abbydancer2003

I thought it was pretty good until that part.

Solstice Day 6 - sea day Up a bit later and leisurely coffee. Michael’s for late breakfast. Hung out. Then got splendor, played until lunch. On our way to lunch, we saw this sign. I guess they now serve lunch in the restroom. We had our last lunch in Luminae, and today was one of the days that I preferred the main menu. We both started with the baby tomato salad (I bet you didn’t know that tomatoes had babies). It was very good. For a main, I had the fried chicken from the main dining. It was good as always, and for dessert I had one of my very favorites, Key Lime Pie. After lunch, we headed to the casino, and then to the sky lounge for Friends (TV show) trivia. I knew about 6 and pretty much guessed everything else wrong. Following that, we decided to head back to the room to finish watching All the President’s men. (I’ve got to start bringing my own tv entertainment. This evening, the folks in Michael’s club had music (they tend to do things on formal night) so we dressed and headed down to that. We ended up chatting with a couple that we’d previously talked to about shows while in Luminae. We decided to go to the 7pm show together. Tonight’s show was a musical group called the Barricade Boys. They were a quartet of mostly Brits all of whom had been in various productions of Les Mis. They did a range of songs, and were good. After the show we decided to share a table with the couple (Kirk and Teri). At Luminae, our server was Abdul, who was their regular server. He also was good, and we got our usual glasses of ice water. Since it was evening Chic night, they had the usual Rack of Lamb. For a starter, I had the Caesar salad from the main, the rack of lamb (very good, but not quite as good as on the Silhouette, though). For dessert, I had the Daniel B dessert. It was good as always, but a little soupy. On the other hand, they did have raspberries, which they were out of on the Silhouette. After dinner, we continued chatting with them was we walked up to deck 11 together, although after that, Beth and I went back to the casino. There’s a priest (apparently a bishop) there, and we had a nice talk with him in the casino. Tomorrow is our last day and San Diego.

I went with Patrick in 2010. We were late in and I emailed him. He already knew. In 2019, I sent my friends with him and I did his shorter tour to Gypsy Cove outside Stanley, because I didn't want to take one of the limited slots. I know he can now only take 12 cars. When I went in 2010, it was limited by how many driver he could get.

Thanks. That's where we're staying and I think we'll have lounge access.

I'll be on the Infinity around the horn in March, so following. A quick question, if you don't mind - which Sheraton were the pictures from? Thanks,

I was on a cruise recently where I had friends, one of whom was in a Celebrity Suite and one in Aqua, both solo in their room. For 99.00 a day, the person in the Aqua room got access to all the suite places. I know it's possible, has to be booked in advance, and they do limited number. I'm not sure if it's only open when both are solo, or if, as original poster, third person is solo. Doesn't hurt to ask. You might want to ask the agent to connect you to a shoreside concierge.

Solstice Day 5 Today is our second (of 2) Mexican ports, Cabo San Lucas. Which is, of course, a tender port. We were up at 8 with coffee delivered perfectly from our butler. We got dressed and arrived in Luminae with about 30 seconds to spare. After a quick breakfast we headed to Michael’s club to get to the tender. I ran up to the room to get my hoodie since I was cold all day yesterday ( and today, I had it tied around my waist all day). We waited for Mar to get back to lead us there, but that turned out to be taking us to the elevators and pressing the button for us. In other words, They were past tender ticket time. (Say that 3 times fast) We were on the tender pretty quickly, but we did have to wait for it to fill. We were soon on our way. We got off at the pier and walked along the water for a while. Beth got to experience the constant sales attempt along the water. At some point we turned inland and walked along so city streets. The shops there had a little higher quality stuff, and Beth got a pair of earrings and a piece of art for her wall. We then stopped at a bar for a rest and had a couple of cokes and shared a churro. I noticed that Del Sol was across the street. I love their sunglasses, and the pair I have with me broke (lens fell out), so I thought I’d get a new pair. So after we were done with our snack, we went over and I found a nice pair. The guy working was very nice and said I could get 15% off if I got two, but I didn’t need two, nor were there two I really liked. They do offer a lifetime guarantee, and you can order a new pair, as long as you have proof (a code on or in the box). FYI, when I got back on the ship I fixed the other pair by popping the lense in. After that, we were done. We headed back to the tenders and took a local tender back to the ship. Once we dropped our stuff, we headed to the buffet. We ordered some cokes, but decided we weren’t thrilled, so we went back to the room, and thought about room service. We didn’t like that much either, so we decided we weren’t quite hungry, so hung out for a while and then went to the buffet. Beth had pizza and salad, I had salad and a small fajita. After lunch we went to the pool and the hot tub for a while. We did talk to some people in the hottub. We left in time to do tea in Michael’s Club. When we got there, there was nobody there but us, so I brought down Splendor and we played it. I have yet to win, but I’m getting closer. While we were there, other people arrived, and a couple sitting near us asked about it. We got to talking, and it turned out they had, a few months ago, sold their apartment in New York and moved to California. We learned that they lived in the Upper East 60s and visited back often. The woman, Eliane, told us that she’s very close to her cousin, who still lives there and is a hand surgeon. Beth has a good friend who’s husband is a hand surgeon there, and yup, her cousin’s wife is one of Beth’s best friends. Small world, and the old are good that Beth will see this couple again. Following time in the lounge, I decided to go to the show, a performer named Hayden Smith, an Australian performer who plays sax, guitar and sings. Beth decided not to go, but instead go to Al Baccio and read. The show was about 40 minutes, but it was enjoyable. I collected Beth and we went to dinner. For dinner, I had another version of Burrata cheese, the Chili Short Ribs (only OK, but the steamed buns were good. No good choices on main dining on that, and the coconut creameaux. That was good, but I didn’t really taste coconut. We ended up chatting with some people in the restaurant and then called it a night.

You do get a free scoop of gelato, for what it's worth. (Personally, I don't think it's all that good, but that's me.

Exactly. I just got off the Solstice and there was a sign at the cage saying you can use OBC. For slots, on the non revolutionized ships, you can only do it in 50.00 increments. You get a ticket from the cashier, put it (and your cruise card) into the machine you want and play. When you're done and cash out, you get a new ticket with that amount. Either bring it to the cage and get cash, or hang onto it play with it again. My sister spent 3 days with one ticket. She finally cashed it out for .05 on the last night.

Today is Mazatlan, our first stop. We woke up to coffee and tea from our butler, and got dressed in time for breakfast before heading out. We were meeting a tour that I’d booked called “Bites of the Barrios”. It met in the Plaza Machado, ie the plaza that the blue ends at. (Yikes on that last sentence). We arrived at the meeting place on time, and met a couple from the Discovery Princess there. Two other couples and the guide, Eduardo, arrived, we signed waivers and headed to one of the ubiquitous open air taxis. From there, we drove to our first stop, a street taco stand. We were all given a choice of several toppings. One of them was a stew called barrio. Traditional birria is a goat meat stew, but they had beef. Beth and I both thought it was good, and for a drink we opted for a coke. Next stop was another taco stand, but known for their seafood soup. While most people had that, we opted for beef and potato tacos. The meat wasn’t as good as the first stop but there was a red sauce on them that was very good. From there we went to a local tortilla store. Eduardo explained how they make tortillas and explained a difference between fresh and packaged. In fresh tortillas, the corn is mashed and made directly into dough and the tortillas are made from that, rather than corn meal. We were each given one to try and the corn taste was very clear. (On our previous PV tours, we visited the tortilla stores, but didn’t get a taste. This was better). From there, we went to a fresh fish store along the water. They get the fish directly from the local fishermen who fish near the beach line. We also learned that most smoked marlin is smoked with liquid smoke. However, here, they smoke using a smoker. We all got a taste, and while I don’t like fish, I did take a small piece. It wasn’t very fishy, and the smoke flavor was good, but one taste was enough. After that we went over to the shrimp market. We’d driven by it on our city tour in December 2021. The sellers sell different shrimp depending on the season. We went to a shop across the street that had dried shrimp and we tasted that as well. From there, it was grand almost finale of the tour. It was at a restaurant called Cenaduria Chayito. It was a family house and they opened as a restaurant and it became very popular. We got a platter with a dried beef dish, a pork dish, some tortilla chips with cream and some refried beens. We also got a nice orange soda type drink. It was all delicious. After that, we finished with a visit to a micro brewery. On the way, we stopped for Eduarto to get those of us who didn’t drink beer a cononut milkshake, which was good (I don’t like beer, Beth does). The brewery was Tres Isles, and they make four brews. Beth said it was possibly the best beer she’s ever had. We were then dropped off at the Plaza. Eduardo gave everyone advice for where they could safely walk to. We took a group picture, and then scattered. We needed to go to the Golden Zone to meet some friends of mine from a cruise way back when at a restaurant there. Eduardo worked out having our driver take us for 10.00. The back of the cab seats 8 comfortably, so it was a bit of overkill for us, but it worked. We drove along the water where there were lots of creative temporary statues placed along the walkway (we later learned they were for Carnival next week, which is why I don’t remember them). It was a pretty drive, and we eventually reached the restaurant. We quickly found my friends, and had a nice time chatting with them. Around 3:15 we decided to take a short walk and then find a cab back. We went into a couple of nice stores, Beth bought some vanilla, and we quickly got a smaller open air cab back. It took about 20 minutes, including a stop by the driver to rescue a hat from the passenger in the cab ahead of us and give it to him. When we got back to the pier, there was a bit of confusion about the fare, but we came to an agreement, and headed back to the shuttle across the port. Once on the ship, we dropped our stuff in the room and then headed to Michaels Club for afternoon tea. We did talk to Rich and Ron again for a while, and then headed up to the helipad for sailaway. It was more crowded than we’ve seen in a while. After the helipad we went back to the room to dress for dinner. We decided to go to the second production show called, Amade, described as “how Mozart and the work of classical composers inspire, evolve and connect to modern music”. It was just kind of odd. Beth thought the aerialists were weak, as the woman didn’t do anything, and we both thought the music was strange. On the way to the show, we stopped for tea and latte for the show. After that, it was Silent Disco in the retreat. We enjoyed that for about a half hour, and then went to dinner. Tonight I had burrata cheese and filet mignon. Interesting in the the filet preparation was very similar to the NY strip from yesterday. Aba said the filet was much better and to get it. So I did, and he was right. For dessert, I had a brown butter pear dessert which was OK. After dinner, we did a bit of casino fun and then went to bed. Tomorrow is Cabo, and it’s Beth’s first time.

I think it has to do with writing live from (sort of) threads.

Watched it today from our post cruise hotel. It was one of their better ones, and afterwards we went to a greek restaurant and saganaki. Maybe I'll tell the Captain of the Infinity that when and if I meet him next month.

No Wellington. For what it's worth, I haven't seen Prime Rib on any menu either.

I got the email, but will watch it after I get off the Solstice, probably on Saturday. I don't entirely trust the wifi here.

Solstice day 3 - sea day Today is our second of 3 total sea days. Our butler brought us our early morning coffee and tea, and no knives for the croissants. So we didn’t bother eating them, and made a mental note to just get coffee and tea going forward. After enjoying our drink and getting dressed, we headed to Luminae for breakfast. Our assistant waiter, Yuna knows now we want tap water, not bottled and brings that, plus a soda glass of ice. Following breakfast we checked out the casino, and then went to Al Baccio to play a new variant of Splendor- Splendor Duals, for two people. While the basic idea is the same, they’ve tweaked some things to make them more fun for just two. The game took a while so after dropping it in the room, and hanging around for a bit, we headed to lunch. We now have our specific serving team, and they are great. They make all kinds of modifications, and now we get regular water glasses with ice in them when we sit down. For lunch I had the butter lettuce salad, the potato and leek ravioli and a single scoop of raspberry sorbet for dessert. Today’s trivia was Disney, so we did that. We joined an interesting lady for a team of 3. We did OK, I think, because instead of counting number right, he counted down from perfect and stopped at 15. There are still no prizes. After trivia, we headed to the casino, and the decided to do afternoon tea at Michael’s Club. We sat at the couch, and met Rich and Ron, a couple celebrity 30 years together. We chatted for a couple of hours, and then talked to Mar for a bit. After that it was back to the room for Beth to shower in time for the show. Tonight was a British vocalist named Paulette Ivory. Apparently she’s bee on stage in Disney’s Aida, and a few other things. She did some jazz, some Whitney Houston, etc. It was good, but we probably won’t go to her atrium show tomorrow. After that, we picked up our EFFY charm and stuck around for the end of giveaway presentation. We didn’t win the goodie bag. While I was waiting for it to start, I went to the World Class bar and ordered a Rose Water. It was pretty good, but I might ask for them to go lighter on the vodka next time. By then, it was about 8:15 so we went to dinner. For dinner, I had a cream of wild mushroom soup from the main menu that was quite good. For my main I had the New York strip with truffled potato puree (code for mashed potatoes) and carrots. The strip was in 2 pieces and I could have lived with one, and it was all good, especially the carrots. For dessert, I had pine nut flan with pomegranate sorbet. The sorbet was good, the flan a little odd. I’ll try to remember that for next time. Following dinner, we headed to the casino. They were having one of their free slot tournaments, so we did that. Basically, you sign up, they give you a machine, and you press play continuously for 1 minute. In addition some balloons go across the screen and you have to pop them for points. The winner gets some sort of prize. We didn’t win. We have a fairly early day tomorrow, so we went back to the room. Each night Beth calls my mom for an update, and I talk to Glen for his update. Following that, it was bed, because we have a fairly early day tomorrow.

Solstice Day 2 - sea day We woke up around 8 am, and we’d asked the butler to bring coffee, tea and croissants at 8:15. He arrived promptly with everything, but there were two napkins, one of which he used to make a tablecloth, so we only had one. Also, he brought two spoons, which made it hard to put the butter and jam on the croissant. Oh well. We enjoyed our first breakfast, and got dressed to go to Luminae. We got there with a couple minutes to spare. We skipped a starter and Beth had crepes and I had a waffle, with a side of bacon. We didn’t have any of the pastries offered, so I think for morning coffee we’ll skip the croissants. After breakfast, we headed to guest services for a few things. First, Beth wanted her cruise card punched, which they did. Next was to even out the Onboard credit, and finally the lost and found for her sunglasses that she left in the spa. No luck on the last, but we got the OBC straightened out. I went back to the room and she went to the spa, where she was reunited with her sunglasses and her newspaper from Friday. Following that, we decided to go for our soon to become daily swim at the Solarium. In the pool we chatted with a couple from Reno. We talked cruising and some other stuff and learned he’s a trained chef and a former head of food and beverage at the Peppermill. There used to be a couple of Peppermill restaurants near me that I really liked, so the talk was fun. We followed up with the hot tub, and then went back to the room to get ready for lunch and the Captains club welcome reception. We went to the welcome reception, and talked to a few of the officers. I found out from the IT manager that Starlink is on all the ships, and we’ll have it on the Infinity next month, but it probably won’t be good in Tierra del Fuego. Good to know. Beth had a nice chat with an Israeli security officer. My niece wants to do a language immersion after college, and so Beth was able to get information from her about dealing withe Celiac (niece has it) in Israel. After that we went to lunch. We had the same wait staff as before, and they are starting to know our preferences. We both started with the broiled feta and arugula salad, which was very good. We followed with the luminae burger, cut in half to make it less thick. For dessert, I had white chocolate mousse which was very good. I was tempted to order another one. After lunch, we went up to the sky lounge for Harry Potter trivia. We found a few others near us, so we played with a team. Only 3 of the 4 really knew the subject and we missed 4 questions, at least one of which we shouldn’t have - how many points for the golden snich. We missed a couple others. What we didn’t miss were the two we missed in October. Following trivia, we stayed for the start of the music trivia, but we didn’t like it, as Patrick barely played enough of each song to recognize it. So we headed to the casino. I won about 3 dollars, Beth has yet to be ahead on anything. Tonight was the officers soiree in Michael’s club and formal night, so we went back to the room to get ready for that. At the soiree, we joined some people on the couch and had a nice discussion with them. The servers, rather than walking with appetizers, dropped of little plates of 4 for each of us. We then chatted with another couple for a while. At about 6:45 we went to the show. It was called Broken Strings, and sort of took place around a music venue. The show started with the performers in the audience, and spent a little too much time there, but the show was nice otherwise. After that, we went to get the final EFFY charm of the day, and then went to Al Bacciio for a pre dinner coffee. We went to dinner, and were seated in the front section again. We have the same serving team as before, and the two assistant waiters Yuna, from Indonesia and Helmi from Singapore, now know we want tap water with ice. Our waiter is Aba from Indonesia and he’s quite good. For dinner I had the Yellow Corn Soup and the Beef Tournedoes from the main dining room, and the Marscapone Cheesecake from Luminae for dessert. After dinner we wandered a bit, did casino a bit, and then went to bed.

Solstice - Day 1 Today’s the day we start. Beth woke me up around 8, and I did my daily Wordle and mini crossword and got dressed. We headed to the restaurant downstairs for breakfast around 9. It turned out I’d scheduled my ride for 10:10, not my usual 10am. So we had lots of time. The restaurant was fairly crowded, which surprised me a little. I’ve done this - Renaissance to San Pedro 4 previous times in the last year, and I have never seen the restaurant this crowded. We did get a table fairly quickly though. We finished our omelette and bacon breakfast (after waiting a few minutes for new bacon to arrive) and went back to the room to gather our stuff. At about 9:55, our driver called to say he was downstairs waiting. We gathered our bags and were on the road by about 10. The ride was uneventful and we pulled up to the pier at around 10:30. A porter approached and asked if we needed help but our driver was on top of it. In addition, Beth had not secured one of her luggage tags so we had to fix that. By that time the porter had lost interest in us, but fortunately another very friendly porter came by and took our bags. From there we went to the priority entrance, showed our boarding passes, and were ushered into the building. We went up the escalator (I remember filling out many a health questionnaire before heading up back in the pre pandemic Princess days), and quickly checked in with the reps for the suites. All we had to do was show our passports and boarding passes, get new pictures taken (I don’t know why I ever bother uploading one I like) and we were good to go. She said they were boarding, which surprised me since it was only about 10:45. We went through security, and the people there said it wasn’t boarding, but we could go to the suite/Zenith waiting area. It’s, of course, the same room as for Princess Elite, etc. We went in and there was almost no-one there. We got coffee/tea and then met Mar, the concierge. She said we could board if we wanted. Wow. We finished our drinks and away we went. That does explain why there was no-one in the lounge. We were onboard by 11 am. We dropped our bags in the room, which wasn’t ready and met our room steward Mei on the way out. From there we went to Michael’s club and sat for a bit. We then took a walk, looked at the casino and some of the ship. We also went to the spa so Beth could make an appointment for a pedicure that she hadn’t had time to get before we left. We went back to Michaels until it was time for lunch. We went to Luminae around 12:20 and it was busy. I started with the pea soup - good as always, and had the NY steak with Bernaise for my main. It was good, but not quite as good as it was on the Silhouette in October. For dessert I had the Pear and Yogurt Clafoutis, which is hard to describe. It was sort of a tart with ice cream. After lunch Beth headed to the spa for her appointment, and I went back to the room. Our bags were outside the door, so I brought them in and unpacked mine. I’d brought my external DVD player with me to try out, and I realized that with all the cords in there there was no power cord. But I did connect the HDMI, and was able to change the source. However, I was unable to get it back to the X tv. While I was playing with that, Mei came in to introduce herself officially. She said she always has extra towels for ladies. Very nice. Soon after she left, the tv started working. I also texted Glen about it, and he thinks the power for it is at home. Oh well, it was really a trial run for the March trip where we will be on an X ship for 24 days. Next it was time for railway, and there had been vague rumblings about a cruise critic gathering, so I put on my beads, etc and headed to the sunset bar. While I saw nobody from Cruise Critic there, I did meet the FB group and joined it. I chatted with them for a while, and eventually Beth joined us. We sailed out through the channel, and I noticed a Carnival ship paralleling us from Long Beach. After that we went back to the room to change for dinner and for Beth to unpack. Our butler Shingai called, and stopped by to see what we wanted, etc. He’s very nice. At some point, I stepped on to the balcony and noticed the Carnival ship behind us in the very pretty sky. At about 6:30 we left and headed to Michael’s club for a drink before dinner. Now they serve evening bites, which was a list of small things, such as nuts, cheese, potato chips that you can get. We had nuts and potato chips. It was dead quiet in there, but we chatted until about 8:15 when we headed to dinner. Luminae was very quiet by 8:15 and we got a window table in the front room. We had the same serving team as lunch and that was fine. Tonight, they offered the “Timeless” entrees and appetizers from the main dining menu. For an amuse bouche, they had green pea puree with crabmeat. Beth passed, and I took the crabmeat off and at the puree. We both started with the Roasted Apple & hearty green salad. Turns out it was mostly radicchio, and we both left most of it, but it was pretty good. For a main I asked for the grilled Guinea hen with spaghetti squash, pepitas and sherry vinegar, but with chicken instead of the hen. I wasn’t quite sure what I got, but it was quite good. (No sign of pepitas though). For dessert I had the Vacherin, with Apple Blueberry and vanilla meringue. Here’s a picture Looks sort of like a deconstructed vacherin. It was good, though. After dinner we went to the casino for a bit. We gambled a little, watched the slot tournament, and then called it a night.

Mar seems great indeed. She has fond memories of you. I also like Anastasia.

I use TBL sometimes, tours organized by folks in my roll call sometimes (including me) and sometimes I'll book with ShoreExcursionGroup. I don't worry too much about missing the ship, since if they do one time, they'll be out of business pretty quickly. I like the smaller groups and finer control.

I got on the Solstice today and it looks great to me. Room is nice, and the shower not getting hot was operator (me) error. (I did get it to hot after a few minutes). @Jim_Iain, Mar is great, as is Anastasia.

Solstice Day 0 Today was travel day. Again, supposed to be yesterday, but just as well. Got up at 8 and had my morning coffee in a to-go cup - I’ll take it to the airport and leave it in Glen’s car. At about 9:10 we left to pick up Beth. We turned off all the lights, etc at mom’s, and headed to the airport. We’d rented the car at 10, and were going to be a little early, or so we thought. San Jose airport has to be one of the most confusing for where to go. The car rental center is across several lanes of traffic from the terminal, and separated by islands. We ended up on the wrong side twice. There are two terminals at San Jose, and to get to the entrance to rental car you have to go around the other terminal. About 10, Glen dropped us, and we waited a few minutes and got our car. We were offered a bigger car, but we already had an intermediate, since it was cheaper than a compact, so no on that, but we did decide to pre-pay the gas, so we didn’t have to drive around LA looking for gas. We took off, and first stop was about 15 minutes past our normal first turn because we were on a mission to see a mission. Seriously, I’m taking a US history class, and we can do two extra credit things such as visiting a historical site or museum. They have to be relevant to US History before 1814. So for my first one, I decided to visit Old Mission San Juan Bautista, in San. Benito county. It was about 30 minutes out of the way round trip, so this seemed as good a time as any (we can do 2 extra credit things, and see the blog I’ll do in March to see if I do the second as planned). We arrived at the Mission, walked to find the entrance, and paid our 7 dollar entry fee. There’s a not very well explained museum there (I think they’re still working on its), including a replica of what they think it looked like after it was built in the late 18th century (1790’s). Luckily for us, there was a volunteer docent there who explained all that. After the museum we looked at the gardens and the chapel. The church was unavailable due to a funeral. After about 45 minutes, we’d seen most everything, so we decided to take a walk around town. Beth likes antique stores, so we stopped in a couple and she bought some very nice candlesticks and cards. Following that, we went to a bakery and got a couple of cookies and some tea for the road. We then drove for about 1.5 to Harris Ranch along I 5 and had lunch at the their steakhouse. I had a tip sandwich that was pretty good. We finished with coffee and tea, and at about 3:30 hit the road again. It was about 200 miles more to go. We also spent 10 minutes in the parking lot trying to figure out how to use Car Play with my phone to get the map onto the display. (Going down I had it from Beth’s phone but it was my turn for the music). We never did get it to work, so Beth just gave me directions. We only hit traffic towards the end on 405 in Los Angeles, but it was only about 25 minutes of slow traffic so could have been way worse. We arrived at the hotel around 7. We asked the Bell staff if we could leave the car out front while we checked in, and they said sure, but there was nowhere to actually park it. We unloaded, and then the helpful Bell staff took the keys and said they’d park it while we checked in. We checked in, dropped our bags in the room, and then headed out to Target (Advil and a iPhone charge pack) and dinner. The front desk had told us that there was a target a few miles away and gave us directions. I had Beth use google maps and she found a tiny one closer to the hotel. It was the smallest Target I’ve ever seen, but they had what we needed. Next stop was Sizzler for dinner. The ones near us have closed, so with thought it would nice and fairly quick. I knew there was one less than two miles from the hotel, so I had Beth use google maps. As we were discussing the fact that we were driving 3 miles, which didn’t make sense, we saw the one I thought of just ahead of us. So we went there. We had a nice mail, and a really great server. We finished with their little ice cream soft serve. From there, we went to Budget Car Return. We had just under 1/8 tank of gas left, and we hadn’t had to fill it, so that was good. The Budget return is across the street more or less from our hotel. The choice was to walk to the corner, cross the street, walk back past the Four Points Hotel (FYI, we stayed there last year for one night, it’s odd don’t recommend) to our hotel, or take the car shuttle back to the airport,, and then the hotel shuttle back from there. Beth had been concerned, but agreed that it was perfectly OK to walk, so we did. Back to the room. Only interesting thing was that I have plastic luggage tag holders, and so we cut the outer two sections off (where it says fold do not cut) because otherwise they’re too bulky. I went to the lobby to use a scissors, but they said they had been lent out and not returned. Huh? Who does that? However they did have a paper cutter in back, so the nice clerk cut them for us. He didn’t do a very precise job, but good enough. So tags are attached and it’s bed time. Tomorrow, Beth does her very first cruise out of LA.

We had to go south on the outbound, and it did delay us a couple hours into Kauai. Ours didn't mention the Crown. At one point I had friends who were going to be on your cruise (they did something else instead), and I said we'd literally be ships passing in the night. I use Opoli every time. I first started using tm when they were part of Prime Time Shuttle, and were presented as a smaller car, with price savings, although now they also have bigger cars. I've been very happy with them. And I started the blog on the Solstice yesterday.

Solstice Day -1 Here we go again - it’s time for my annual cruise with my sister (as always known as Beth). We’d originally booked a January 30 10 day cruise on the Equinox, but it turned out we had tickets for the US Figure Skating championships in San Jose the week before, and that ended at 8:30 pm on the 29th. So we decided to move that to 2024. We got a pretty good price on a 7 day Mexico cruise on the 4th, which is 5 days after skating ended, so we booked that. And it’s almost time. When we were looking at flights, we faced a challenge in that she wanted to fly Jet Blue, because that’s where she has free bags, and I wanted to fly United because that’s where I do. We couldn’t find any combination that didn’t involve DH making two trips to the airport, so I looked up the price of a rental car. A one way would cost less than two flights. So we set that up for today. However, a week and a half ago, my mom fell and broke the top of her leg. She’s 90, so the surgery was hard on her and it wasn’t clear when she’d be out of the hospital and into a rehab facility. So a couple of days ago, we looked at going down tomorrow (Feb 3) instead. We changed it, since, with driving, we don’t need the extra day of cushion. It’s about 5-6 hours. And it was a good thing, since she went to rehab today. (And she’s looking pretty good). So I’m packed, mostly, and about to toddle off to bed. We’re picking my sister up at my mom’s house at 9:15 tomorrow, and picking up a car at San Jose Airport soon after. Our ship leaves from San Pedro and goes to Cabo, Mazatlan and San Diego. It will be our fist time on the Solstice, and we’re looking forward to that.

Crown December Day 16 bye-bye We woke around 7:30 and leisurely got ready. We left around 8:20 and said goodbye to our steward on the way out to Club Fusion. We found a table and waited. At some point Carol and Eric said they were heading off the ship (they do self disembarkation) and were going to the shuttle back to their hotel to get their car and drive home. We said our fond farewell. We chatted with a guy next to us for a bit. Finally at about 9:40, our tag was called, so we left, saying goodbye to Vanessa on our way out. As we were walking off the ship, our driver from Opoli called. I said we’d be about 10 minutes, since there wasn’t much of a line. We walked through the customs area thinking maybe no customs because we didn’t get off the ship in Ensenada? We took the stairs down to the luggage area and found it was complete chaos. We saw that our color was in a secondary room, and as we walked to the room, we were stopped and held outside for about 10-15 minutes. They said there was no room. A ton of people kept coming out, so I guess I could understand why they made us wait. Finally we got in, and there were still a lot of bags there. I started to get worried because I sure didn’t see them. Fortunately, Glen used the air tag in his and found both of them. We then headed towards the exit, and there was a short line where customs sometimes is. But it was the facial recognition system so went very quickly. During this process we heard from our driver, and he was over at the “white tent” which is at 92, and we were at 93. I called him back once we were outside and told him where we were. We eventually, at about 20 minutes past when we were supposed to meet him. Our flight was at 1:30, so 10:20 was fine. There was a bit of traffic but we had a nice conversation with him on the way to the airport. (We did give him a nice tip because he waited, and we appreciated it). I think one of the reasons, probably the main one, disembarkation was such a mess was because the ship was about 95% of capacity, probably because it was a holiday sailing. And so a wrap. Thanks for reading and for waiting.

CrownDecember Day 15 - Ensenada not Awakened at 7:1t by an in cabin announcement from the Captain - as always, not good news. Due to expected weather in the next 24 hours, we are leaving Ensenada after paperwork is completed - no passengers off the ship. We were planning to have a late lunch with friends, but they’d sent a email saying they were getting over colds a couple of days earlier. I guess it was for the best, since we weren’t staying. We watched the Carnival Radiance leave, and we followed her out. We didn’t do much in the morning, except read the new Patter that came out for the unexpected sea day. We decided to try for lunch, since for the first time, no hula. We went and the line wasn’t bad. We were seated at a round table with two other couples. It was a very pleasant way to finish out our last lunch of the cruise. Glen ordered a BLT and this is what he got: Smallest one I’ve ever seen. We finished right around 2pm, so I headed back to my usual haunt for 2pm, Club Fusion to meet Carol for line dance. It was being run by the cruise staff guy who makes it up as he goes along, so not very fun. So instead we went to the casino, and played for a little while. Following that it was back upstairs where Carol gave me a bunch of princess messages bags we’d won and the second water bottle we’d won. Whoopie. After that we went back to the room and packed. I also called about a leftover laundry issue. One of the days the count on tee shirts came back with the number crossed out, and one less written in. After we got our last back last night, I realized I was missing a tee shirt. I talked to a supervisor, he said he’d look for it, but did ask me to go to guest services if it didn’t show up. We met Carol in the lounge, as Eric wasn’t feeling well. After having our drinks, we headed to the good bye trivia. It was about the the cruise, and the Princess ships. One of the questions was what ships does Princess have. Turns out his list was about 5 years old. We did come in second. After trivia, we went to our last dinner. I had asparagus, turkey and one of my favorite desserts, floating islands. Fish someone else had: I said goodbye to Carol and Glen went off to get some cash to pay her back for the Ialoni Palace tour. After that, I noticed my missing shirt hadn’t shown up, so I went to guest services to fill out the form about it. I did the form, and the rep said she’d give me OBC for the amount I was claiming. It was after 10 pm, so the only thing still open was the casino. So back I went. After that, I went back to the room. We put the bags out, and went to bed. Another fun cruise in the books.