Santa Barbara, CA

Monday, 27 Jan 2020 – After breakfast, we went swimming for 30 minutes and sat in the hot tub for a few minutes afterwards.  When we returned to our stateroom, the two bottles of wine that we were allowed to bring onboard had rolled off the shelf and broken.  Red wine and glass was everywhere!  Although the stewards cleaned up the mess as best as they could, we continued to find occasional spots of red wine and small chards of glass over the coming days.  We learned something new from the stewards; they used club soda to clean the red wine from the carpet!

California Map

The ship made its first stop at noon, where we docked off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA.  Santa Barbara lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean; its climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been promoted as the "American Riviera.”  US Highway 101 connects the Santa Barbara area with Los Angeles roughly 100 miles to the southeast and San Francisco around 325 miles to the northwest.

Before booking this cruise, we had agreed to some compromises (proposed by Sally), and one was not to get off the ship at many of the stops because we had already visited most of the South American countries.  We had not even signed up for many excursions in South America.  Sally’s goal was to have a relaxing cruise this time.  However, Jesse still wanted to get off the ship at every stop, at least briefly.

On the Pier with Friend, Pam

Therefore, after lunch, Jesse took a ship’s tender ashore, while Sally lay down for a while.  He took a 30-minute walk to a few restaurants and shops at the end of the pier but didn’t find anything of interest.  While walking, Jesse met Pam, who remembered us from the 2019 cruise, so they walked back to the tender together, which made the long walk seem a lot shorter.  Pam, a widow from Florida, is cruising for 180 days around the world.

Before dinner, we danced to the Insignia Show Band in the Horizons.  Unlike last year, we like this band.  They played almost all types of songs for 45 minutes, including the cha cha, swing, rumba, foxtrot, and tango.  Last year, the band played mostly jazz, which made ballroom dancing difficult.  The other couple on the dance floor, Marvin & Liz, from Portland, Oregon, would be cruising for 22 days, to Santiago.  They told us that the band was from Russia.