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.