way up front, and it had not changed when we switched rooms. There was no way we could squeeze through the crowds to get to lifeboat 8. We had come out at 14. Tihana is one of the boat captains, so she stopped us and said wait with her. In the meantime, our boat captain, Pulung, had worried we were not back onboard. We were the only ones in his group that were missing. So he scanned our cards and we were fine. It was written in the newsletter that those who refused to participate in this drill, would not be allowed to sail with the vessel. We have never seen this happen, but maybe it has….who knows.
Sail away took pace shortly after the drill around 5pm, where we watched from the comfort of our veranda, which had been hosed down earlier in the morning. It never dried. We got the portside view of Coronado, several fishing boats passing us, and the buoys that were full of resting sea lions. The gulls and pelicans followed as well. Some military helicopters took off from the air station as well as an osprey-type plane and a jet. Sure was noisy.
The Captain gave his talk shortly before leaving. He said we will have 5 days at sea and travel 2330 nautical miles to reach the island of Kauai. He expected the weather to be good and a light swell of under 3 meters. We will do an average of 17 knots. Sounds good to us.
We had a pleasant surprise at dinner tonight. Head waiter Bayou joined the ship today. He recognized us instantly, as we did Bayou. We met last year on this very same cruise, but a different ship. Some of the waiters and crew members also went home today. So for starters, one of us had crispy pork bellies with cerviche sauce, and one Caesar salad. The chicken noodle soup was good….nice and hot. Mains were one cheese enchilada and one pork tenderloin They were ample servings. We shared one caramel cheesecake slice with a piece of stroopwafel.
Entertainment was a rerun of the Origin Story or a Wajang movie – Midway. And just like on a world cruise, we got a two week layout of the evening lineup. And guess what? We finally got 2 of the round chocolate pillow candies from Lindt.
Bill & Mary Ann
