Sea of Cortez Cruise February 2019

Eric and I have been going on cruises since 2008. During summer 2018, we decided to start our own business, Cruise Planners, so we could share our love of the sea and travel with others. This is the first cruise we've been on since starting the business. 

 

Travel and Embarkation Day 

On February 16 we had a great travel day flying from Montana > Seattle > San Jose > Los Angeles on Alaska Air.  I tried a travel tip of booking the aisle and window seat. It worked out on one flight and we had plenty of room on our flight from Seattle to San Jose since no one bought the middle seat!  We used Princess EZair for the first time because it was a steal at under $300 for two round-trip tickets. 

 

TIP:  When taking a cruise out of San Pedro, CA we always reserve a car from Enterprise in LA and then return it in San Pedro. It costs a bit more but the convenience is worth it to us. If we stay at the Crowne Plaza it’s super easy to return the car (office is in the same block as the Crowne Plaza) and then Enterprise will shuttle over to the cruise port. 

 

On Sunday, February 17, Eric took the Full STEAM Ahead tour of the USS Iowa.  The 500+ pictures that I won’t posts here tell how much he enjoyed it.  The tour was led by veterans who had served on battleships and Eric found their stories very engaging.

 

 

Monday, February 18 was cruise day!  I got up early and saw the Ruby Princess arrive in port.  We went to the San Pedro Cafe for a wonderful breakfast. I had Peanut Butter Banana Crunch French Toast. It was so yummy with honey drizzled on the bananas but it was way too much food.  Eric had the Machaca omelette with shredded beef, red chile sauce, onions and peppers.  That was probably the best breakfast of our whole vacation.  We took a walk at Cabrillo Beach. It was a little cool but still a beautiful sunny day.

 

We checked out of the hotel and returned the car.  They had a shuttle ready to go so we loaded our bags in the van and made the quick drive over to the cruise port.  We quickly checked in, went through security and I was expecting the normal wait of about an hour.  To my surprise, within 5 minutes they called our letter and we walked on to the ship. It took about 15 minutes total.  It does help that we are Platinum with Princess so we get priority embarkation.

 

This is the first time we couldn’t immediately take our carry-on bags to the cabin. We had to carry them around until the cabins were ready at 1 pm. I’m glad we just had our backpacks or that would have been annoying. We had lunch and wandered around the ship.  This was the 5^th time we had been on the Ruby Princess so we are very familiar with it.  At 1 pm we went to our cabin.

We love the balcony cabins on Caribe because they are large. They are half covered and half uncovered so people in the decks above can see you but we love the extra balcony space. 

 

We decided to tour a part of the ship we’d never explored in the past – the spa.  After a great personal  tour by a staff member, we decided to get the thermal suite package which was $250/couple for 10 days. We made a point of visiting the thermal suite once a day.  We loved the heated tile beds, aromatherapy steam room, large steam room and sauna. The sauna also had heated tile “couches.”  I don’t know that I’ve ever been more relaxed than after about 20-30 minutes on a heat tile bed.  Since there is a pool and hot tubs in the spa area, we also combined a visit to the thermal suite with a pool break.

We went to the muster drill. We didn’t have to bring our life jackets so that made the safety information go much faster. They just demonstrated how to put the life jacket on.  Then we headed back to our cabin for sail away. 

TIP: I grew up watching Love Boat with my Grandma and I always loved sail away with the streamers and confetti.  Since those things are not good for the ocean, I bring bubbles!

 

As we were backing up from the terminal, we saw a dolphin.  Within 20 minutes and before even leaving the bay, we saw a whale. It was a good indication of the marine life we would see over the next ten days.  We enjoyed our first sunset of the cruise and then headed out to dinner (Anytime Dining).

 

We went to the show, Magic to Do, and I really enjoyed it. It had magic, dancing, and singing. Eric doesn’t enjoy production shows so that was the only one we attended during the cruise. It was a busy and fun embarkation day!