Finding Magical Jewels on the West Coast...9/18/2015 review (16,000+ photos & videos)

[DEIx15x8]

The rest of the night was then to spend back at the ship soaking up the scenery.

 

 

 

 

I even filmed this day’s edition of theCruiseView on the deck 5 promenade with this beautiful shot!

 

Since I have one more photo slot available for this post, I’ll end the 22nd with one last sunrise photo!

[jmf123]

Thank you, Derek, for your great review and awesome photos! It was very interesting to read and see pictures regarding the cable car's history! We enjoyed our Jewel cruise the following week- perfect ship, crew, and itinerary. :)

[DEIx15x8]

Jewel of the Seas: San Francisco (9/23/2015)

Photo Album: https://goo.gl/photos/gEAPfJMRQb6o2XQYA

 

The next day we were still in San Francisco and yet somehow we were not. I was expecting a two climate cruise with cold rainy weather at the start and warm sunny weather at the end, but I fully expected the transition to happen on the sea day between Astoria and San Francisco, or at the latest in between Monterey and Santa Barbara. Instead the transition happened when we were sitting still. While the 22nd was chilly, windy, cloudy, and kind of gloomy weather, on the 23rd we woke up to clear skies, a calm breeze, and warm (actually a bit hot) temperatures! It was like two completely different places how much the weather changed overnight.

 

But since we really were still in San Francisco that meant another beautiful sunrise over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

 

 

 

Somehow this just doesn’t seem to get old…

 

 

 

That is why I filmed a bonus time-lapse! While we weren’t arriving or departing any ports over night, I did set up my GoPro anyway and shot a time-lapse clip of the San Francisco-Oakland By Bridge all lit up at night as well as the sunrise on the 23rd.

[YOUTUBE]_72uDvBdBSI[/YOUTUBE]

[DEIx15x8]

While the first day was a nice tour of part of the city and riding the transit system, the second day was another San Francisco icon, Alcatraz Island. Many people have said that the tickets sell out weeks in advance on most days so I bought our tickets independently the day they opened up. Royal Caribbean does offer some excursions to Alcatraz but they all seemed to be bundled with something else for a higher price and I didn’t like the idea of having to rush through it to stay on schedule. So we had the very first ferry of the day (i believe it was 8:40) allowing us as much time as we could possibly want. The ferries to Alcatraz are at Pier 33 which was just a short walk up the road from the ship at Pier 27.

 

The ride over there was smooth since the weather was much better than the previous day. When you get off the boat they have a short orientation speech to listen to and then you can walk around the island. There is a video that you can see in the gift shop to gain a better understanding of the history and then an audio tour of the actual prison at the top of the hill. I’ve done the tour of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and enjoyed it. So I was expecting something similar from Alcatraz and with all the hype something a little better. IMO though Alcatraz really wasn’t all that interesting. It felt like a commercialized tourist trap. Unlike the prison in Philly that is all dilapidated and authentic, Alcatraz was spotless and felt far to maintained and current to really appreciate the history. Sometimes a little wear and tear improves things, and in this case I think it was needed.

 

The audio tour itself was really good though. Most have numbers and you go to locations to hear about it. At Alcatraz it’s a continuous recording that tells you to walk to different places and keeps you moving around the prison as it goes through explaining everything and the history. They did an excellent job with that aspect of it. The island as a whole was beautiful and with the incredible weather it was just perfect for photo taking!

 

 

 

 

[DEIx15x8]

From Alcatraz Island you had a great view of the whole harbor and city, including the Jewel of the Seas!

 

 

For being a rock in the middle of the bay even the nature moss and vegetation was beautiful under the blue skies.

 

 

 

[DEIx15x8]

And of course we could see the Golden Gate Bridge perfectly from it’s vantage point directly in front of the mouth of the bay.

 

 

 

 

I’m glad I visited Alcatraz and it was interesting, but it really did not live up to the hype. I certainly wouldn’t visit it a second time if I get back to San Francisco but I’m glad I can say that I’ve been there.

 

[PCWalton1]

Thank you so much for taking the time to post all your wonderful photos and videos.

 

I had a question about your stop in Astoria. Did you use a ship's tour and if so what was it called? We hope to be stopping on Astoria next fall on Explorer and it looked like something we would like to do.

thanks

[DEIx15x8]

Thank you so much for taking the time to post all your wonderful photos and videos.

 

I had a question about your stop in Astoria. Did you use a ship's tour and if so what was it called? We hope to be stopping on Astoria next fall on Explorer and it looked like something we would like to do.

thanks

 

We took a ship tour. It was called "Historic Astoria and Fort Clatsop". I enjoyed it. There are a few different variations of scenic tours that go different places but this one had a nice variety of places and was a good price for the length of it.

[DEIx15x8]

Once we got back to the mainland it was about 1pm so we just headed back to the ship to take in the sights from there once more and have a nice lunch. Since it was warm out we could sit outside on the back deck and had a perfect view of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, and Golden Gate Bridge all from our table. You couldn’t get a better view than that.

 

Under the now perfect conditions of our second day both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge were perfectly visible from the ship.

 

 

 

I don’t know that we could have had better weather than we did on this day.

 

Even the sailboats started dotting the bay in the afternoon.

[DEIx15x8]

As 5pm rolled around we got ready to depart. The beautiful weather continued with some light clouds starting to roll in.

 

As we turned out of the pier and started to make our way through the bay the calmness of the air was also broken with a bit of a breeze but the sun through the clouds made up for that.

 

 

 

We even saw some kite surfers off to the starboard side.

 

This time as we neared the bridge we could actually see the Golden Gate Bridge in her full glory.

[DEIx15x8]

This time as we sailed under the bridge the crowd was a bit larger and more active having not had to wake up at 5am and freeze to see it. The silence of the bridge itself was still rather amazing though.

 

 

 

 

The bridge was old news by this time though. After 2 days of constantly seeing it and caring about it we had enough, what was more amazing was what lied on the other side. Having been in the bay the whole time and arriving in complete darkness I had no idea about the incredible cliffs and hills that laid on the other side of it.

 

[DEIx15x8]

 

 

 

 

 

As we made our way out to sea I just caught the sight of a giant tale flopping back into the water. Looking all around I never saw anything else or any other sign to confirm what I believe was a whale right near the ship, but others confirmed seeing the whale as well. It was not the end of our whale sightings though. During dinner (unfortunately so no pictures) a large whale decided to swim with the ship and could be seen jumping out of the water along side us for several minutes. It was a pretty cool sight to see and far more exciting and inline with what I was expecting from our whale watching experience. It seemed like every step of the way we saw more and more exciting nature just sitting on the ship than we did when intentionally looking for it.

 

Don’t forget the departure was included in the video I posted yesterday starting at about 28 minutes in and the bridge passage is about 58 minutes in.

[YOUTUBE]hpzp06qM6V8[/YOUTUBE]

 

I know it’s not from the Jewel of the Seas or San Francisco, but for comparison here’s our passage under the Golden Gate Bridge’s sister bridge in Lisbon Portugal on the Independence of the Seas. The first video is our arrival with the bridge passage near the end and the second is our departure with it right at the start. In both videos it’s amazing just how loud that bridge was and they were taken from down on deck 5 while on Jewel passing under the Golden Gate Bridge I was up on deck 13 much closer to the actual bridge. The entire time we were docked in Lisbon we could hear the loud sound of the bridge because it was so noisy and yet the Golden Gate Bridge was quiet.

[YOUTUBE]MGgtyIAJfVQ[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]3rTIg-9KG7s[/YOUTUBE]

[DEIx15x8]

After dinner Dennis once again showed his skills by taking a routine time filling game and making it a venue filling crowd pleaser. To fill the time between the two dinners/shows they held another music trivia game in the Centrum, but this time Dennis hosted it. Throughout the show he kept it fun and casual, constantly joking, singing, and dancing. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget seeing him perform Justin Bieber during it. More importantly though for everyone onboard, the entire time he was giving away prizes like they were water. He was practically grabbing handfuls of items to toss into the crowd. I’ve never seen Royal Caribbean award so many prizes in such a short period of time and it just added to the excitement of the venue. For being such a simple and dull game model, it was one of the most entertaining activities they held during the sailing.

 

 

We then had our second Royal Caribbean Production show, City of Dreams. This one like the first seemed to have a lot of costume changes and a variety of music. The thing that was most impressive though was some of the large moving set pieces they used including a large ship in the opening number.

 

 

 

That night we were also sailing into a near full moon casting a bright light onto the ocean and lighting up the night sky for us.

 

That does it for San Francisco, I think it was about half the review, but it was the feature port of the itinerary. Next up is Monterey.

[DEIx15x8]

Jewel of the Seas: Monterey, CA (9/24/15)

Photo Album: https://goo.gl/photos/jsAyKaGXJ7yxM9bQA

 

Monterey was so close to San Francisco that after hugging the coast the entire cruise the captain had to just taker her out to sea to kill some time!

 

Since this itinerary didn’t already have enough beauty on it’s own they scheduled an entire port that is known just for it’s beauty! It certainly wanted to live up to it’s reputation from the moment the first bits of light started to show over the mountains. Monterey doesn’t have the ability to dock large ships so it was a tender port. That just meant we could sit back farther to see all the beauty.

 

 

The fire continued to grow as the sun got higher.

 

 

Eventually it started to weaken to a bright orange that still lit the sky up before fading into a normal pink and blue morning.

[DEIx15x8]

The Jewel of the Seas got to use her own tender boats. In all my cruising I’ve only tendered at two ports, Grand Cayman (Voyager of the Seas and Grandeur of the Seas) and Labadee (Voyager of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas) each one twice. So tendering is still a rather rare and fun experience for me. The Jewel was the first ship I’ve been on to use her own tenders though. That was a rather interesting experience. The process was noticeably slower than using the large boats, but I was surprised just how big the tenders actually are, and even more surprised to find that they had an upper deck that instantly became my favorite place to ride!

 

The actual ride to land took about 10 minutes as they went into the harbor and had to wind around a little to where they were set up to handle the shore side operations. It was a quick smooth ride, felt much shorter than it actually was. Right where we got off was the wharf area with some shops and restaurants as well as even a whale watching tour.

 

We were guided strait to our bus to start our excursion, the 17-mile drive. We started off with a drive around Monterey to see and learn about some of the city’s history. We also got some nice views of our ship as we drove around.

 

We then headed off along the coastline and started the 17-mile drive. It seemed like the picturesque scenery never stopped. The entire time there was always something that needed to be photographed.

 

 

We stopped at Bird Rock to get out and look around. There was of course, plenty to photograph there.

[DEIx15x8]

There was a PGA tournament scheduled for that day so everything was setup with stands, scoring boards, press tents, and TV cameras.

 

 

 

 

 

[DEIx15x8]

We then continued on to Carmel by the Sea where we had some time to walk around. It was a picturesque little town with a street market going on while we were there, but it wasn’t that interesting. It seemed like we were more killing time until the bus was leaving as we walking around rather than actually doing something.

 

 

There was a nice looking little shopping center by the location the bus parked at.

 

Once we were done in Carmel we continued on to the Carmel Mission. The flags were up and network news teams were out front because this was Junipero Serra’s mission and he was made a saint by the pope the day before we arrived. It seemed like we had a lot of lucky timings on this excursion.

 

 

We then made our way back to the ship. At the entrance of the wharf area there was a large beach that people were sitting on since we had beautiful weather but nobody was in the water because it was way too cold.

[DEIx15x8]

After taking some time to walk around the wharf area I headed back to the tender and headed for the Jewel again for some lunch and to enjoy the rest of my afternoon onboard.

 

 

Since we were tendering most of the departure was just watching the crew clean up the tender boats, load them onboard, and close up the tendering docks.

 

 

The US Coast Guard was very aggressive in protecting the Jewel in every port including Monterey where they even went after a kayaker who was nowhere near the ship and traveling away from her.

 

In between the two dinner/show seatings for this night they held the Summer Breeze singer song set in the Centrum featuring two of the Royal Caribbean singers.

[DEIx15x8]

The headliner for the night was Karen Grainger, a singer impressionist. She was another one of Royal Caribbean’s many music guest acts they bring onboard that perform a variety of songs with the live band that span all generations.

 

It was then time for the 70’s Disco Party in the Centrum. After the way the 60’s party went I had very low expectations of this one. It started out with the two other members of the Royal Caribbean Singers doing their own 70’s song set as they moved all around the Centrum to try and get things moving.

 

It then transitioned over to Dennis and Daniel for a full blown 70’s Party. For not having any Centrum Wow to use they managed to really bring the place to life with simply loading every possible place with people. They had dancers on the stairs.

 

Locked the elevators down and had people dancing in them (Grandeur did use her elevators but only as they would move by, not as an actual part of the event).

 

It was mainly hosted from the overlook area.

 

And of course they had people down in the crowd on the floor. Including the Village People. Even Dennis was a part of the village people which kind of surprised me. He disappeared at one point but continued to host the event and talk continuously and then suddenly came back out completely changed. Just one more example of how easily Dennis seems to be able to run any event, even while in a different room getting changed.

[DEIx15x8]

I enjoyed the event and was really surprised by how much energy they were able to get into the venue without having all the extra lighting and video systems to rely on. They did kind of cheat and throw a lot of things out though, including shirts.

 

After the party the ship was quiet. There was a beautiful clear sky though with a bright moon shinning across the ocean once more.

 

 

You can check out the video of our arrival and departure from Monterey here. You can see the coast guard chasing a boat away starting at about 16:15 and the kayaker at about 17:15.

[YOUTUBE]KNEFguUhkwA[/YOUTUBE]

 

I also have a video of the complete 70’s Disco Centrum Party!

[YOUTUBE]5234WDzPUhU[/YOUTUBE]

[DEIx15x8]

Jewel of the Seas: Santa Barbara, CA (9/25/15)

Photo Album: https://goo.gl/photos/Zvhtn4o1e55RdYgS9

 

Our last port of call on this 8 night sailing, and another tender day. Things started out early arriving to a muggy and fog filled port before the sun even rose.

 

As the early morning sunlight began to light the sky it revealed the massive mountains that lined the harbor. Santa Barbara is just north of LA so this was our first real glimpse of the LA area.

 

Unlike the previous days the sun didn’t light up the sky or do anything fancy, it just rose from behind the mountains.

 

 

 

It did however reveal some oil rigs that were off in the distance and completely obscured by the fog earlier when we arrived.

[DEIx15x8]

We didn’t have any excursions scheduled for this day so we were onboard the ship a bit longer as we waited for all the excursion people to get off. That meant a nice relaxing breakfast with nowhere to get to by a certain time, one of the few for this voyage. This gave extra time to enjoy the sun completely rising and the fog dissipating to reveal all the detail of the mountains that lined the harbor along with the impressive houses up on the cliffs and hills of them.

 

 

 

 

When they stopped issuing tender tickets and it was open for anyone to head ashore that wanted to we went to get a tender assuming that was a good sign that things would be empty and quick. That way we could maximize our enjoyment of the ship and not waiting in line. That was not true, we still waited over half an hour in a line that never budged before finally getting to go to a tender. As we left it seemed like all four tenders were at the ship at one time having to even wait their turn. Never heard if they had an issue or something happened, but it certainly seemed like they all got stuck at the shore side for a period that caused the backup.

 

While the ride in Monterey was a busy one with the harbor and boats right there, the one in Santa Barbara was a little more open with a short ride through open waters to the opening of the harbor and then through a channel that ran along the beach before reaching the actual harbor where the line had a dock for themselves once again. It seemed like it was just a little bit longer than the ride in Monterey, but it was more scenic being open with the beach instead of all through a harbor. The most traffic during the ride was from all of the paddle boarders and U.C.S.B. had a dock next to the where the tenders dropped off that was used for marine biology studies and sailing.

[DEIx15x8]

As soon as you step off the tenders you can see the massive beaches right there. It was just a short walk down the dock and you can immediately step right onto the sand and walk to the water. This was the day that we had set aside as our beach day and it was obviously the right choice since it couldn’t have been any easier.

 

We started at the first large beach since it was close. This area had a lot of the paddle boarders and small boat traffic with the harbor there. As a result there was a lot of seaweed, but the water was calm.

 

 

After a short time there we decided to walk down the beach to the other side of the pier to see what it was like over there. On the other side the water was much cleaner, but there were more waves there. The beach was still just as massive as the other side, but while the first beach was right along the city street, the second beach was a little more secluded with a dune in place.

 

 

 

I was surprised how few people seemed to be going to the beach. It was late September so not prime season, but I thought the ship alone would have brought more people to the beach. We did see the singers and dancers on the beach along with members of the band and various other crew members. So it seemed like they got to come to shore and I’m sure after being in Alaska all summer they were looking forward to this beach day. They probably matched or exceeded the number of passengers on the beach.

[DEIx15x8]

With the blue skies and warm sun it was a perfect day to spend on the beach and great conditions for photographing nature, the mountains, and even the Jewel anchored off the shore.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2015 by DEIx15x8

[DEIx15x8]

Heading back to the ship Royal Caribbean and the port of Santa Barbara did a nice job of taking care of the guests. There was a bit of a line, but it seemed to move quickly. They setup tents along the pier so that everyone would be in the shade and lined the whole length with chairs on each side so that people could sit if needed.They also had water available with crew walking the line offering to get some for people.

 

Our ride back was a bit more interesting than the ride to the beach. In the afternoon more people were out partaking in water activities so there was a lot more activity to watch out for including a sailboat that seemed to think it was a smart decision to cut between our tender and the boat in front of us. The tender blew its horn and quickly turned to avoid the accident, but it could have easily gone badly.

 

 

Back onboard the Jewel of the Seas with the fog completely gone and a completely clear atmosphere it was now possible to get a perfect view of the oil rigs off in the distance. (look very closely on the horizon in the first one).

 

 

There were also some wind surfers out enjoying the great conditions as well.

Edited November 6, 2015 by DEIx15x8