After leaving the hotel this morning we had a 3-minute cab ride to the Amtrak station in Emeryville, CA. As I stated in an earlier entry, Emeryville is the farthest Amtrak goes. From there, there’s a $6 bus connection that continues across the bay into the heart of San Francisco if that’s where you’re heading. To keep things simpler, we avoided having the bus ride by just staying in Emeryville prior to our departure. Check-in and one cup of chai tea later we were homeward bound! The number 6 California Zephyr left Emeryville at 9:15 this morning headed for Chicago. The [View Full Entry]

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Another day of the San Francisco life! Pretty low-key, but an enjoyable day. We made our way back to the train station and across the bay to San Fran (our hotel, a Hilton, is in Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco, chosen for its proximity to the Amtrak station for our departure tomorrow). From the public train, we caught a transfer via bus towards the Golden Gate Park. We met two crazy characters on the bus, one more menacing than the other. First, we met a guy standing at the bus stop who asked where we were from, where we [View Full Entry]

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Today was one of thost busy days where you do lots and lots but at the end of the day have done surprisingly little. Disembarking a cruise ship is always time consuming as you have to clear customs and INS, get your baggage inspected, etc. At around 9 o'clock we were off the ship and on a cab to Oakland. Once here we took a nap first thing. Afterwards, we made our way down to the train station to catch a local train back over to San Francisco. All along the way we ate lunch and did some shopping. We finally [View Full Entry]

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Last day at sea! If you read yesterday's entry, you'll understand why we slept until about 11:00 this morning. We did manage to make it to another photo lecture, though. This time the speaker told stories about his various more interesting assignments over the years. There were some great ones. Some of the good ones involved the airplane pilot he typically used for aerial shots getting FAA citations for getting dangerously close to subjects or diving into restricted airspace to get good shots of the president. There seemed to be quite a few of those! After this we joined a trivia [View Full Entry]

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San Francisco-bound! Happy Valentine's Day! The days at sea are as action-packed as the days in port if you partake of the various activities on the ship. There are groups that meet all over the ship to play trivia games, have afternoon tea, play card games, attend lectures, etc... We started out the day with a photography lecture which was quite good. There is a fellow on the ship who was a photographer for a local newspaper in New York for many years. He gives talks almost every day where he recounts his great stories from across the years. They are [View Full Entry]

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Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Today's stop was Cabo San Lucas. It's extremely well known as a hotspot for American vacationers and Acacia and I now know why. It's beautiful. After riding the tender to the docks, Acacia and I joined a tour group for a short water taxi ride around the bay to see the length of Cabo from the water. We got a great view of all the various beaches, big resorts, and millionaires' mansions perched on the hill. After an hour of this we were on our own for the rest of the day. We first walked around town [View Full Entry]

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What an awesome day! The morning seemed to be starting very badly but the day was certainly redeemed. We purchased tickets to go on an ATV ride/village tour outside of Puerto Vallarta. The problem lies in the setting of clocks. Long story short, our time keeping device for the trip (my cell phone since neither of us wear watches) ended up an hour behind. We stepped off the ship onto the dock thinking it was 8:50 when it was actually 9:50! We missed our group!! We were in luck. There were two ATV groups for the day. One was scheduled for [View Full Entry]

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Zihuatenejo/Ixtapa, Mexico Let the beach bummin' begin! We met up with our tour group at 8:00 this morning to head out to a small island for the day. The ship was anchored in the bay of Zihuatanejo since the docks here cannot accomodate ships this large. There are three "tenders" which is ship lingo for water taxi. At least, that's my interpretation. While there are many more basic lifeboats on cranes all around the ship, there are three much nicer small boats which are used as taxis in cases such as this. Each boat holds 150 passengers so they are quite [View Full Entry]

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Today we explored Acapulco which was a treat! After a nice breakfast on the ship we headed down the the docks and caught a cab. I should say that the cabs catch us down here. The second you exit the ports of entry down here, you are bombarded by taxi drivers wanting to whisk you off to the far reaches of the town. A lady Acacia met by the pool said that on previous trips to Acapulco she had stayed at the Princess resort (confusing, but no, no connection to Princess Cruise Lines). Then again, when we asked Marian, our waiter, [View Full Entry]

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This was yet another "sea day." We're closing the distance to Acapulco which is the furthest South of our 5 ports of call. This being day 9, Acacia and I were beginning to run short on clean clothes so it was time to do some more laundry. This was quite the chore since everyone else on our deck seemed to have the same idea. Looking back on it, it does make sense that this "Sea day" in the middle of the madness would be the most likely time to wash clothes. Our day was rather low-key today. We sat out by [View Full Entry]

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