adventure2022 / California Coastal Cruise
April 3, 2022
In early 2022 we decided to take a California Coastal cruise for our anniversary. The brand new Discovery Princess' launch was delayed a month and ended up being an annibirthdary cruise instead, celebrating both our anniversary and my birthday.
The seven day cruise took us from our departure point at the Port of Los Angeles up to San Francisco, then back down the coast to Santa Barbara, San Diego, Ensenada and then back to LA to finish up. It wasn't exotic or adventurous, since we were staying in our home state of California, but it was a much needed relaxing vacation. We did get to see some places that we normally wouldn't put the effort into seeing, especially since we were letting someone else do all the driving in traffic for us.
The cruise started off in Los Angeles, where we boarded on a Sunday morning. Since we left from Los Angeles, we chose to just drive our EV to the port and pay to park for the week instead of finding some other form of transportation. There are very few options for getting from the inland empire to the port that don't involve 3-4 hours on a bus+train combo. We departed in the afternoon and watched as sea lions and other local wildlife hung out around the port. It's a fairly long boat ride up to San Francisco from Los Angeles, so we dug in for two days of relaxation at sea. Since it was early April, it was still "California cold" off the coast as we traveled north, with temps in the 50-60°F range for most of the trip.
We woke up in San Francisco a couple of days after our departure, ready for our first excursion. We've been to San Francisco before, and it's not really an exciting place to be if you're a California native, so we chose to do something more naturey. We rode in a bus up to the Muir Woods National Monument where we spent a couple of hours hiking the trails and seeing all the beautiful redwood trees. There wasn't much else here, and we were kind of rushed for time even though this was to be one of our longest port days on the cruise. After an abbreviated visit to the Woods, we got back on our bus for a ride into Sausalito, a small artsy-fartsy town just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. If I had a choice, I would have preferred to just have a few more hours in the woods instead of having this stop, but this is the option we had. Alex and I wandered around and looked at the boats in the marina before we ate some unremarkable lunch at a little bakery and cafe along the waterfront. I could see why some people might want to visit the town, but it just wasn't very interesting to me. At least now I can say I've been and don't need to ever go back.
After riding the bus back to our ship, we walked from the berth down to Pier 39 to do some window shopping and wildlife spotting. There are tons of sea lions to watch floating around on docks that appear to be set up just for them. The pier is like a small carnival, and was too crowded for my liking. We walked back to the ship and had some dinner before going to bed. The next day was another sea day as we turned around and headed back south towards Santa Barbara.
Two days later we arrived in Santa Barbara. Our excursion for this port was cancelled and we weren't informed until we boarded the ship. Since there were no interesting alternatives that we could re-book, we decided to just do our own thing. After debarking the ship, we found a place that rented e-Bikes and got a couple to ride around town for a few hours. We basically did the same thing we were planing on doing in the excursion, but with a few extra stops, and no guide to hurry us along. It was quite nice, and an excellent way to spend the day in Santa Barbara. The port time for here was short though, only from 7am to 3pm, so we didn't do much more than ride along the shore path, then up to the mission just to look at it before returning the bikes and walking along the beach on the way back to the ship. At this point, California was getting hit with an unseasonably warm spell, and it was in the lower 90s, well above the average of around 75°F for the coastal town. If the water wasn't so cold, it'd have been an excellent day to just sit on the beach and swim to our hearts content.
The next day we arrived in San Diego for a fairly long day in port. Our excursion was a bus ride out to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, formerly known as the Wild Animal Park. We spent all day looking at cool animals and sweating up a storm, as it was close to 100 degrees all day. It was a little funny that we did this, as both Alex and I thought it was much closer to San Diego. We ended up riding in a bus for an hour to Escondido, which is a little over an hour from our house. We basically could have just gone home for the day and swam in our pool if we wanted to.
After the long day in the heat, we just hung out on the ship for the rest of the night, even though the ship's departure time wasn't until 10pm. It's a very short cruise from San Diego to Ensenada, our next stop, so there was no rush. Since Alex and I both have some anxiety over visits to Mexico, we decided to stay on the ship in Ensenada. We booked the Sanctuary for half the day and had a great time just hanging out at the pool and on the cushy seats, being catered to for four hours. The staff were really nice, and even let me stay in the Sanctuary after they were supposed to close up because I wanted the nice vantage point as we left port for the trip back to LA. As we were pulling out of the breakwaters, there were a bunch of sea lions riding the bow wave and looked like they wanted to get run over by our ship.
Finally, a week after we left we pulled back into port in Los Angeles for the long drive home. Vacation over, and feeling relaxed, we resumed our lives and started dreaming of our next vacation.
The seven day cruise took us from our departure point at the Port of Los Angeles up to San Francisco, then back down the coast to Santa Barbara, San Diego, Ensenada and then back to LA to finish up. It wasn't exotic or adventurous, since we were staying in our home state of California, but it was a much needed relaxing vacation. We did get to see some places that we normally wouldn't put the effort into seeing, especially since we were letting someone else do all the driving in traffic for us.
The cruise started off in Los Angeles, where we boarded on a Sunday morning. Since we left from Los Angeles, we chose to just drive our EV to the port and pay to park for the week instead of finding some other form of transportation. There are very few options for getting from the inland empire to the port that don't involve 3-4 hours on a bus+train combo. We departed in the afternoon and watched as sea lions and other local wildlife hung out around the port. It's a fairly long boat ride up to San Francisco from Los Angeles, so we dug in for two days of relaxation at sea. Since it was early April, it was still "California cold" off the coast as we traveled north, with temps in the 50-60°F range for most of the trip.
We woke up in San Francisco a couple of days after our departure, ready for our first excursion. We've been to San Francisco before, and it's not really an exciting place to be if you're a California native, so we chose to do something more naturey. We rode in a bus up to the Muir Woods National Monument where we spent a couple of hours hiking the trails and seeing all the beautiful redwood trees. There wasn't much else here, and we were kind of rushed for time even though this was to be one of our longest port days on the cruise. After an abbreviated visit to the Woods, we got back on our bus for a ride into Sausalito, a small artsy-fartsy town just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. If I had a choice, I would have preferred to just have a few more hours in the woods instead of having this stop, but this is the option we had. Alex and I wandered around and looked at the boats in the marina before we ate some unremarkable lunch at a little bakery and cafe along the waterfront. I could see why some people might want to visit the town, but it just wasn't very interesting to me. At least now I can say I've been and don't need to ever go back.
After riding the bus back to our ship, we walked from the berth down to Pier 39 to do some window shopping and wildlife spotting. There are tons of sea lions to watch floating around on docks that appear to be set up just for them. The pier is like a small carnival, and was too crowded for my liking. We walked back to the ship and had some dinner before going to bed. The next day was another sea day as we turned around and headed back south towards Santa Barbara.
Two days later we arrived in Santa Barbara. Our excursion for this port was cancelled and we weren't informed until we boarded the ship. Since there were no interesting alternatives that we could re-book, we decided to just do our own thing. After debarking the ship, we found a place that rented e-Bikes and got a couple to ride around town for a few hours. We basically did the same thing we were planing on doing in the excursion, but with a few extra stops, and no guide to hurry us along. It was quite nice, and an excellent way to spend the day in Santa Barbara. The port time for here was short though, only from 7am to 3pm, so we didn't do much more than ride along the shore path, then up to the mission just to look at it before returning the bikes and walking along the beach on the way back to the ship. At this point, California was getting hit with an unseasonably warm spell, and it was in the lower 90s, well above the average of around 75°F for the coastal town. If the water wasn't so cold, it'd have been an excellent day to just sit on the beach and swim to our hearts content.
The next day we arrived in San Diego for a fairly long day in port. Our excursion was a bus ride out to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, formerly known as the Wild Animal Park. We spent all day looking at cool animals and sweating up a storm, as it was close to 100 degrees all day. It was a little funny that we did this, as both Alex and I thought it was much closer to San Diego. We ended up riding in a bus for an hour to Escondido, which is a little over an hour from our house. We basically could have just gone home for the day and swam in our pool if we wanted to.
After the long day in the heat, we just hung out on the ship for the rest of the night, even though the ship's departure time wasn't until 10pm. It's a very short cruise from San Diego to Ensenada, our next stop, so there was no rush. Since Alex and I both have some anxiety over visits to Mexico, we decided to stay on the ship in Ensenada. We booked the Sanctuary for half the day and had a great time just hanging out at the pool and on the cushy seats, being catered to for four hours. The staff were really nice, and even let me stay in the Sanctuary after they were supposed to close up because I wanted the nice vantage point as we left port for the trip back to LA. As we were pulling out of the breakwaters, there were a bunch of sea lions riding the bow wave and looked like they wanted to get run over by our ship.
Finally, a week after we left we pulled back into port in Los Angeles for the long drive home. Vacation over, and feeling relaxed, we resumed our lives and started dreaming of our next vacation.
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