Panama Cruise 2025 Day 5 October 31 Puerto Vallarta

 

So today was Halloween and we docked in Puerto Vallarta, they were a little late on getting us off the ship, once we got off the ship we headed out to the local port area and caught a taxi down to the Malacon. The Malecón in Puerto Vallarta is a mile-long oceanfront promenade and boardwalk in the city's downtown area, known as the cultural heart of the city. It's a pedestrian-only area lined with shops, restaurants, art galleries, sculptures, and lively street performances, making it a popular spot for locals and tourists to gather, especially in the evenings. 

Day of the Dead actually takes place on November 1^st after Halloween and they were busy decorating the area for the celebrations tomorrow.  This area has a wide variety of sculptures and there were numerous businesses that had sponsored Day of the Dead sculptures. There was just so much to see.

  

After we explored the area we found The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Church, built between 1930 and 1940, was constructed on the original foundations of a chapel initially dedicated to Lady Guadalupe in 1901. The Church is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin Mary. She is the patroness saint of Mexico and is considered a religious symbol of Catholic faith and female empowerment.

After the church we walked around a bit more but it was so hot and humid we decided to head back to the ship and make a quick stop to Walmart. The Walmart located right across the street from the cruise ship and we wanted to see if it was different than ours. It wasn’t, just a little harder to find stuff because everything was in Spanish but I managed to find some drink mixes for a Mexican lime drink and Horchata.  I was hoping that they had some that was premixed but I was unable to find any. We also bought Len a metal water cup with a straw.  I had one that I have been filling up with water, ice tea mix and ice and it stays cold all day, even in the sun.

 

We got back to the ship in time to have quick shower and head for any early dinner. We decided to try out the buffet for dinner tonight because they were doing Mexican. They had El Pastor tacos and other Mexican food. It was very good; the fresh grilled pineapple salsa made the tacos. We decided however to go back to eating in the dining room because it is too easy to overeat in the buffet, too many choices.

We were very tired from all the walking today and decided to watch the 6^th game of the World Series up on the top deck. It was too bad that Dodgers won but we will be looking forward to watching game 7

Panama Cruise 2025 Day 2 & 3 Sea Days Oct 29- 30

 

Day 2

So after sailing out of the Port of Long Beach we headed south past the Baja California peninsula. It took us two days to get to our next stop which was Puerto Vallarta.

We did two enrichment talks this morning, one by another wildlife presenter on the different types of wildlife we could see along our route, humpback whales were making their trek to Mexico for the winter, the different types of dolphins, sea turtles , birds and fish that we might see.

The second talk was by a fellow called Allan Dennis Rich, he is a song writer who wrote the song I will run to you from the Bodyguard movie, he is an Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy nominated song writer. He went through his life story of how he went from a shoe salesman to writing songs for a living just by taking chances and following his dreams. He was very interesting to listen to.

 

The weather was continuing to cooperate so we decided to relax up on the sun deck, we read our books, had an ice cream cone and enjoyed the sunshine and the live music.  They have live music all over the ship, they have piano players, violinists, bands, guitar players and saxophonists.

 

Tonight’s dinner was a formal night, I had the Chantilly swan for dessert, it was so delicate and delicious.

 

After dinner before we went to the theatre we stopped to check out the Champagne waterfall.

 

The show in the theatre tonight had a female singer called Trenyce, her show was called Dueling Divas, a tribute to Diana Ross and Whitney Houston. She had an amazing voice and her performance did justice to both singers.

Day 3

Today was another beautiful day, we seem to like to regular routine of eating breakfast in the buffet. I have my standard breakfast of a salad with peppers, tomatoes, carrots and either shrimp, chicken or salmon. I get some crispy bacon to add, a crispy hashbrown and pineapple spears.  I have also  been having garlic fried rice which is a Filipino dish, I had it when we went to the Philippines, it is definitely something that I have to make when we get home. 

Another sea day means more enrichment talks, we listened to the wildlife speaker again also a talk on cruising through the cosmos by an astronomy expert. After the talks we headed back up to the sun deck to read and watch Hocus Pocus 2

We had a little extra time between dinner and the shows so we took a stroll out on the Promenade deck to enjoy the sunset.

 

The show tonight was done by the Princess singers and dancers called Spectacular. We missed this one the first time so we made sure we got seats tonight. It included, Boogie Woogie music, jitter bug, jazz and jive. After the show we went to see comedian Jeff Burghart, he did a completely new show.   

Panama Cruise 2025 Day 1 Los Angeles

When I originally booked this cruise, it was billed as a 23 day cruise from Vancouver to Ft Lauderdale. What it turned out to be was a Pacific Coast cruise and a Panama Canal cruise, so two complete Cruises. So today is the last day of our first cruise and the embarkation of our next cruise.  With the first part the Canadian passengers out numbered the other countries but there will be quite a few getting off in LA and new passengers getting on.

The ship docks in Long Beach and there are a few things to see in the area but nothing really that we wanted to see. We decided just to stay on the ship and avoid the crowds getting back onto the ship. We did some laundry this morning. There is a laundry room just a couple of minutes from our room, we brought our own detergent and then you just use your medallions to buy tokens for the Washer and Dryers. Having laundry allowed us to take less clothes, even though we still over packed but not too bad.

The day itself was amazing. I think the temperatures was in the low 90’s so we decided that today was the day to get a good base tan for the rest of the trip. We found a great spot on the top deck where we read our books, played a few video games, listened to great live music and kept applying the sunscreen. It got so warm that I decided to try out the pool. I don’t think they filled it until we got to San Francisco and it really hasn’t been warm enough to try it out. We did try the hot tubs a couple of times but even they weren’t super hot.  I tried the pool and let me tell you it was colder than Kootenay Lake in the Summer. It was a good thing that it was so hot outside otherwise I would have been able to even get in.  Needless to say I didn’t stay in very long but is did the job I was cooled off and refreshed.  The port of Long Beach is the major container terminal for Los Angeles. It was not being used to full capacity.

This port is not a busy area right now, trade is definitely not at its max 

There was only a few ships in port and one other cruise ship. It was a Royal Caribbean ship called Icon of the Seas, it is the largest cruise ship in the world, with 20 decks high and measures almost 1,200 feet long. It can accommodate around 7,600 guests and 2,300 crew members. You could see that it had a climbing wall, a large telescoping sky view ride, it also has the world’s largest indoor water park and a zipline ropes course on board.  They have more crew members that we have passengers on our ship.

You can see a large pink bear that is beside the climbing wall, also the observation tower is up in the air

They did another sail away party as we slowly made our way out of the harbour to sail for two days to Puerto Vallarta

The show in the Theatre was an old school comedian called Jeff Burghart. Tonight in the theatre we met a couple from Rochester NY, their names were Michael and Sue.  They were veteran cruisers. I had met Michael earlier he was saving a seat for his wife in the tip back row as she is very tiny and can’t see if she sits lower down.  So every night from that point on we had our nightly discussion on what we did for the day and just general conversations.  They were very friendly and very easy to talk to. There world view was very much to our liking.

We ended up watching the end of the ball game back in the room and then off to sleep, sitting in the sun all afternoon tires you out.

Panama Cruise 2025 Day 7 Santa Barbara

 

So Santa Barbara does not have an actual port that cruise ships pull up to so they anchor in the bay and use some of the lifeboats as a water taxi tat shuttle you back and forth from the ship to the shore and back again when you return. Once your whole group is together you head to the explorer’s lounge to pick up shuttle tickets. Then you wait for them to call your number and you proceed to the loading area and you climb onto the lifeboats. The day was absolutely beautiful, the sun was shining and we were lucky enough to get a seat up on the top on the lifeboat so we got some great views as were heading into town.

Once you disembark you head up a walk way to one of the main streets in town.  I had watch a couple of YouTube videos of the port area and as we were walking this fellow that I had seen on a video was greeting everyone his name was Tony and I said that I had seen him. There are a number of people from town who volunteer with the Visitor Centre to meet and greet people on days that the cruise ships come into town.  They had special buses set up that met you at the drop off location and dropped you off and picked you up at various locations around town.  They have defiantly embraced the cruise ships around here. 

 

We caught the bus to downtown to explore the Court house. 

 

Designed in the Spanish-Colonial style and completed in 1929, It has a distinctive four-faced clock tower, red tile roofs, elegant arches and verdant sunken garden and grounds. It is the place to get married as there were four weddings that we saw happening at different locations on the grounds, the day that we were there. They said that one the most famous wedding that they have had was Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff in 2014. 

There were 144 steps up to the top of the Clock tower and you get a complete 360 degree view of the city.  You can see the Santa Barbara Mission in the distance it is the only mission in California that has two spires. This gives it the name the Queen of the missions. 

 This is the county seat and it is where they hold meetings and special events. The walls were painted by a Hollywood set artist Dan Sayre Groesbeck

Over a 1000 movies and tv shows have been filmed in Santa Barbara with the original Peter Pan filmed in 1942, which is depicted in the mural below

After the courthouse we walked around town for a bit. They have blocked off one of the streets downtown and only allow cross traffic to go through. It opens up a very large outdoor style mall that boasts lots of restaurants with outdoor patios and lots of shopping. The streets are lined with great old trees that offer lost of shade, it was a very enjoyable atmosphere. We found a small bubble tea shop where I got a Horchata bubble tea which is a Mexican spice rice drink, it was delicious. Len had a slushy with fresh strawberries. We continued to walk back towards the ship. We wanted to check out the Ronald Regan Ranch Centre but unfortunately it was closed, only open on the weekends. We did however find a bus stop that took us back to the shuttle dock and it was back onto a boat and headed back across the bay to the ship. 

 

We got back on board, had a shower and got dressed for dinner. We had Surf and Turf tonight, Steak and Lobster, which was very good.  We were able to finish dinner in time to get to the theatre to watch the Spectacular Show by the ships singers and dancers. It was a production show that had a variety of songs and dances from boogie woogie, to swing and jive.  The singers and dancers on board are very talented.  After the show we decided to go back to the room so I could write down stuff for this blog and Len could watch the ball game.  Needless to say I turned my lights out before the ball game ended. Len managed to stay awake for all 18 innings.

Panama Cruise 2025 Day 6 San Diego

We arrived in San Diego at around 8:00 am and went up to have breakfast before we headed out to explore.  When we first got into port we could see a large yacht docked right beside the cruise ship. It turns out it was a seized yacht of a Russian Oligarch. 

Our mission was to find the train depot and take it to Old Town, however when we got off the ship we turned left instead of right and I am not used to using google maps. It was supposed to only take us 8 mins to get to the station and I thought we were just walking slow so that’s why the time was getting longer, turns out we were heading the wrong direction. Only took us 20 mins to figure it out. Got headed in the right direction, found the station and the train took us right to Old Town. Got there about 10 minutes before it opened so it was all good and we had an enjoyable walk along the sea walk.

Old Town San Diego is considered the birthplace of California. Four nations had ruled over California during the 1800’s , Spain 1785- 1822, Mexico 1823- 1846, USA 1850 – 1858, when California became the 31 state and the Bear Flag Republic in 1846 when the US declared war on Mexico and 33 settlers in Northern California declared themselves a republic and raised a homemade flag which was replaced with the stars and stripes when the US army arrived to replace it with the stars and stripes.

Old Town was all decorated up as day of the Dead. Day of the Dead started in the early 1800’s as a somber event. Mexican Catholics celebrated All Saints Day on Nov 1^st and All Souls Day on Nov 2^nd. People dressed in black would walk slowly and quietly from the chapel to the cemetery with lighted candles to honour the dead.

Now families create special altars to honour loved ones who have passed away. Some of the deceased’s favourite things are place on the alter. Items such as sugar skulls, flowers and candles are also displayed. They also had many skeletons dressed up in Mexican attire displayed all over. The origins of Day of the Dead are unclear, some think that its roots lie in Aztec, European and 20^th century traditions but whatever the true origins me be Day of the Dead is a beautiful and meaningful time-honoured tradition that Mexico has shared with the world.

There were not a lot of historic building to actually walk through most of the buildings housed gift stores. There was a blacksmith shop that was actually working. We watch a fellow make a decorative snake out of an old wood rasp. There was this fantastic big tree in the middle of the park, not sure what kind it was but it was enormous.

After old town we took the train back down to the water front where we stopped to take a picture of the Embracing Peace Statue. We headed back to the ship where we spent the rest of the afternoon up on the pool deck reading and catching some sun.

After an evening in the sun it was back to the room for a shower and then off to dinner.  We shared a table again with new people. Dinner was great as usual. After dinner we again headed to the theatre where we had the same duo Ebony and Ivory (Nathan Chester and Emily Viancourt) from our first night, the first show they focused on 70’s music and tonight they sang more Jazz style music. They were excellent both nights. Tonight they also had a comedian in the Universal Lounge so after the theatre we made a beeline to the back of the ship to catch his show. Then it was back to the room for a sound sleep before we head north to Santa Barbara.

Panama Cruise 2025 Day 5 October 25 Sea Day

 We got up early this morning, had breakfast and then headed to the Culinary Demonstration. This is usually a very popular demo so we decided to have our morning tea and coffee in the Universal Lounge so we could get a good seat. The demo was done by the head chef Jerry and the head Maître d Oscar.  They were absolutely hilarious, the first demo was a pesto spaghetti, Jerry gave a good tip if you are using pesto to warm it up on a low heat so that the basil stays a bright green because a higher heat will make it turn black. Oscars tip was to tell when your pasta is done to throw it against the wall and if it sticks, it is done, he threw almost the whole pot and it didn’t stick so they just picked it up and put it back in the water to finish.  The next dish was shrimp il’diablo which is shrimp with chili. Oscar asked if we liked lots of garlic and then proceeded to put in the whole bowl of garlic cloves and Jerry said he liked it very hot and put in a whole container of chili flakes. Needless to say none of us tasted the dishes. Then then brought out the head pastry chef and he and Oscar did a head to head match to make a black forest cake.  Oscar’s used some of the decorations from the fruit and vegi sculptures that were on the table but just before we judged his he brought out a completed cake from under the table.  It was a very funny comedy show, you could tell that they had been working together a long time. After the demo we got to tour the galley and see all the different stations throughout. There is one galley that supplies the two main dining rooms.

 

Dishwashers, they clean approximately 16,000 dishes a day

Salad rolls for lunch

Prepping shrimp for dinner

You can see the side of the escalator that leads to the dining room above.

After the tour we decided to go back to the room and get our bathing suits and go and sit up on the Lido deck to watch a movie and work on our tans. They have a big screen up on the deck where they show movies, sporting events like the ball games throughout the day. We watched the new Karate Kid Legends film it was really good. We have been skipping lunch because it is just too much food. We did partake in a soft ice cream cone for a snack.

We have been going for an earlier dinner so we can make the first theatre show as it gets filled up quickly. There are two dining rooms on board, one that lets you make a reserve a set time for the whole trip, you get the same table and the same waiter every night. We chose the flexible dining room where we just walk up and we usually share a table with 8 to 10 people every night. We like getting to meet new people and so far every person has been enjoyable to talk to. Tonight we had spicy shrimp with crispy plantain chips for my main course that we saw them preparing on our galley tour.

 

After dinner we upstairs to watch the Blue Jays game and since it was such a good game we decided to watch it until the end and catch the theatre show again on the second part of the cruise. After the game he headed back to our cabin as we were arriving early in San Diego and wanted to get a good sleep.