October 6 2012 At sea

Smooth sailing

As yesterday, the sea is like glass, a barely noticeable swell and the temperature is warmer so more people were on the outside decks today, relaxing, exercising and swimming. I’ve heard from past passengers that the sea days between San Diego and Hawaii can be quite cold and rough but I’ve never seen the ocean so smooth before, even in more sheltered waters.

I spent some time relaxing on deck while I completed the daily Suduko, then did a few laps of the Promenade Deck so I wouldn’t feel guilty about not attending the gym or Tai Chi again (and also to walk off some of my lunchtime desserts).

After lunch I went to the Team Trivia and we have now found our American team mate, Trish. Unfortunately the very first question was a sports question and she couldn’t help! We didn’t do too badly though so we will now stay as a team for the rest of the cruise.

I have opted for anytime dining, meaning I do not have a set dining time but turn up when I wish and get seated with different people each night. Tonight was formal night and there was a wait to get seated so I went to the Captain’s reception first then stayed for a few songs of the show tonight but decided it wasn’t really my thing. Back at the restaurant there was still a wait of about 10 minutes and I was eventually seated with two couples, one from New Jersey and the other from New Zealand, which made for good company and conversation during dinner.

Tonight the clocks go back another hour, giving us two 25 hours days out of three. The only problem with this is that when we return to San Diego we will be having several 23 hours days to adjust back to US Pacific time.

October 5 2012 At sea

What a difference a day makes!

The clocks were turned back an hour last night which meant I had an extra hour to sleep in. Although the hotel in San Diego was in a great location, there was a lot of outside noise from both the international airport and naval base, so last night was really quiet in my cabin with just the hum of the air conditioning and the movement of the ship itself.

Now that we are out in the ocean the temperature has dropped, although not enough that I needed a sweater outside (although others were wearing them). It was such a change from the San Diego heat and sunshine to an overcast day which didn’t allow some blue sky through until late in the afternoon. Apart from the dip in temperature, the seas are calm and everyone is finding plenty to do indoors. Not many were venturing outside, mainly those who were going for a brisk walk around the decks.

I spent some time in the Explorations Café where the internet manager is because after signing away an arm and a kidney for the largest internet package, I found that I can’t access it from my cabin, even though I’m getting the maximum signal there. It’s so frustrating!

Later this morning we had our first Cruise Critic Meet & Greet. So many turned up that we just about took over the entire Crows Next and Jason Venner, the Cruise Director came along and spoke to us and even the Captain and Hotel Manager put in an appearance.

This afternoon I joined a trivia team with two Canadian couples, Jenni and Norm, and Carol and John. We didn’t do too badly but we need a token American to help us with those pesky American sports questions they always throw in. Tomorrow the serious cumulative team trivia competition starts – that's when it turns into a blood sport!

After dinner this evening I went to the show – Dave Levesque, a comedic violinist who was pretty entertaining. And why I knew I found him entertaining was that I wasn’t checking my watch every 5 minutes!

Oh, and for the record, I didn’t make it to either the gym or Tai Chi today. Maybe tomorrow!

October 4 2012 San Diego - sailing

My ship has come in

When I looked out my window this morning the Westerdam was docked opposite, with the Zuiderdam and Star Princess just along from it. The San Diego cruise season has now officially started! Even with all the news coverage of the first televised Obama/Romney debate last night, local news still covered the arrival of these cruise ships.

View from my room of the Westerdam

From closing my hotel door to walking across the street with my luggage, dropping my suitcase off with the porters, filling out the compulsory health statement and checking in and receiving my cruise card took 20 minutes. Traffic officers were on hand to ensure that passengers with luggage got across the road without any problems (i.e. no Don’t Walk signs suddenly blinking). In fact, my experience with traffic officers here and at the airport on arrival and transit officers when buying my travel pass could not have been better. All I met have been very helpful – particularly the woman at the airport who rang the hotel three times to find out where their courtesy shuttle was.

Boarding was to start at noon but began earlier so by 11.45am I was in my cabin and ready to explore.

View from the Crows Nest back to the Holiday Inn and Downtown

I signed up for the Body Sculpt Boot Camp then thought better of it later – I’m on holidays, why inflict so much pain on myself that I won’t be able to move for several days afterwards – so I went back up to the gym and removed myself from the list! I’ll make do with using the stairs, using the treadmills and attending the daily Tai Chi classes instead.

The mandatory emergency drill was at 4.15 pm and since the Costa Concordia tragedy earlier this year, passengers are warned that if they do not attend the drill they will be removed from the ship prior to sailing.

After that there was a sailaway party on Lido Deck around the pool. It was one of the best attended sailaway parties I’ll seen on HAL with live music and some dancing. It also gave me a chance to catch up with some of the Cruise Critic roll call members I’ve met online over the past months since booking this cruise.

Sailaway excitement is too much for some!

As my luggage wasn’t delivered by the time I decided to have dinner, I ate in the Lido again then browsed through the shops. When I returned to my cabin later my suitcase had arrived so I unpacked and then decided to call it a night.

October 3, 2012 San Diego

The Waiting Game

Today was a lazy day, sleeping in and then doing some last minute shopping before the cruise starts tomorrow. I caught the trolley back to Mission Valley, again not finding what I wanted but buying some other items instead. It’s always interesting to see the differences in both products and prices in other countries so I picked up a few things which I hadn’t seen back home. I do think though that when it comes to mall food courts, Australia wins when it comes to a better range of healthier eating options.

The hotel I’m staying in, the Holiday Inn on the Bay, is right on the waterfront in San Diego and I will have a great view of the Westerdam tomorrow morning as it should dock directly opposite – so close in fact that I will catch the lift downstairs, walk out the door, cross the road and be at the dock. The hotel provides a courtesy shuttle to the ship but it would take me longer to walk to the hotel lobby to catch the shuttle, rather than just crossing the road with my luggage.

 Also along the waterfront from the hotel is a maritime museum with a variety of vessels from old clippers to submarines so the photos below show the view from my balcony and some images taken at sunset this evening.

 

View from my hotel balcony with Star of India in background

 

Figurehead of Star of India

 

Now I'm in countdown mode for tomorrow when I board the Westerdam for my 30 night cruise.

2 October 2012 San Diego

Gone Troppo
 

So how do the San Diego Zoo polar bears cope with the current heatwave?  They don’t have the layers of fat they would have if they lived in the Arctic so today they were enjoying sunbaking and eating melon while having a refreshing dip! They also enjoyed some carrots, supplementing their normal diet.

 

 

 

 

 

The other animal exhibit I really enjoyed was the hippo pool. Two hippos were roughhousing in the water and with the underwater viewing I had a great view. It was amazing to see how easily they moved in the water, and surprisingly for their size and weight, they were very light on their feet, bouncing around and hardly touching the pool floor at all. Last year in Africa they didn’t look as dangerous as what I saw today as then so much of their strength, size – and teeth – were hidden under water.

 

 

All the above photos were, obviously, taken through glass, hence the scratch marks and reflections.

 

I only spent a few hours at the zoo before visiting Balboa Park next door, built for the Panama –California Expo of 1915-16.  There were some beautiful buildings which I had briefly glimpsed from the plane before I arrived on Sunday.

 

 

 

I caught the bus back Downtown, had a look around Horton Plaza and then headed back to the hotel.

 

 

 

October 1 2012 San Diego

Times Past

Sydney could take some pointers from San Diego’s public transport system. Today I used the trolley (light rail) to get around. It was clean, fast, efficient and inexpensive. $5 gets you a day pass on the light rail and bus system here – a bargain! As a visitor who isn’t interested in renting a car for the day, this system got me to everywhere I wanted to go to today.

The Green Line Trolley

First stop was Old Town San Diego State National Park which consists of restored and reconstructed buildings reflecting San Diego’s past history. The two places I found most interesting were the McCoy House (reconstructed) with its Victorian décor so very similar to numerous places back home and the San Diego Union (original), the newspaper and printing office. The same great grandfather who sailed around Cape Horn and worked in Valpariso which I visited last year on my Antarctic cruise, worked as a printer for a newspaper in San Francisco during the same era that the San Diego Union was operating, hence my interest in this small basic structure.

San Diego Union printing office

From here it was time to get serious and I hit the malls, first Mission Valley and then Fashion Valley but couldn’t buy what I really wanted – a swimsuit. With a heatwave going on, there are only mismatched swimwear pieces on bargain racks! What a disappointment. Some of my purchases would have surprised me six months – running gear. Who would have thought it!

The heatwave is continuing but I haven’t found it too bad as although it’s hot it is a dry heat and quite bearable.

Tomorrow I plan to visit the San Diego Zoo and see how the polar bears are coping with this heat.

30 September 2012 Sydney to San Diego

Airports, Airports, Airports

Today was mostly about getting from A to B via LAX. Door to door this worked out at just under 24 hours and after a sleepless night, and then a fairly sleepless flight it was a struggle to stay awake for the long transit in Los Angeles.

Qantas does look after its passengers on long haul flights with meals, snacks including mango ice cream and pizza, a self-service snack bar and on demand movies which are now available as soon as you are seated but it was hard to sleep because I had prebooked to sit at the rear of the 747 where there is just an aisle and window seat with extra space because the window seat. These use to be the best seats in economy but a warning to those who like these rear side rows - Qantas has recently been upgrading these planes which unfortunately mean that these rows of two seats now have a support in the middle of the base of each seat, meaning there is no footrest for the passenger sitting behind, i.e. me, and you can’t store a bag under the seat either.   

When we landed in Los Angeles I couldn’t believe the lack of lines at the immigration counters. In the past I have missed connecting flights because of the long queues and waits to reach the immigration counter but today there were only 6 people in front of me – and some other counter lines had less.

Who needs to win the lottery – own an airport instead! I thought Sydney was expensive but food and beverages are even more costly at LAX. One good thing is that both airports offer free WiFi which helped to pass the time.

My flight down to San Diego was on a codeshare with American Eagle so I had to transfer from the American Airlines terminal to the American Eagle terminal via shuttle bus which travelled parallel to the runway – which made for some interesting close up views of aircraft.

Both the shuttle I was in and this plane were on the move!

Finally I arrived in San Diego and settled into my hotel. The big news here is the heatwave that San Diego has been having so as hotel room faces west it was quite warm when I checked in, making it hard to relax after the long flights until it had cooled down. I had a great view of the sunset though!

Home Sweet Home - for 4 nights anyway