October 4 AT SEA, Pacific Ocean off the coast of California

typical

great tote bag

Weather – another soupy morning, the
foghorn started after we had woken up fortunately. It was a bit chilly for morning blogging, but I do what I have to do and bundle up. I’d say it was about 15º. Once the fog disappeared it was about 22º

Steps – 6,049…more than I expected from a sea day

lots of room

pretty standard

One more day to sleep in is lovely…I think I’m getting used to this. After a bit of balcony blogging in the soupy, chilly Pacific Ocean air, we hit the buffet for some breakfast. I’m not a fan of buffets at the best of time, and the Celebrity Eclipse’s doesn’t change my mind. Buffets to me are frantic, crowded, and not the most pleasant of dining experiences. They do, however, offer variety and when you’re interested in just a bit of this and a bit of that they do the trick.

le petit chef does Van Gogh

le petit chef

Despite the cool air, we decided to check out the

pool. Late morning, the soupy air still hadn’t burned off, so it was still a bit chilly. Nonetheless, we found a cozy spot in one of the pool’s sections for just 2. Although chilly, people were still out enjoying themselves. This was the perfect spot to chill, blog, read and enjoy an Aperol Spritz. This ship has plenty of chairs around the pool, but most are very much on top of the next chair. It is possible to find a secluded spot, but there are NO tables…weird…I can’t say

beet salad ala le petit chef

I’ve even been to a pool with no where to put your
drink except for the floor. One thing at the pool that Celebrity has the edge over Regent is keeping the pool deck dry. As soon as people come out of the pool there is a worker mopping up any puddles.

One thing Regent has the advantage is pool snacks…we always like a late morning Aperol Spritz with ‘chips for the table’. Try as we might…there are NO chips or anything else to nosh on around the pool. Chips accompanied my lunch yesterday, but these were fancy house made chips…all I want at the pool are good ol’ Lays. Even at cocktail time, Regent would always have something to munch on – fancy canapés or chips or nuts. Here we have to hit the deadsville of the Retreat lounge to find a nut.

While we’re sitting at the pool we are entertained by music from this decade! Celebrity has the edge on this one for sure. I haven’t heard Lady in Red one time played by a band OR piped in!

Lunch was back at the room for room service, a little trip to naptown, and some predinner balcony blogging (the fog finally burned off and it’s glorious off the back of the boat.)

This evening is chock full of entertainment. First,
was the Rock Show…as advertised…singers, dancers, acrobats, and musicians. Not necessarily music from this decade, but still no Lady in Red.

Next, was dinner and a show. One of the ship’s specialty restaurants has a show that they project onto each table. We thought it would be a bit cheesy, but it was actually cool – well done. The food was good too.

Finally, we hit the ship’s disco for 80’s night. This was fun…started with a bit of music trivia, and then a dance party.

October 3 - San Francisco, CA

helipad

hello San Fran!!

Weather – threw open the curtain to soupy,
soupy, soupy. We could see the water when we stepped onto the balcony but otherwise, a wall of white. I decided to go to the gym and getting there meant crossing the pool deck…brrrrr! A glorious morning for those in the hot tubs. Temps all day in SF were coolish (esp in the shade), 18º, more like 14º when the sun went down.

just made it

slowly, slowly

Steps – 16,790

I set an alarm for this morning. I know that on vacation I can sleep LATE! I prefer NOT to wake up to an alarm (who does?!) but at home unless I need to be up particularly early, I don’t need an alarm…away from home…different story. I’m not sure if it is the new environment, new bed, especially dark room or what…nonetheless…I can SLEEP. I knew today would be a good day for the gym followed by post-workout champagne.

Alcatraz in the distance

after lunch dessert

It was a good morning for the gym, sleeping or the hot tub. I didn’t think of the hot tub until I saw people there on my way to the gym…maybe
tomorrow.

Jays game and a pint

Alcatraz again

The gym here is great…as great as a gym can be. As far as I’m concerned, I go to the gym for the same reason I eat broccoli. I don’t like it, but I’m a big girl and do it anyway. This gym makes it not unpleasant…it is big, uncrowded, with good equipment. I was in and out and at the juice bar in an hour. I wanted a fresh
made juice, but showed up between shifts - Chris would have to be satisfied with boxed grapefruit from the pool bar for his in-room-mimosa.

Fisherman's Wharf

SF seals

For the sail into SF and under the Golden
Gate we were invited to watch from the ship’s helipad – another Retreat perk! Very cool (literally and figuratively!) Of course, it is cool in SF and being on the front of the boat with the wind in our faces was chilly…we were served champagne, should have been Baileys and coffee. We were only out there for about a half hour, so we survived the cold.

cider

Lunch was onboard, followed by a visit to the ship's bakery for one last coffee before heading out. Chris was hoping to watch the Blue Jays game, but it wasn’t shown

$14 Irish coffees

on the boat, so we found a pub close by to watch the Jays loose.

We've been to SF before, so didn’t venture out
too far from the ship. Just wandered from the pier through Fisherman’s Warf, up the hill a bit to Buena Vista for their famous Irish coffees. I don’t think this place has been updated since it opened in 1952! I suppose that’s part of its charm. 2 $14 coffees later and we were on the go once again. Cable cars run right past this place, so that was charming also. The coffee was delicious, but $14?!?!...USD don't forget!!

flambé

We were on our way back, when Chris mentioned a place he had cider the last time he was in SF, just past where our ship is. I can’t pass up cider so we had one more drink at Coqueta before heading back to the ship. They were out of the cider Chris had so we had to have another more expensive one…it was very tasty though…cloudy and funky…delish!

waiting for us

Dinner was on the boat, table side flambé...quite tasty!

balcony view...not bad

October 2 - Santa Barbara, CA

beautiful, but invasive

view while tendering

Weather – 18º and clear when we threw open
the curtains, nice for a bit of morning blogging, sunny and high of 21º

Steps – 14,240

Room 2155 is located one floor below the ship’s buffet. I wouldn’t never choose a room directly below any public space, in my opinion the best rooms are surrounded by other rooms. Usually, the poshest rooms are high on the ship which I really can’t understand. High rooms have the most motion of the

quaint Santa Barbara street

ocean (something most do not want) and are next to, over or under public spaces. We never choose the poshest rooms on any boat unless the price is right. The very best room we have ever had was on the lowest floor on the back of the boat. Anyway, because we booked this cruise so close to sailing time, we took what we could get. We’ve had a room like this before (because of late booking, you’d think we’d learn our lesson) and it was a bit loud, not terrible, but enough that I’d steer clear if given the choice. Last night was fine, there was some other kind of undesirable noise, but it didn’t seem to be from above. Tonight, we’ll get the

good bye Santa Barbara

white noise going. Or we may just open the balcony door. I might have to have them bring back the industrial fan…you can’t hear anything over that.

daily planner

Santa Barbara although on mainland California, can only be reached by ship anchoring in the bay and tendering ashore. We’ve been down the tender road many, many times in the past and the process lost its shine long ago. Tendering on Regent can be tedious as only 100 or so people can fit in a tender,
this in addition to the loading and unloading is tiresome. However, Regent only has 600 people to deal with, this boat has 3000. The operation here has 2 tender boats rather than one operating, but everyone was cautioned that the wait for the next available tender could be 90 min!! Good thing we have priority! A perk of being in the “Retreat” is that we basically cut the line…I didn’t feel real good about that, but still did it and was on the first tender we wanted – we weren’t cheating at all, but kind of felt like we were. Coming back was another story and we lined up with
the masses – that didn’t take 90 min…maybe 15. The ride to and from the ship was another 15 minutes.

seals!

October 1 - Los Angeles, CA

bon voyage

Celebrity Eclipse

Weather – Today was the first morning since we’ve been in LA that we’ve woken up to blue sky and sun…auspicious??

Steps – 7,200

Today we boarded the Celebrity Eclipse - our home for the next 7 days. This boat can hold 2800 guests which is the second largest ship we’ve on, the largest was just over 3000. We are used to a ship with about 600 people, so this will be different. I am very curious to experience life on a bigger ship like this is. I’m also curious to know how full the boat is. It feels full, but I have nothing to compare to, so who knows.

almost there!

Another lazy morning with rooms service. Our hotel booking included a $100 credit which we haven’t used yet, so breakfast pretty much took care of it…wowza! In fact, we had to pay $4 on top of the $100!!

Our check in time for the boat was technically 2PM (late compared to our previous cruise check in times - typically late morning. We’re staying in one of the boat’s ‘Retreat’ rooms which let’s us board whenever. I wasn’t quite sure if this would work as it isn’t really advertised this way, but sure enough we arrived at the port around 1:00, on the boat by 130, and were exploring…Champagne in hand by 2:00. Check in was a BREEZE. We had done much of the check in process online so as soon as we arrived (after a 45min Uber
ride), we were ushered to the “Retreat” check in…basically a person with an iPad to scan our boarding passes, check our passports and send us on our way. 

drying out

 As for scrutinizing our bags for contraband booze…nope! No one could care less. Maybe because we only have carry on, but no one looked twice at what we were bringing.

As soon as I took my shoes off in the room I felt a bit of squish...squish, hmmm. Sure enough we have some kind of leak. Can’t see where it’s coming from exactly but looks like the tub. We tell Mozes our room attendant and when we come back later there is an industrial fan filling the room with the sound of a plane taking off. When we came back at the end of the night, the fan was gone, but a bit of squishy remained.

love the name!

Our room is big. Not crazy big, but bigger than we are used to. The balcony is bigger too.

We spend the rest of the day exploring, having dinner, and seeing a comedy show. As expected with a ship this size, things are hopping. The busyness is nice…gives a good vibe. People here seem friendlier than on Regent (our usual cruise line.) People on Regent are friendly, but we don’t usually meet many people. Despite sitting at bars (where most people meeting takes place) on Regent we meet some, but not a lot. Each time we sat for a drink today (4 different spots) we met people.

September 30 - Los Angeles, CA

pork belly food market

tour meeting point

Weather – rain when we got up, on and off until
about 1:00, sunny late afternoon, 20º

Steps – 16,269

Bradbury building

Food tours have always treated us well – Seattle, Barcelona, Bologna…all 10/10, we thought we’d better try what a Los Angeles food tour had to offer. Today’s wasn’t much more than a 5/10 unfortunately. It was OK, but just OK. In addition to trying some food, we were interested in the location for this tour - Downtown LA. If we didn’t check out downtown today, we didn’t think we’d be back. Downtown LA is about a 30 min

random downtown LA

drive from Beverly Hills where our hotel is. An
11AM start meant we had a bit of a lazy morning before heading out.

This walking tour met at a bakery just like our Seattle food tour. This is very practical…we can use the facilities and grab a coffee to go. Our first taste on the tour was an almond croissant from this bakery – it was very good! I’m not usually one for almond flavoured anything, but this may have turned me.

pumpkin ravioli stop

This tour was a combo of food, walking, and info. Every now and again, our guide Scarlet stopped to chat. Before we knew it, we arrived at LA’s Grand Central Market, for Filipino

Central Market

pork belly and a beer (unfortunately we were on our own for drinks, but maybe that was a good thing.) I’m not the biggest fan of pork belly…too fatty, but the sweet-Asian flavour was very tasty…needless to say, I helped Chris eat his. This market
was thronging with activity…people, sounds, and smells. Our visit here was perfectly timed…it poured for about 10 minutes when we were safely under cover.

meh donuts

tacos

Next, we wandered a bit down LA’s Broadway…many old theatres with

random interesting building

cool architecture, but kind of run down. Currently, there aren’t any shows playing at all. We stepped into The Bradbury Building – LA’s oldest commercial downtown building, very interesting ornamentation and iron work. Next was an Italian place for pumpkin ravioli, I thought I’d
have a double order, but Chris ate his. Then we had tacos (I had pork and Chris had steak) washed down with a beer. Lastly, were donuts from Donut Friend. Donut Friend was more like Donut Acquaintance…I’ve had better. If I’m going to

eat a donut, it had better be worth it…this was not unfortunately.

After the tour we checked out the area around LA’s Staples Centre and found a bench to eat the donut we schlepped here from the end of the food tour. We then grabbed an Uber back to Beverly Hills. Before heading up to our room for a bit of a siesta, we visited BevMo for some ship wine. We have all inclusive booze on the ship, but not via the mini bar in our room. Don’t get me started on how annoying that is…but we got a couple of bottles for our balcony on the ship.

blogging and Gump

The rest of the afternoon was spent blogging, watching Forest Gump (how I love this movie) and chilling with a beverage from BevMo.

fondue!

Dinner was cheese fondue and a bottle of wine at Monsieur Marcel in LA’s Original Farmer's Market. This place was about a 30 min walk from our hotel. This was the perfect pre and post dinner distance for a walk.

hotel mall and downtown