harryfat1

OK, done with breakfast. Time to pack up and load up the fam and head off to the port. Oh, yeah, now is the time to put the cruise luggage tags on. Either use the tag holders bought online as I showed earlier or just ask the front desk to borrow the stapler as you check out of the hotel with everyone's luggage down in the lobby area. At the risk of sounding paranoid, do you folks check/double-check each corner of the hotel room before checking out? Always worry I will forget something important in each hotel room. Yeah, yeah, 9.2 on the scale also includes being paranoid… Last hotel pic before hitting the freeway We checked out of the hotel at 9:40 and headed for the port. Per Google Maps, it’s less than a 30-minute drive, Not bad for Southern California traffic on a Monday morning. For the rest of the US, it's a manic work day but for people on vacation, it's day 1 of the cruise

Here is the view of the area from the room as we get ready to go downstairs for the complimentary hotel breakfast. For the most part, I prefer to stay at hotels that have free breakfasts as it’s convenient and saves money compared to going out to eat or dining in at an overpriced hotel restaurant. Did I mention I’m cheap? Decent hotel breakfast. Not that different from what you will see at Windjammer later in the cruise with bacon, waffles and eggs.

August 7 (Monday) Day 1 My favorite day of any cruise is Day 1. Many people will disagree as it’s hectic and not relaxing but I like the excitement of seeing different things and experiencing a new ship is very special. You get that “new” feeling only on day 1. Remember back on post #2 when I asked people – what’s in your vacation? Relaxing isn’t on my priority list so I really enjoy day 1 versus any given sea day in the cruise. That being said, since I have already sailed on this itinerary three times previously, it has less of a “Wow” factor but it’s been over 15 years since we last sailed this way so maybe it’s good to see things with a fresh set of eyes. Thinking about it, my first ever RCI cruise was this same itinerary back in 1996 on the Viking Serenade. You get double and quadruple points if you know that the Viking Serenade was part of the RCI fleet years ago and actually sailed on her back in the old days. I think the lifeboats on the new Icon of the Seas might be bigger than the Viking Serenade… RCI hasn’t really put much emphasis on the West Coast sailing. The West Coast sailing has been dominated by Carnival and its subsidiary ships. Next year Carnival will have a new ship, Firenze, coming over from their Costa subsidiary. So they will have 3 ships sailing from LA/Long Beach area versus 1 ship from RCI. Then there’s the HAL and Princess sailings up and down the state as well locking up the West Coast cruise market. During the period of Mexican drug cartel wars, RCI and other cruise lines actually left the West Coast market, and only in recent years have they started home porting more ships on the West Coast. Anyway, enough cruise history. Queue up the Beatles to get the day going And the Stones: BobMac can mark the official count of when day 1 of the report starts. You folks thought I was kidding when I said, in the beginning, this is a “postman route”. It’s like taking a ship elevator from deck 1 to 12. The next deck up is…

Yeah, better to be safe than sorry. Looks like there are 2 different camps on how the hard copy is used. Do you use the hard copy as a “backup” – like in case of emergency, break glass – or do you use the hard copy as the “primary” resource bypassing the phone App? Maybe as a question for the next trip report is how many people even have printers anymore? The younger the generation, the more likely they prefer virtual tickets so printing may not be an option for some if they don’t have a printer at home.

That is excellent knowledge of the Marvel Universe/LA Donut scene. I did some digging myself and got a couple of pictures that are better than my original upload as we just drove by. Didn’t realize they lit up the place in green light at night but in summertime, it doesn’t get dark until late. As you said, there are a few other big Donut places within the Southern California region. Part of the eclectic local pop culture. https://losangelesexplorersguild.com/2022/01/21/giant-donuts-of-los-angeles/ If we weren’t going on the ship the next day and had free hotel breakfast from the hotel, we might have gotten something from the place. But how many people actually bring food ONTO the ship? You always hear about people taking food off the ship (illegally) but I seldom read about people bringing food at the start of the cruise unless there’s a medical reason. We will be in southern California next month to drop off my son for his college start so it might be worthwhile to get off the freeway for a quick detour to buy something. As Southern California is too far for you, if you like unusual-looking donuts, try the Voodoo Donut chain. There’s one in Universal Studios Florida in the CityWalk area. We got a box from Universal Hollywood last Christmas as well as the original store in downtown Portland many years ago. They have also expanded to CO and TX. the Huge line outside Portland store. Mostly tourists like us want to check out the original Voodoo store. The famous Voodoo doll donut What goes well with Donuts? Coffee of course. If you are talking about the original store, visit the original Starbucks coffee in downtown Seattle. We saw that prior to our Celebrity Alaska cruise many years ago as we do a full circle to bring the topic back to cruise-related. Nobody is really reading this thread to learn about the Mexico cruise, right?

That’s wonderful you can be on the Allure with only 2,200 people. Way less than 50% capacity. We were on the Princess Alaska cruise last year when vaccination/masks were still required and that kept the crowd at 65% of that ship’s capacity and it felt pretty quiet. Can’t imagine how Allure feels with even fewer people. Yeah, doubtful you will get anywhere near that number on your sailing next year. Enjoy the last Oasis-class ship without the amplification while it lasts. 2014 was my first “interactive” trip report where I interfaced with live people. Previous reports were just one-way monologues. I was a happier cruiser back then in my first report. Now I’m just another grumpy old cruiser you find on CC that complaining “Things were so much better years ago…” The funny side story on the 2010 Mariner report was that it was so long, back then the CC website couldn’t fit all the words in as it had a word count limit. As the programmer back then never thought any “normal” cruiser would need so much space to write an online review that they didn’t leave enough space for my ramblings on the web page uploads. I had to email CC directly with my cruise report in MS Word format and they uploaded it for me from their end to make it fit.

As always, thanks to everyone for reading along. I appreciate all the comments/contributions to this report as I prefer a more interactive exchange of cruise experience instead of just me doing a monologue re-telling my “days of our lives”. That’s boring. Much more interesting if people chime in, and contribute their experience/pictures to this report. If you are a Newbie cruiser, feel free to interrupt anytime to ask questions. This report is aimed at someone like you. The whole idea is to have a good comprehensive guide to assist future cruisers reading this to make their cruise experiences better. By doing so, we veteran cruisers build up good karma points with the Cruise Goddess going forward to ensure we have good sailing weather on our future cruises. Now how many more karma points do I need before reaching Diamond?

A few pics of the hotel room to close out the night as we listen to Dreams… This picture shows the connecting door to the second room of the suite. That's where the boys slept Different perspective The table when pulled out away from the wall can squeeze in 6 people for a simple takeout dinner Dreams This concludes day 0 of the trip report.

Oh, yeah, also got some Popeye Chicken and Klondike ice cream. Yeah, I don’t care if you roll your eyes at how sushi doesn’t work with fried chicken. We eat what we like. I will let KC explains how I like my food as we get ramped up early for the 70s party on the cruise on day 4: So you get to see what we ate for dinner. Good thing we got a big table to seat 6 in the hotel room to spread out all the food. First is the overall of all the food and then the rest are detailed shots Sashimi sampler pack Various types of special sushi rolls Hint: Not sushi...

Continuing on the day 0 trip report +++++++++++++++ OK, this is the part of the vacation where not everything goes according to plan. I don’t know about you folks, but very few of my vacations ever go exactly as planned with no hiccups. There’s always “something” that deviates from the original plan no matter how far in advance you plan things out. The only question is how you adapt and improvise and move on. The original plan was to check into the hotel and then go to Redondo Pier to catch an early view of the Sunset over the Pacific Ocean and then go to Torrance for Korean food dinner. Well, that went by the wayside as people were hot and tired from being in the car all day and everyone liked the big spacious hotel room that they wanted to do sushi take out in the comfort of the big room instead of eating at the crowded restaurant. OK, time to whip out the phone and iPad to find a place and look at the menu to decide on what to get. Found a sushi take out place at 4.3 stars and went there to order and waited a bit for them to make the sushi. While waiting, walked around the super busy strip mall. Anyone like donuts?

So on a b-3-b, does the itinerary of the first and third sailing repeat? Did you find something different to do at the repeat ports or you just stayed on board and enjoy the quiet pool area?

Good choice. 18 days versus 7 days seem like an easy decision although the scenery of Alaska one-way sailing on Princess is extraordinary as I posted previously.

Oh, very nice. Those must be the family heirloom paper plates. I assume your wife will expect to inherit these plates years down the road...

Check out the “free” ($95 credit card fee) room. It’s really a “suite” that consists of 2 queen-sized beds, 1 full-size bed, and 1 upper bunk bed. On top of that, you have a mini kitchen area and 2 regular bathrooms and sofas. This was only for the 4 of us. Mini Kitchen Area with a full size refrigerator Beds 3 and 4 in the second room of the suite Two full-sized bathrooms in the suite The stated space for the suite is 600 square feet. It will make the cruise cabins look cramped but we will enjoy the space for the night. Our room can easily fit 6 people so if you have a big family clan traveling together, try to book this type of suite either with free Marriott points or even if paying cash, it’s still a better deal than your regular room that can only sleep 4 and one bathroom. The in-laws have a regular-sized King suite with one king-sized bed and their kitchen as well if only 2 people traveling and you don’t need 4 beds.

Being a Marriott credit card holder, I get one free night annually for a mid-tier hotel after I pay the $95 fee. When you look at the hotel prices nowadays, $95/night from their mid-tier listing of hotels isn’t a bad deal. Front lobby area Free Breakfast area One classic song always comes to mind whenever I check into any hotel for the night… Especially since we are in the State...

The cruise terminal is located in San Pedro. Now how you do pronounce San Pedro? Do you say “San PEE-DRO” or “San PAY-DRO”. There are various articles online or on YouTube channels of people debating on how to say it correctly. However way you say it, we are not staying there for the night. We stayed at the Marriott TownPlace Suites near LAX at Hawthorne. From the map below, San Pedro is the red arrow place and Hawthorne is in blue – about 17 miles away. If you are flying in from out of town, then yes, stay as close to the cruise port as possible. But as we are driving to the port ourselves, we can be further away because there are better deals elsewhere away from the cruise port. Being 25 minutes on the freeway going 65 MPH isn’t that far compared to 15 minutes on city streets versus the local hotel nearby.

Onward with day 0 of the trip report: ++++++++++++++ We made it to the LA area just before 5 PM. But where is LA technically? When people think of LA, they are really thinking of various cities within the LA “region” but not the “official” LA city limits itself. Places like Beverly Hills/Hollywood/Santa Monica are famous areas that many people link to be “LA” but each city has its own official city hall/police and other city functions. Has anyone seen the freeway map of LA? It’s like a spaghetti strand exploded. It’s a complicated mess for non-residents to figure out where is what. Not to mention the traffic is a mess even at weekends. This is traffic conditions on a Tuesday night at 4 PM. Red areas are bad traffic and notice how bad it is and it’s not even 5 PM yet. The money cost of burning expensive $6/gallon fuel while waiting in traffic daily in Southern California is mind-boggling: Anyway, before going to the hotel, time to fill up the gas one more time at the Costco right by the hotel. Why get gas again when we got gas 120 miles ago? That way when we get off the ship on Friday, we can just get on the freeway and not have to worry about getting gas before heading out of town on the backend. Costco gas was much more reasonable at $4.58 that day. From Jim’s post, it looks like South Carolina gas is only $3.30 range. Unheard of amount out here on the west coast.

Good idea to back a backup plan. Thanks for the Princess self-service laundry info. I was on the Majestic Princess last year and you guessed it - I have pictures of the laundry area... It was a very nice setup. They have one laundromat on every deck that had guest cabins. Time for each wash and drying cycle (Helps that I can read Chinese)

“Ah, I see,” said the Blind Man to the Deaf Woman… I was out for almost a couple of days on the Shingles vaccine side effects. It’s like a mini Covid Booster side effects of body aches and fatigue. I need to negotiate with CC to have a better sick leave policy in my next contract if I have to post during sick days…

Sounds cool. You should do a YouTube video of the DIY cruise luggage tags. Get 10,000 likes and make enough money to buy your own tags… I’m not sure if I am the standard people should judge against in being cheap/anal. There are way cheaper/more anal than me. The only question is how open they are to admit it. Some feel embarrassed to be “cheap”/save money or anal. I’m just more open to discussing both topics but by no means do I claim to be the de facto standard bearer of both. Whereas flaunting wealth/extravagant lifestyle on social media to get “likes” and “thumbs up” are more socially acceptable nowadays. There is a lot less glamour in being reasonable in spending and being frugal so people feel less comfortable sharing. We can get into a whole set of discussions on how our society has deteriorated with social media but that would open such a big can of worms where we’re still on day 0 after 500 posts… I think you answered your own anal question by actually debating it in your head and can’t come to a conclusion…😜

Thanks for replying to the unofficial poll. I will ask this in the December trip report as that’s a longer cruise. The reason I came up with this question was on the Princess cruise last year, I needed to do laundry just prior to the cruise as I didn’t have enough clean underwear. As I was doing laundry, I was wondering if I could “get away” with only 6 underwear for 8 days? Hence the question to the audience. Less of an issue on a 4-night cruise. Just a teaser for future episodes…

$3.30 gas is unheard of in California or any of our neighboring states. As many know, Costco has one of the best gas prices and it’s at $4.75 today. Most gas stations are above $5. One heck of a birthday celebration to be on the ship that many times in a row. Did you folks break every bar stool on the ship in the end with all the crazy parties?

Thanks for the info. Very sad this was gone. I bow down to the evil genius who created this mural. It made going to the men’s room a special visit.

Historically California is typically amongst the top 5 states in having the highest gas prices and especially on Highway 5 where many stations are at least 20 miles apart with no nearby towns, the gas prices can be exorbitant unless you know where to get your gas. Use the App “Gas Buddy” to find reasonable gas prices while on the road. Yeah, Cheapo Dad not paying $6/gallon. While $4.84 isn’t cheap when compared to other states, it’s one of the better values along Interstate 5. There are slightly cheaper places but you have to fight the long lines and less-than-stellar bathrooms, so you have to balance out trying to get the cheapest gas within 75 miles versus crowd/clean bathrooms. This could be the difference between men and women. Men are probably likely concerned with the quality of the bathroom versus women just given the nature of different anatomy. Women probably are more picky about restrooms. Can’t say anymore before CC will ban me for life but if you can listen to some classic Richard Pryor, he gets really into how men and women use bathrooms differently. From my experience in driving around various western states, I like truck stops like TA or Loves, or Flying J. They typically have a bigger restroom/snack area on top of shower rentals if you need to really freshen up during the drive. Here’s one of our favorite TA stops. Big AC inside and cleaner bathrooms and shower rental if needed. My wife was looking at my pictures from the cruise and she asked – you took pictures of the men’s room? Yeah, Why not? What’s wrong with that? Doesn't everyone take pictures of bathrooms? To this date, my favorite bathroom picture of all time was from The Allure of the Seas. I bow down to the genius that created this picture in the men's room. I hope it's still there after all these years. Any ladies can confirm this?

Onto the trip report with day 0 +++++++++++++ In my rush to get to Day 1 yesterday, I forgot to queue up the old Willie song to signify we are on the road… With a name like Seasick Steve, perfect to kick things off... I also forgot to ask what shirts do y’all wear on travel days? Do you wear something that looks nice or something that feels nice but looks “meh”? I have this favorite Ketchikan t-shirt bought from the 2002 Alaska cruise that has been through more washes/drying cycles than I can remember. Comfortable as heck. Fit my fat physique at the right places but the collars are frayed and the colors are somewhat faded. My wife always asks me why I wear that to go on vacation when I have tons of new shirts. But that’s the point. New shirts don’t have the comfort level of old shirts. Besides, who am I trying to impress sitting in the hot van driving for 8 hours? Who cares what the worker at the hotel thinks of my shirt at check-in? I feel comfortable and that’s all it matters - not like I'm wearing that at MDR on a formal night... Central Valley is typically hot in the summer. This day was no exception. Already 97 degrees at 12 noon. It’s gonna be a hot one. Time to break for lunch. So where did we eat lunch? Denny’s. Yeah, I know the Foodies out there will scoff at Denny’s. Not the fanciest place in the world but in a land of vast farmland as far as the eye can see, there are far worst choices for food. Especially when you get the senior meal from the menu. This is less than $12 and if you have AARP membership, there’s a 15% discount on top of that. The sizzling skillet costs a few dollars more but the AARP discount is off the entire family’s bill, not just the seniors' meal so everything is 15% off the menu – did I mention I’m cheap?