Cruising

Having grown up in California, the Pacific Ocean has always been a short drive away from where I lived. I first visited at age two and I have loved the ocean for as long as I can remember. Cruising on a ship was always something that sounded nice and looked glamorous on TV or the movies, but never dreamed it was within my reach.

Then along came my Silver Wedding Anniversary and my husband and I wanted to do something really special. Neither one of us are great outdoors people and my husband has some physical limitations, but we both loved riding the ferry to San Francisco and being out on the water. Just for fun, we started checking the prices of a short cruise. We discovered that Princess Cruise Lines had a three-day Pacific Coastal Cruise that was reasonably priced, sounded like fun, and we went for it.

We were scheduled to sail in September of 2001. Unfortunately, we had no way to foresee the tragedy that would strike our nation on 9/11. Since airports were closed immediately after the tragedy, we were afraid our vacation would have to be cancelled because we couldn’t get to Vancouver. However, in just a couple of days the airports were running on limited schedules and we were able to fly to Vancouver to begin our cruise. We sailed from Vancouver to San Francisco. We had received a free upgrade from Princess and were given a balcony stateroom. The service was gracious and the food was excellent. We loved the “Personal Choice” dining option so we could sit at a table for two and not have a set dining time. Since we were celebrating our anniversary, they even brought us a tiny chocolate cake at dinner one evening. We were hooked on cruising.

Our next cruise was in 2005 and we sailed the Mexican Riviera on Princess again. It was a seven-day cruise and we stopped in Puerto Vallarta where my husband bought me a new diamond for my anniversary solitaire that had replaced my wedding ring. We weren’t impressed with Mazatlan, but we didn’t really do anything like go into the city center or go shopping. Cabo San Lucas was beautiful and we took a boat excursion that took us out to cruise around the famous landmark rock formations there.