We awoke with the sunrise, docked in Los Angeles cruise port. The port looked quiet but strangely welcoming in the early morning golden glow and long shadows. Strangely welcoming? Well, this was Los Angeles, America. We’d not visited this coast of America before but our experiences of flying into the east of the country on several occasions had not left us with the greatest of impressions of the country – surliness, huge queues, casual racism towards other travellers and our friend; that sort of thing – and, of course, this was 2019, Trump’s America, a place that absolutely hates every foreigner who’s not a white supremacist with more money than sense. We were not particularly looking forward to clearing either the port customs and security or the airport customs and security later on in the day but sandwiched between those events was a debark tour we could hopefully enjoy.

So how was getting through customs and security at Los Angeles cruise port?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to switch on your Sarcasm-O-Meter there just to scan this paragraph but, really, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Thanks to our morning debark tour and desire for Princess Cruises to get us off as quickly as possible, see the sights without hitting too much traffic, and dump us at the airport without running into problems they’d need to resolve (because we booked the tour and flights with them) we were not just amongst the first people off the ship but my wife and I were literally the first passengers off Star Princess. Down the gangway to the port we were greeted by a friendly port worker who made sure we were careful of the forklifts buzzing around before we headed into the tented area for customs and security. Here was another smiling face, quick question or two, short chat and a laugh, and we were done. Found our cases, found the bus for the tour, and just waited for the rest of our group to file in behind us. We were impressed with our first minutes in Los Angeles.

Venice Canals, Los Angeles, California

It was an uneventful, not terribly interesting drive from the port to the first of our stops with hardly any of that famous Los Angeles traffic to mention either, a benefit of this debark tour taking place on a Saturday morning. Our guide offered to simply stop and tell us about the area of Venice Canals – where we were – or we could go for a quick walk through it and meet up with the bus at the end. There seemed to be a distinct look of shock and disappointment on the guide’s face when we all said we wanted the walk. I’m not sure exactly what she was expecting or what the response to that offer had been on previous tours she’d led but she certainly seemed crestfallen to discover she’d have to get off and walk with us too. We didn’t pay the money for a tour just to gaze at sights from a bus and even had everyone else been content to stay where they were we’d have gotten off and made them all wait for us regardless. We’re like that, you know.

There followed a fairly brisk walk around the canals which started out as one big group and rapidly became one long line as those of us with cameras kept stopping to take pictures. It was hard not to; the clear blue sky of the morning, no wind, and subsequent mirror-like surface of the water produced too many opportunities for pleasing-looking photos to pass up.

It’s entirely possible that our guide was talking a little more about the area while she walked ahead with the leaders in our group but none of that drifted back to where I was. Here, then, is what the internet says about the Venice Canals of Los Angeles: the canals, obviously, are artificial, having been built early in the twentieth century as part of a plan to recreate the look and feel of the canals associated with Venice in Italy. We’ve never been to Venice in Italy but we have seen photos and can honestly say that the attempt to recreate that look and feel here in America was an abject failure. But they’re still nice. Okay, that’s not fair. The canals in Los Angeles these days are only really connected with the ones of the early 1900s by name alone. The originals may once have resembled their Italian counterparts but the canals fell into disrepair and many were filled in and turned into roads as Americans rejected boating and gentle walks in favour of a love affair with traffic jams. It takes all sorts.

After a lot of dealing and double-dealing and committees (and probably threats with weaponry if American TV has taught us anything) new canals were opened in the 1990s and the area became a tourist attraction and a very desirable location to live for the insanely rich who don’t mind strangers walking past their windows and photographing them at all hours of the day and night. It takes all sorts.

There was a quirkiness to the historic Venice Canals area that seemed a little forced to my cynical mind, but artificial quirkiness is okay too and it all added to the pleasing character present. This was evident in the architecture of the buildings – that uniformity you associate with American housing was nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably a privilege of the almighty dollar at work – and with artwork in places, the presence of bird-shaped boats, and a book exchange. An upturned boat in poor condition was potentially a damning statement about society from the residents – Behold! We, the wealthy owners of houses in the Venice Canals area of Los Angeles, see this sign of decay and do nothing! Nothing! – or an artistic homage to the classic half-submerged shopping trolley you’d find in a British canal or maybe simply the victim of gang warfare between the humans and cormorants, the latter group of which was casually flaunting their victory as we strolled through.

The weather conditions were perfect for a 10-minute morning walk around the Venice Canals. Its appeal as a tourist destination if we were staying in Los Angeles seemed a little limited but it made for some pleasing views.

Santa Monica Pier

Our bus then took us along the coastline and deposited us at the place where we would have free time to explore. Our guide told us what time to be back and pointed out the two main attractions of the area: a pedestrianised shopping area running parallel to the beach a few roads back or Santa Monica Pier. I know we all have different priorities in life but for us this Los Angeles debark tour was a chance to see some of the sights of the city ahead of our flight back to the UK so it was to the pier we headed first. Besides, we are quite fond of a pier, in case you didn’t know.

Santa Monica Pier is really two piers with the narrower one being the longest and oldest, opening in 1909, and the shorter, wider one with the funfair on it opening seven years later. Being sited in the heart of movie-making in America it’s unsurprising to learn that the pier has featured in a huge range of films and TV shows, with the Forrest Gump-inspired restaurant chain of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company taking advantage of its connection to the location and having a venue there. That and the marker to signify the western end of Route 66 made for a lot of photo opportunities for other tourists to the spot during our visit.

The funfair is called Pacific Park and is mostly notable for its ferris wheel which is solar-powered. We don’t do amusement rides half as much as we should typically because we only tend to visit these sorts of places when I’m laden with camera equipment and I have a natural aversion to leaving it in the hands of the thieving carnies who run amusement parks in my mind while we’re off on a roller coaster ride. That is a terrible slur against carnies but luckily for me no carnies can read or use the internet so they’ll never learn of it.

We headed down to the farthest end of the pier for the views out to sea and back towards land because that’s what piers are for. If you’re after the toilet and don’t have time to strip down and pretend you’re wading in the sea while you release your bodily fluids into it then you’ll be pleased to know that there are public conveniences on the pier here.

Heading back along the pier we were intrigued by a crowd gathering so joined them for a look. This turned out to be one of those street troupes performing acrobatics then dragging members of the public in to keep them from leaving before they’d been fleeced of money. We stayed on the fringes of the entertained audience where we could ensure no participation and keep an eye out for anything untowards that may be taking place (there wasn’t; 99% of those warnings you receive about people working crowds when they’re distracted are just garbage).

That marked the end of our short time on Santa Monica Pier so we left it and headed inland a few blocks in order to see what we could find in the Third Street Promenade.

Third Street Promenade

The very first part of Third Street Promenade we walked through was a circular mall that, because there were very few people around and because it was fairly enclosed, I didn’t take any photos within. I wished I had taken pictures and paid a little more attention to the space because I hadn’t realised that this was Santa Monica Place, originally one of Frank Gehry‘s designs although subsequently renovated by another architectural firm.

The Third Street Promenade dates back to the 1960s when three blocks were pedestrianised and named the Santa Monica Mall. The present day incarnation with its new name follows modernisation and redevelopment in the late 1980s. There were some fabulous-looking styles of building along its length with some art deco designs standing out.

The most obvious attraction for the eyes was a public art piece titled The Dinosaurs Of Santa Monica. Added as part of the late 80s redesign of the area, this artwork consists of topiary-covered, stainless steel and copper fountains in the shapes of dinosaurs and we could see that they were a hit with young children as we walked the promenade. And me. Who doesn’t like dinosaurs vomiting out water?

We didn’t see any shops along the Third Street Promenade interesting enough to entice us inside but I dare say that there was plenty there for certain types of shoppers and if we’d had more time then we might have forced some browsing time upon ourselves. We reached the end of the promenade and the marker pole indicating we were on Wilshere Boulevard, having passed some more public art pieces along the way, so we decided to loop back towards Santa Monica Beach in order to return to our meeting point for the bus.

Palisades Park

Along the sandstone clifftop overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and Pacific Ocean, between Santa Monica Pier and Wilshere Boulevard (and many more blocks beyond that) lies Palisades Park. It was through this area that we slowly wound our way back. The very first thing to photograph was a statue of the person from whom Santa Monica gained its name. My Catholic upbringing and education by monks hadn’t furnished me with any background information on Saint Monica at all but the internet tells me she was also known as Monica of Hippo and I think that gives me everything I need.

In addition to the lovely views out to sea there was an abundance of flora and fauna although I couldn’t possibly tell you what most of them were. Palm trees and squirrels is about as good as you’re going to get from me.

A memorial to veterans of the army, navy, marines, air force, and coast guard was simple but highly effective.

And so we finally found some shade under a tree near where other passengers on our debark tour were gathering and waited for our bus to return. Joggers jogged past, homeless people slept on the grass, helicopters scanned the waters off the beach in search of kaiju.

Obviously, we only saw a small part of Los Angeles and a pretty affluent part at that, and for a short amount of time too, but we’d not expected to like what we saw as much as we did. Our experiences of big cities in America to this point has been that they are okay to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there, but Los Angeles felt far more welcoming and far more appealing.

Departure

With everyone back on board and nobody late – cruise ships might wait for you but airplanes certainly won’t so that probably accounts for that – we were then driven to Los Angeles International Airport. The first terminal at which the bus pulled up at was the one for us and, it turned out, only us. We were apparently the only people flying with Virgin. We grabbed our cases and headed inside with that tiny little grip inside the stomach as we waited to see what hell would await us in our attempt to leave the country.

So how was getting through check-in and security at Los Angeles airport?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to pick up your Sarcasm-O-Meter from where you’ve dropped it in shock earlier just to scan this paragraph but, really, again, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Check-in people were smiling, happy, wonderfully efficient. Security people were joking, having a laugh and a chat with everyone. And despite the large amount of people trying to get through what was a rather cramped pre-security area it was all organised as well as possible, processed incredibly quickly, and we came through into the duty-free and restaurants area with grins on our faces. A chalk-and-cheese comparison with our experiences in Washington D.C. and New York.

With a while until our flight we decided to grab something to eat before we finally headed home and an establishment called Barney’s Beanery seemed to fit our tastes best. It’s an airport restaurant so, yes, the prices aren’t great, but we couldn’t fault the quality, loved the fact that they had locally-brewed ales available, and our waitress Uneeda was absolutely fabulous. On top of all that, as we were shown to our table we discovered we were sitting next to Patricia, a solo traveller with whom we’d been on excursions with aboard Star Princess and with whom we’d shared many drinks with in bars on the ship during the cruise. She was overjoyed to see us too and it was a lovely finish to our time in America and our trip as a whole.

We try to get debark tours if we can when we take cruises as it extends the holiday just that little bit more and if it’s a place we’ve not visited before then it makes sense to get a feel for the location for future planning. This Venice Canals and Santa Monica disembarkation excursion did a fantastic job of giving us a final, positive memory of both the trip as a whole and of Los Angeles specifically. We saw some attractive areas and there was plenty of time for shopping if that’s the sort of thing that appeals to you as a traveller.

This concludes the cruise travelogues for our Star Princess cruise from Chile to Los Angeles in March 2019.

It was another day with blue sky and blue ocean as far as the eye could see but clouds punctuated the view, the temperature had dropped several degrees overnight, and the wind had picked up. The mostly pancake-flat Pacific we’d experienced for the majority of the cruise had some definite motion to it now and there was a bite in the air as we stepped outside to catch the morning view from the balcony.

Breakfast done and trivia done in the morning (dreadful again) but with nothing to thrill us in the Princess Patter beyond that I picked up my camera.

Last day. Last chance to look around the ship. Do you…

No.

And so I took a walk around Star Princess on my own to snap some final photos of the ship, leaving my wife in a seat at Crooners to read. With an “I won’t be long” from me and an eye-roll from her I headed down the steps to start at the bottom of the piazza.

The first thing to catch the eye were the netted balloons all ready for the farewell party and balloon drop event later that evening. This isn’t something we’ve ever attended as its popularity makes the piazza a quite stifling environment during it. Besides, it’s balloons dropping and we’re not children.

It wasn’t particularly busy on the lowest level of the piazza. The shops were trying their best to convince people that their new batches of signs with percentages off and offers would somehow reflect a different price at the till from the previous fourteen days aboard ship and the other signs and offers that had been displayed; a constant trickle of people were snacking at the wonderful International Café; the art gallery was devoid of any art as it had all been bumped into Explorers Lounge for the final art auction of the cruise.

Up one level where, surprisingly, there were not too many people queueing at the passenger services desk. This is usually a magnetic coil on which the iron filings of gratuities-removing passengers are attached on the first and last days on a ship. We were those iron filings once, on our very first cruise, because we listened to advice from seasoned cruisers who turned out to be tightarses. We know better these days. If you can’t afford to pay the daily charges then you shouldn’t be on a cruise. If you’re the cruising equivalent of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and assume that if you can’t see someone then they didn’t help you out then please announce your stance on as many cruise groups on Facebook as you can and become the hero you think you are.

The top of the piazza is deck seven, the promenade deck and home of most of the more interesting inside venues on a Princess ship. I didn’t venture outside because I knew just how chilly and windy it had felt on the balcony earlier in the day and instead continued taking pictures of Star Princess’s interior spaces for, ooh, I don’t know, maybe the tenth time across our two cruises aboard her. You can never have too many.

The Princess Theatre was either closed for rehearsals or there was a talk going on or I forgot it was there; whatever the reason, I didn’t take photos of it so working back from that point of the deck the first location I hit was the Crown Grill. This is where the British pub lunch is served on sea days and also where Crown Grill speciality dining takes place, the latter because to have it elsewhere would be needlessly confusing. We’d already failed to have a pub lunch due to its popularity and our unwillingness to queue despite being as British as they come and, you’d expect, experts in the art of queueing. We had, however, dined at the Crown Grill on Star Princess one evening and it had been as fabulous as it always is (except for that debacle on Royal Princess which we try not to think about too much). It was interesting, therefore, to see the location during the day, empty except for a group meeting for some sort of crafting get-together, and sporting a feature we’d not been aware of previously – as it’s considered rude to just go wandering around a restaurant when you turn up – in the form of a mock fireplace.

Passing back through the piazza got me closer to the balloons ready and waiting to begin their short descent to the popping frenzy later that day. It wasn’t possible to head into Explorers because the final art auction of the cruise was due to take place in the afternoon. On past cruises we’ve enjoyed the art auctions – on our last Star Princess cruise we bought a plethora of pieces for a really good price – but our experience in Asia aboard Diamond Princess soured what had been a regular activity for us and we have vowed never to do business again with Park West Gallery on any of the ships on which they sell their works. Probably the most disappointing aspect of that whole encounter has been the total lack of response from Princess Cruises regarding the complaints we levelled. Sometimes you just don’t matter in the big picture and all you can do is moan about it online, sigh, and press on.

I don’t want to keep comparing this Star Princess cruise with the one we’d taken three years earlier but coming next to the Wheelhouse Bar presented another example of just how the two cruises had differed. In 2016 Princess had still been running their BOGO drinks promotions (buy one, get another one for a dollar) at select times in select venues, one of those places and times being the Wheelhouse Bar for an hour in the afternoon. This bar had been packed, fun, provided loads of opportunities to mingle and talk to people, had music on that got people up and dancing; it was great. On this 2019 cruise I don’t think we ever saw more than a dozen people in it at any one time. There were often musicians playing in it in the evening who outnumbered the attendees. It was a good place to come for a quiet read if noise from the piazza was making sitting in Crooners annoying but a complete waste of usefulness in my opinion. And it’s such a lovely-looking lounge, too.

A quick poke of the head into Sabatinis (a place we’d dined at twice here and here) and a stroll through the photo gallery without taking any photos (because you’re not allowed to and because I have no desire for any snaps of that annoying redneck couple with whom we shared a table one evening posing next to crew members dressed as conquistadors or penguins or whatever other stereotypical and only occasionally culturally-insensitive costume they’ve been forced to wear at the end of the gangway during port stops). This brought me to the Vista Lounge where the first of two last day bingo sessions was taking place. Bingo is always well-attended throughout a cruise even though I’ve never heard of anyone winning the jackpot until the very last session of the very last day. Some people believe that this is a fix because gambling on ships is not governed by any laws of the land that might demand some element of fairness and random chance but I couldn’t possibly comment on the veracity of that belief as it’s not something I really care about. I also don’t really care for photos of people marking off cards or touching their tablets (not a euphemism; I’m pretty sure I saw electronic devices being used during my split second glance into the lounge) so I simply walked in one door and out the other with barely a moment’s stop for a snapshot or two of the interior space.

Outside the Vista Lounge I took the elevator up to Skywalkers. If you’re not a fan of muttering “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” and traipsing up a few flights of stairs then it’s worth checking the elevator buttons at this point because only two of the elevators here go all the way to deck seventeen and the location of Skywalker’s eponymous Skywalker travelator. We do like the travelator. It’s a crying shame that it’s only present on Star, Golden, and Caribbean Princess, and when the first two are transferred to P&O Australia in the next few years it will only be the latter ship that has this feature remaining in the fleet. We’ve not cruised on Golden or Caribbean and have no plans in place (or time available) to do so prior to Golden’s departure but as we’ve never cruised in Australia we haven’t ruled out maybe seeking out Golden Princess under her new guise and in her new livery when that time comes.

Skywalkers is another place that can be a good spot for a quiet read on a sea day and one that affords the best views. Of course, it was only quieter in terms of volume from its use as a nightclub in the evening. In terms of people there it was almost as busy; another victim of the BOGO eradication price squeeze.

This only really left the swimming pools on the top deck and I decided to keep exposure to the blustery wind as short as possible so made my way as quickly as I could forward, starting with the wake view pool, passing through the covered pool area (Calypso), completing a circuit of the exterior pool (Neptune) beside the Movies Under The Stars screen, and ending at the adults only pool (Lotus) beside the Sanctuary and spa. One foolhardy person was using the exterior swimming pool while the pool we favoured, the adults only one, was netted off on account of its shallowness in choppy sea conditions being something considered dangerous. I imagine the stewards come in and net off the baths in mini-suites and suites during these times too.

That concluded my action-packed solo activity schedule for the last sea day on Star Princess so I rejoined my wife and we commenced with the usual things we do together at this somewhat downbeat time: more reading, more quizzing, a little drinking, and a little eating; and all the while trying to put off packing the cases and clearing the room out ahead of departure.

Another excellent meal in the main dining room came with the customary Baked Alaska parade and almost obligatory dessert option.

The evening concluded with one last stop at Skywalkers and a chance to say goodbye to some of the staff we’d got to know there.

And that’s almost the end of the 2019 South and Central American cruise aboard Star Princess. The morning would see us arrive at Los Angeles where we had a short debark tour arranged of some highlights of the city ahead of a drive to the airport and that will be covered in the final cruise diary post in this travel portfolio.

The morning delivered to us clear blue skies, piercing blue sea, and just a hint of early sea mist dissipating on the land we could see from our balcony. This was the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, the lower part of the peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific coastline.

Dragging ourselves away from the balcony we had a quick peruse of the Princess Patter, as you do.

They’ve got a Traditional Chinese Medicine lecture called Herbs That Heal!

No.

And it’s in the Hearts and Minds Chapel. We’ve never been there.

No.

It could be interesting.

I didn’t come on this cruise to listen to you tutting loudly through a sales pitch to the gullible.

I suppose you just want to read and swim and quiz and eat like usual. No, you’re right, that does sound more appealing.

And so this sea day shaped up to be like most of the others and that’s not a bad thing at all. There’s something to be said for trying something new but there’s an argument for a relaxing routine too. We like to mix it up a bit when we take cruises but, to be fair, I’d already annoyed some passengers earlier in this cruise so there wasn’t a pressing need to leave my mark again on this trip. We had breakfast, we did atrociously in the morning trivia, then we hung around in the piazza for a while to watch the Egg Drop Challenge Finale. Enjoyable, but it lacked the engineering efforts and artistic expressions in the egg drop challenge on our Diamond Princess cruise prior to this one.

Cabo San Lucas

Something not listed in the Princess Patter but announced by the captain over the ship’s speakers then sent me scurrying back to the room for my camera before heading out to the promenade deck: we would be cruising past Cabo San Lucas close enough to see its famous arch formation. Famous is a relative term here because while the name Cabo San Lucas triggered a vague sense of having heard it before deep in the recesses of my brain I had nothing more than that to draw on and its arch, whatever that was, meant nothing to me. Almost nothing. It was a thing to see and I like seeing things. We didn’t know on which side of the ship the thing we’d be seeing would be hence us hitting the promenade deck to keep options open.

There were plenty of other people doing the same thing and the gentle breeze and shade cast from the promenade deck (the reason we’d decided not to head up top) made for a very pleasant time slowly slicing through the water and past the landscape off our starboard side.

We weren’t entirely sure what we were looking out for but assumed we’d know it when we saw it. Meanwhile, it wasn’t just the landmass that had our attention. The water was still filled with turtles which we were almost becoming blasé about by this time (almost; maybe a little less than almost; okay, they were still fricking amazing) but we also watched a hummingbird flitting about the ship for a while. That generated gasps and oohs from everyone around and generated an “I’m not even going to try to take a photo of that fast-moving bastard” from me much to my wife’s disappointment; there’s nothing she likes more than seeing me fail to get nature to sit still for a shot. We also heard people mentioning seeing rays in the water but didn’t spot any until one leapt out and splashed back. He or she – I’m not a ray-sexer – got a very deserved round of applause but the surprise action wasn’t repeated. Always leave them wanting more. What a professional!

And it wasn’t just nature drawing the eye. Naturally, as most cruisers do, we love spotting other cruise ships when we’re cruising the world so it was nice to see one anchored at Cabo San Lucas as we passed. We could tell it was an NCL ship because of the hull decoration visible from the distance but it took zooming in on the high-res photo and confirming with ship timetables after the event for it to become clear this was the Norwegian Star. We’ve not cruised with this line and I can’t honestly say they’ve ever figured in the running for selecting trips but we’ve heard good things about them and I wouldn’t be averse to giving them a go in the future.

Cabo San Lucas is Baja California Sur’s third largest city and a popular holiday resort, particularly with Americans. The Baja California Sur peninsula fractured away from mainland Mexico around two million years ago and archaeological digs at the tip where Cabo San Lucas sits have shown humans have lived there in some form or another for around the last ten thousand of those. Cabo San Lucas itself was founded in the late eighteenth century but remained very lightly inhabited until Mexico’s government decided to put in place the infrastructure to promote the area for tourism. This led to an explosion of hotels and timeshare apartments from the 1970s onwards, a lot of which could be seen on the cliff faces and beach fronts we passed.

It took for me to decide to get a photo with some of the other passengers in the shot before I suddenly realised that the thing we’d come to see, the Arch of Cabo San Lucas, was already behind us. In my defence it probably wasn’t easily visible until this point as it’s difficult to spot an arch from a side-on angle.

So, we can now say that we’ve seen what the locals refer to as El Arco and it’s always nice to see natural formations like this. It’s not quite as impressive as Durdle Door in my opinion but a good thing to experience nonetheless, and it’s apparently a popular spot with sea lions who have reputedly good taste where these things are concerned.

We stayed out a while longer until we’d passed the headland and most of the developments along it in search of that oh-so-desirable tourist dollar.

Afternoon Activities

We had a swim, grabbed something to eat from the pool grill, listened to a bit of music from the band for a while while we did so, then went for a read in the company of some drinks. My wife stuck to her cider and I continued with Operation Try All The Beers to see if there were any stars amongst them. Answer: not really. Princess are no P&O where beers are concerned.

We have a theory that we need just a little amount of alcohol to get our brains working. This is why we’re hopeless in morning trivia competitions usually. This is why we do considerably better in the afternoon trivia competitions. For the second time on this cruise we won the trivia and managed to bag a reusable bottle as one of the prizes and a pointless wine stopper as the other. Seriously, who leaves a bottle open with wine in it? Wine heathens, that’s who! The Elite Lounge opened just as the trivia concluded so we took our prizes up with us and celebrated with a couple of drinks.

We dropped our bottle and stopper back off in our room (and grabbed a few more shots of the ocean view from our balcony because my name is Mark and I have a problem and just can’t help myself) then decided to eat up a little more time before the evening with something we’d tried to do a few days earlier.

That thing we’d tried to do was try the wine flight. We’d seen the group of gay guys with whom we’d had an aborted stargazing but boozy and fun evening previously try these flights one day while we’d been in Vines so we’d asked Zander if we could do the same. The wine flight includes three wines and three chocolates for pairing but at the time we’d asked we’d been told that they had none of the white chocolates in although they hoped to restock in Puerto Vallarta. Well… that didn’t happen so we accepted an improvised offer when we asked again on this day and that’s why you can see two chunks of white Toblerone.

And how was the Princess wine flight? Okay. The chocolates were a nice touch and two thirds of them were great quality and very tasty although it’s arguable that they really made a difference to the experience. The problem was that the flight included a rosé wine. Our wine-drinking preference is for red wine and the more full-bodied the better. After that, our preference is for something that’s not wine because white wine is like drinking watery piss and rosé wine feels like an evil scientific experiment in the mouth.

I have taken the flavours, the aromas, the blitz on the sensations of a red wine…

Oh, I like that master!

…and I have taken the insipid, pale, almost offensively pointless presence of a white wine…

Master! You’re scaring me!

…and behold my creation! It lives!

Master! What is it!?

I shall call it rosé. People will think it is a bridge to better drinking experiences for white wine drinkers! People will be so wrong! It is worse! Far, far worse!

Sabatini’s Speciality Dining

This penultimate sea day was a formal night. We don’t object to formal nights but I don’t find wearing a suit of any kind terribly comfortable. I take a tuxedo and I do wear it at least once on a cruise but we’ve found ways to not have to dress up too much and not worry about feeling out of place as we’ve become more experienced cruisers. One of those ways is to book speciality dining for the formal night. Speciality dining venues tend to be a little more relaxed about what you’re wearing on formal nights because you’re paying a little extra for the privilege. We’d had an absolutely stunning meal already in Sabatini’s thanks to a free offer when we’d booked the cruise; stunning enough, in fact, that we’d booked another sitting which we worked out should be on this final formal evening.

But first, a formal night tradition needed to be followed. A Vodka Martini with three olives for me, something fancy for the lady. I never used to like Vodka Martinis. I didn’t like the taste of them. I really didn’t like the olives. I still don’t like the olives. I have, however, acquired a taste for a Vodka Martini and worked out the purpose of the olives: firstly, they’re to look sophisticated to people impressed by revolting fruit; secondly, they’re to impart a little saltiness into the drink and tweak its flavour as you sip further down the glass; thirdly, they’re to be thrown at people irritating you once you’ve consumed about half the drink and don’t fancy the idea of finishing off with brine.

To Sabatini’s. We made a few changes from the first meal we’d had here so that we could try a few new things but there were some courses that were simply too good to not have again. The wine, as well, was one we had for the third time, having had it recommended on our first visit then selecting it when we’d dined at the Crown Grill just ahead of crossing the equator too.

Our pinot noir was delivered to the table along with another incredible basket of bread and the Stuzzichino Della Casa: “warm rustic whole-wheat loaf, tuscan zonzelle with roasted tomato & bell pepper passata, prosciutto crudo, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar.”

For my wife, the first course was Arrosticini di Agnello: “grilled lamb skewers marinated with oregano and extra virgin olive oil, arugula salad.” I went for Alici: “fried zucchini & yellow squash, smoked scamorza, toasted house made crostini.”

In the eternal battle between soup and salad we side with the forces of soup. Grana Padano Fondue: “celery, foraged mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts.”

The pasta course for my wife was Buckwheat Pappardelle: “wide ribbon pasta, celeriac, nebbiolo-braised beef cheek.” I repeated my previous choice of Tortelloni: “mint-speckled pasta, roasted lamb, pecorino crosta nera, cacio e pepe sauce, broccoli rabe.”

My wife’s seafood course was Roman Seafood al Cartoccio: “grouper, shrimp, black mussels, scallops, potato, artichoke.” I went for the Iseo-Style Lake Trout Rolls: “lemon, capers, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary polenta.”

We’d been disappointed by the deconstructed tiramisu for dessert on our first meal at Sabatini’s so chose differently this time around with my wife picking the dessert samples and me picking just one huge, chocolatey one.

Finally, the only problem with a meal as large as this is that the wine doesn’t last long enough so you’re compelled to dip into the exclusive cocktails list for the dining venue. Compelled.

So full were we from another stunningly good meal from the new Sabatini’s menu that we forewent our traditional evening end in Skywalkers and opted to slip into food comas in our room instead.

Tomorrow would be the last day aboard Star Princess.

Freshening up for us involves hitting a bar nine times out of ten and this wasn’t one of those one-in-ten outliers so it felt the right time of day for a glass of wine in Vines. Zander was there as usual to tempt us with some tapas and, because we’d not had anything to eat ashore, we gave in.

Back in our room and what other people might refer to as freshening up – showering and changing clothes – then occurred with us taking turns to gaze out at Puerto Vallarta during sunset from our balcony. Royal Princess, which had been there during our cruise into Puerto Vallarta in the morning, had obviously left at some point during our city tour but Carnival Splendor was still docked and we noticed a pirate ship across from us too.

I recall that there had been a tour offered by Princess that included time aboard a pirate ship and I can only assume it was this very same one; as much as I like pirates – my niece thinks I am one (I might have had something to do with that perception) – we hadn’t been interested in this trip because the pirate ship visit had also included words such as “party” and “music” which typically trigger a reflexive action in us akin to Dracula spotting a crucifix. It was a pretty still evening with the heat of the day becoming that warmth of the evening that’s such a wonderful thing to experience on cruises nearer the equator, and the views of the port area as the sun’s setting lit the horizon on fire was the perfect counterpoint to the thump-thump-badump-thump of bass notes travelling across the water accompanied by peals of laughter and shrieking.

“Fuck me, they’re annoying!” announced my wife, emerging onto the balcony, clean and ready for the evening.

“Indeed they are,” I agreed, as I stepped back into the room for my turn to wash and change.

By the time I was ready there was barely a hint of sunlight in the western sky – it takes a while to get me looking this average – and the pirate ship had vanished. Sailed away to party where it could only irritate whales or deservedly sunk by a broadside from the cruise ship’s cannons while I’d been scrubbing my nethers? Who can say? The darkness in the sky not only brought some tranquility to Puerto Vallarta but also served to hide that funnel on the Carnival Splendor, making it very nearly almost look appealing all lit up at dockside.

Star Princess had started to move as I’d made my way onto the balcony so we stayed long enough to clear the port entrance before commencing with the evening’s activities.

The evening’s activities started with dinner which included one of those sorbet refreshers between the appetiser and main course and a Chocolate Journey for dessert. It’s almost a nautical law on Princess ships that we take both of them.

Now, you’ll quite likely have picked up on the fact that we’re not what you might call party people already unless you’ve scrolled down the page without reading until the food stopped you dead or your comprehension skills are about on a par with a Brexit supporter’s. Just to reiterate: we’re not party people. But we still headed up to the top deck for a while even though there was a party taking place under the Movies Under The Stars screen because:

• unlike the pirate ship party, this one was free to attend
• unlike the pirate ship party, this one was safe from cruise ship cannon attacks
• the odds of catching an old couple dance headfirst into the pool were reasonable

Sadly, nobody fell into the pool while we were there but it still seemed like everyone had a reasonably enjoyable time regardless. Like the previous time we’d been at a deck party on Star Princess there did seem to be far too much organised dancing straying into zumba-exercising territory taking place so we eventually headed off to grab some drinks in some inner venues on the ship before calling it a night.

Still to come in this cruise diary travel portfolio of our South and Central American cruise aboard Star Princess are two final sea days which include cruising past Cabo San Lucas and a second meal at Sabatini’s because the first one was just so good, before disembarkation at Los Angeles and a tour of Santa Monica and Venice Canals prior to catching our flight home.

Malecón Boardwalk

The first stop was several kilometres to the south of the port, a promenade area along the coast known as the Malecón. We found our bus, got aboard, and set off as our guide started to talk a little about the city, the country, and what we could expect from the excursion as a whole: Mexico with and without make-up on. A running theme of the guide’s commentary during the day would be political digs at Americans (who made up the bulk of the tour group) and the perception of Mexicans in their media. We found it mildly amusing but I’m not sure how some of the American passengers felt about constant reminders that Mexicans aren’t all unemployed, aren’t all trying to get to America, aren’t all on drugs, don’t all walk around with guns, etc. You can hear a little of the commentary in this short clip (temporarily removed) from our bus journey to the boardwalk area.

The Malecón is a long stretch of paved walkways along the beach decorated with palm trees, sculptures, and traditional stone patterns, and off which a lot of bars, restaurants, and gathering places for public events can be found.

Our tour of Puerto Vallarta started near the lighthouse – the distinctive black-and-white-striped Faro Del Malecón – which was built in the early 1930s and operated until the late 1970s. With the amount of travelling we do by sea and the amount of ports we end up visiting we see a lot of lighthouses on our travels; this has to be one of the smallest.

It was hot, as you might expect, but there was a nice breeze coming in off the Pacific Ocean and we could see not only people taking advantage of it and enjoying some of the watersport activities that this part of Puerto Vallarta is famous for – parasailing and jetskiing and windsurfing, for instance – but also some of the local wildlife in the form of several pelicans that came swooping in close as we gathered to listen to some of the history of the area.

The indigenous people of this part of Mexico are known as the Huichol and during a remodelling of the Malecón in 2011 the promenade had decorative stone patterns placed in it to reflect their culture. You can see some of the shapes in the photos below. The different shapes typically represent living forms but I’m not very good at interpreting the shapes and suspect that the Penguin With Chest Spikes and the Cthulhu Wearing Bunny Ears probably aren’t traditional creatures in the Huichol mythos.

The most prominent aspect of the Malecón are the pieces of public artwork. You can often find temporary pieces such as sand sculptures and some fairly amateur-looking arrangements but along the length of the boardwalk are some excellent commissioned works of art too. The small area in which we wandered included Triton And Mermaid by Carlos Espino and one of the city of Puerto Vallarta’s symbols, the Boy On The Seahorse by Rafael Zamarripa Castañeda, which is located by one of those city name signs that are always popular with tourists. This is the second naked boy riding a seahorse sculpture in Puerto Vallarta, not because you can never have too many naked boys riding seahorse sculptures (although that’s very likely true), but because the original was located on a rocky outcrop that was washed away in a storm. It was subsequently found after the replacement shown below was sculpted so the city now has two.

The Zócalo, Plaza De Armas

Crossing over the main road and heading inland one block from the Puerto Vallarta city sign brought us to the city’s main square, the Plaza de Armas. This square is bedecked with plants and flowers and contains a bandstand for public performances as well as a statue of Ignacio Vallarta, a former governor and the man after whom the city was named.

Adjacent to the plaza was City Hall laid out in a traditional courtyard style. Our group took advantage of some much-needed shade from the sun inside long enough to allow those who needed to use the toilets to do so. We didn’t need to go. On the landing of the main stairwell off the courtyard is a well-known, naive-style mural representing the foundation and growth of Puerto Vallarta by local artist Manuel Lepe.

Parish Church Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe

A mish-mash of architectural styles explains the rather unique look of the city’s main landmark symbol, the Parish Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The impressive feature on the exterior of the building is the crown sculpture atop the tower, the official name of which is Tecuntlanopeuh. This concrete crown was placed on the church in 2009, sculpted by Carlos Terres and replacing temporary structures that themselves had replaced the original crown which had been designed by José Esteban Ramírez Guareño and been in place from 1965 until 1995 when an earthquake hit the region. You can read more about the symbolism of the crown here: The Crown of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.

We had a few minutes to look inside the church and were then led through the streets, roughly in a southeast direction towards the Cuale River with one brief stop in La Fuente Del Puente restaurant where we saw the first reference to a couple of Puerto Vallarta’s most famous residents of the past, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Isla Cuale

One of several rivers that run through Puerto Vallarta, the Río Cuale has an islet near its mouth, an area with a notable population of stray cats and the former location of lower class housing that was evacuated when flooding during a hurricane in 1971 made inhabitation too dangerous. The Isla Cuale was later transformed into a cultural site. We crossed the river onto the islet (spotting a couple of American white ibis in the shallow water) and were given a short amount of free time to explore which essentially provided for two options: westwards, towards the coast, there was a large market place; eastwards, farther inland, there was a park with local art on display. We did want to do some souvenir shopping but that’s always a lower priority than checking out artwork so eastwards we went.

In addition to a few sculptures there was plenty of street art on display on the walls of buildings on Isla Cuale. The quality and style varied but it was a pleasant walk in the shade of the trees which also helped to deaden the sound of traffic from the city. The tranquility obviously appealed to some locals who we spotted in several places sleeping.

At the eastern end of Isla Cuale was the cultural centre, an open space with buildings on three sides. This is apparently a venue for artistic and cultural events. A statue was pretty prominent, that being of the film director John Huston. Created by Carlos Ramírez, it had been erected on the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie Night of the Iguana which had been shot in Puerto Vallarta and helped to put the place on the map internationally.

The inscription on the base of the statue reads:

“We have no reason to feel any sorrow for him, only for ourselves for having lost him. He is irreplaceable. There will never be another like him.” – Huston’s eulogy for Humphrey Bogart.

It’s quite an odd inscription given Bogart wasn’t in the movie.

We had enough time before our bus arrived to pop into a shop selling typical things any tourist visiting Mexico might want to buy. We were any tourists so we came away with a small calavera because it’s a pretty standard thing to pick up as a souvenir and occasionally we like to be pretty standard just to break the monotony of being exceptional.

Silver Shopping In Puerto Vallarta

A short bus ride took us to the dedicated shopping part of this excursion, a store called Jewelry Aviles. It’s not a place with great reviews on TripAdvisor but we had no problems there. We all had a welcome drink on arrival which might have been lemonade and might have been alcoholic. It was nice, whatever it was; that was the important thing. The store itself offered artisan jewellery pieces in one area and more conventional souvenir shopping next door and there was a toilet for customer use that saw a lot of action from our tour group. We didn’t need to go.

Prior to the cruise my wife had expressed an interest in buying some silver in Mexico because that’s something she claimed it’s famous for. I didn’t bother to check if that was true because if my wife wants some silver then silver she shall have no matter what fantastical tale of renowned elements around the world she concocts to explain away her desires. She picked up a silver skull to add to her charm bracelet.

El Set Restaurant

This Puerto Vallarta tour was short enough that food was not included but our next stop did take us to a restaurant. The bus headed south for another couple of kilometres until we reached El Set. On the cliffside overlooking the Pacific Ocean this was a very attractive venue offering some gorgeous views if you were to eat here and coming with some local history too, naturally, as it had been a favourite place for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to dine at during the filming of Night of the Iguana. Facing west it’s easy to imagine how spectacular the sunsets must be. Reminders of the movie and the famous diners of the past was present and there was even one of the actual film cameras from the movie shoot on the upper terrace.

One of my most favourite travel experiences ever (so far) occurred during our visit to El Set in Puerto Vallarta. Our group had some time to nose around the restaurant so some people were on the main floor, some were probably seeing if they could get another coffee fix in the restaurant, some were doubtlessly making use of the toilets again (we didn’t need to go), and some were admiring the views out to sea. There were about a dozen or so of us doing the latter activity and while all eyes were distracted elsewhere I glanced to the right where a building a little farther along the coast had a gazebo with a low glass wall. Two men – probably in their late 50s or early 60s – were laughing and making some mildly obscene gestures at our group, none of whom bar me were looking in the right direction. I was prepared to ignore them until one suddenly dropped his shorts and mooned us. The good thing about my camera is I can have the camera resting in my hand to up and shooting in a fraction of a second and I did. The mooning guy’s companion spotted me and laughed and started speaking to his friend who quickly whipped his shorts back up and shuffled away, obviously not expecting to be caught. I smiled and gave the thumbs up to the man who’d spotted me and got a thumbs up back from him. I looked back at our tour group and nobody else had seen a thing. A fabulous moment to experience.

Quinta Las Rosas Garden And Río Bendito Tequila Distillery

We would now be experiencing what our guide described as “Mexico without the make-up” as the final part of our tour took us northwards and away from the shoreline to Quinta Las Rosas, an events location set in some attractive gardens beside a river. While the venue itself would be pretty we would be travelling through a considerably poorer part of Puerto Vallarta to get there.

We very quickly saw a change in the buildings and apparent standards of living but our guide was at pains to point out that things weren’t quite how they looked. Building regulations were pretty much non-existent and the only requirement was to have a water tank connected to the city’s supply so that the risk of everyone trying to use the water supply at the same time could be removed. Mortgages were also apparently not something that really existed so people tended to build when they had saved the money and bought the materials, and stopped when they didn’t. Houses could look a little unfinished as a result but, we were told, inside them it was perfectly typical to find the latest TVs, the best computers, high speed internet, etc. because Mexicans liked their luxuries while the outside appearance didn’t really matter. It was at this point that my wife and I wondered whether we might have Mexican blood in us.

You can see some of the buildings and hear some of the commentary from our tour guide in this short clip (temporarily removed) of our bus ride towards Playa Grande where Quinta Las Rosas was located.

Quinta Las Rosas was a lovely little spot, a great location for weddings or conferences, although you might want to have a word with the venue’s owners if you’re thinking of doing either of those things but don’t like the idea of chickens running around. Quite a few kids riding horses bareback trotted through occasionally too.

The thing we’d really come for, though, was the tequila-tasting operated by Río Bendito which took place after we’d had a tour of the area and an explanation of the distilling process. As much as I like to drink alcohol it never ceases to amaze me how people first came up with the idea of making it.

Several buses had arrived at Quinta Las Rosas at roughly the same time for the tequila explanations and tastings and there were benches lined up in several spots around the garden. We were pleased that we had the only spot under cover as I’m not sure whether what came next would have been quite as enjoyable had the sun been beating down on us during it. Small plastic cups were handed out to everyone and we were then given very small measures of eight different tequilas, four of them flavoured liqueurs; descriptions of the drink, a toast, and drinking then occurred for each of them in turn. I don’t mind tequila in a drink but it’s usually with a mixer rather than neat while my wife is proud to say she hates the stuff. You might be wondering why we wanted to do the tasting at all but when in Mexico as they say, and part of the appeal of travelling for us is experiencing what other cultures get up to even if that means putting up with a little discomfort every now and then.

Not only were all the tequilas surprisingly lovely – even their most basic one with the shortest ageing was smooth with none of that harsh taste we normally associate with tequila – but we decided to pick up a bottle of their longest aged product as it’s the only one they apparently don’t export. Had to be done.

We had time at the end of the tasting to have a wander around the garden a little more and for anyone who wanted to use the toilet to do so. We finally needed to go. A young boy was doing a roaring trade getting dollar tips for effectively handing people paper towels from the pile supplied to dry their hands after using the facilities. Fair play.

That brought our half-day Highlights of Puerto Vallarta tour to an end and all that remained was to jump back on the bus and make our way back to the port where Star Princess was waiting for us. You can see a little bit more of the buildings and the way the landscape changes on the journey back as well as hear a few more bits of information (as well as one final dig about stereotypical misrepresentation from the American media and the country’s current president) from our guide in this final (temporarily removed) short video clip.

This was a very good tour, very well-priced, with plenty packed into its relatively short duration. Puerto Vallarta was a lovely city and the areas along the Malecón and around Isla Cuale in particular look like they have plenty to keep a visitor occupied. Even the less touristy areas through which we drove felt safe and looked to be full of character and it’s a place we’d have no hesitation in recommending or revisiting ourselves, or possibly even moving to if it turns out we really do have Mexican heritage.

We had made good time on our two days at sea from Nicaragua and the landmass of Mexico was still wearing a morning haze as a we got closer and closer to the port.

We’d had breakfast and were on our balcony for the initial approach and first sight of Puerto Vallarta and we had a decent view of the pilot boat arriving to let the pilot board and take over the final docking manoeuvre.

The only issue with having a balcony is that you can only see off one side of the ship and I was quite keen to not miss anything so I convinced my wife that we could take our books (and my camera, naturally) down to Crooners and I could duck through to the promenade deck on either side of the ship depending on what things of interest there might be. The reason for bringing books was that due to our early arrival we would still have quite a wait until our planned excursion for the day was due to depart. As it turned out, almost all of the interest viewpoints were still off the starboard side of the ship so we could have simply stayed in our room. But you can’t tell this sort of thing ahead of time.

Spotting wildlife had been a common event on this Pacific Ocean cruise but that didn’t mean it was getting boring. In addition to seeing the occasional frigate bird in the air and a couple of pelicans skimming along over the water’s surface there was a whole host of birds making use of a concrete mooring point and the walkway extending from the land to it.

But, as you’ll no doubt have already guessed from the title of this post, the most interesting thing on view in Puerto Vallarta was the presence of two other ships. This is only interesting if you like ships and as someone who cruises a lot it’s interesting to me. You might not care less. One wonders what you’re doing reading this far if that’s the case. It’s also not that interesting to my wife who steadfastly refused to leave her chair and her Kindle despite me mentioning that it wasn’t just the Carnival Splendor on view.

Royal Princess is here as well.

Uh huh.

She’s got the Sea Witch design on her. Didn’t have that when we cruised.

Mmhmm.

Did you want to pop out and take some photos as well? I can save your seat.

I’m fine.

Carnival Splendor is a ship we’ve not cruised on nor is it terribly likely that we ever would. As a brand, Carnival don’t appeal to us. Carnival is all about the fun and the problem we find with fun is that we don’t enjoy it. There’s another factor to Carnival, too: that funnel. Which also starts with fun and yet isn’t in the slightest. It’s supposedly fashioned on a whale’s tail but looks to me more like the kind of spoiler you see on flashy cars driven by youths with no sense of style; I associate these cars with ridiculously loud exhausts and these people with excruciating taste in music and a genetic abnormality that means they can only listen to it through thunderous vibrations causing cavitations in their body’s fluids. This combination of gruesomely ugly design with loutish connotations and an abundance of fun pushes Carnival way down our cruising pecking order.

As I’ve already indicated, the third ship in the port alongside Splendor and us was Royal Princess and, as you might have been able to determine from the quoted conversation if you didn’t know already, we’d cruised on Royal Princess before, in the eastern Mediterranean in 2016. While I was standing on the promenade deck taking in the sight of Puerto Vallarta and the ships docked there as we swung back and into position ourselves I overheard a conversation between two American women.

Another Princess ship! Is that Regal Princess?

No, Royal. We were on Royal Princess for the two weeks before we joined Star Princess in Chile.

Oh, wow! That’s amazing! How do the ships compare?

Oh, Star Princess is much better. Better food, better staff, better entertainment, easier to find your way around.

Oh no, that’s not good. I mean it is for us but what a shame! It looks such a big ship.

It’s too big. I think that’s the problem.

Personally, I don’t think Royal Princess is too big but we otherwise shared a lot of the same sentiments following our single experience on her. This pair of matching data points as to the quality of a Royal Princess cruise, though, is nothing worth worrying about if this is a ship you’re thinking of cruising on. The problem with any cruise experience is that it’s very specific to one person’s viewpoint at one moment in time. When I write up my travel diaries and cruise reviews I sometimes feel a little guilty for mentioning problems; I worry that they might come across as sour grapes. These are the sorts of things that when they’re shared on Facebook groups lead to helpful responses such as “Well, that’s never happened to us” and “We were on that same cruise and didn’t have any of those issues” and “Can I wear shorts to dinner?” which is why I’ve got my own site to put up that additional barrier of forcing people to enter a name and email address that tends to weed out casual, unhelpful commentary. Yeah, I’m blaming the inherent laziness of internet users on a lack of comments and not my unengaging writing or unwillingness to spam my content everywhere. That’s so me.

Anyway, Royal Princess may not have left a very good impression on us or our fellow passenger on Star Princess but one very good thing I can say about her, though, is that she’s a lot better looking than Carnival Splendor.

In the next post in this cruise diary travel portfolio I’ll cover our day’s excursion in Puerto Vallarta.

The First Sea Day

You can’t do as little as humanly possible without a firm plan of action so every day begins the night before with a peruse of the ship’s daily programme of events, the Princess Patter.

Every morning also sees us perusing the Princess Patter because we’ve forgotten what was in it by the time we’re awake. We then promptly forget it again as we get distracted by the view from the balcony. On this first sea day we could see that we were tracking along the coast of Central America as we cruised northish and with this being not too far from land we had sea birds flying alongside Star Princess doubtlessly looking to snatch up anything disturbed by the ship’s passage through the water.

Breakfast was followed by a wander along to the Vista Lounge for some early morning trivia. For some reason we never do well in the trivia when it takes place in the largest of the lounges on ships. We’ve won on numerous occasions when Explorers is used but as soon as trivia is moved to Vista or Club Fusion, as it typically is on sea day mornings, we fail abysmally. This was no different. The most entertaining aspect of the trivia in this venue came at its conclusion with the melee to stake out prime spots for the Zumba class which followed on from the quizzing. Women of all ages suddenly transformed into shuffling, barging, snarling machines rushing to the stage with bags to reserve their spots.

I suggested it might be a nice idea to head onto the top deck where one of our favourite films, Galaxy Quest, was showing on the Movies Under The Stars screen. All of the shaded loungers were taken so we managed, ooh, about ten minutes before the only visible star in the sky had boiled our brains enough to send us scurrying inside the ship.

We’d seen a few of the ship’s enrichment presenter’s talks but the one he was giving on this day in the theatre didn’t interest us so we made do with some quiet reading with the thought in mind that we might try the British-style pub lunch. That plan was ditched as we strolled up to the Crown Grill fifteen minutes before it was due to start and caught a glimpse of the queue. It’s a very popular thing on Princess ships.

We went for a swim instead then rewarded ourselves with a small bite from the grill by the pool followed by a drink in Crooners while we read.

Sitting in the bar we could see people completing laps of the Promenade Deck through the windows so I suggested that perhaps we should do the same once we’d finished our drinks. This was not a well-received suggestion until some activity taking place in the Piazza made too much noise and my wife harrumphed and said “Okay, let’s head outside.”

We did not complete a single lap but we spent the best part of an hour outside. The Pacific Ocean was living up to its name; very flat, very calm, very tranquil, very wet. The sea conditions meant that spotting sealife was ridiculously easy. Pods of dolphins could be seen, most often in the distance but every now and then coming along very close to the ship’s hull. Turtles, though, were there in their tens of dozens. We lost count of how many we saw. We would no sooner watch one float past or dive down as the ship approached than we’d look ahead and spot another one or two. I didn’t have my main camera on me or I’d have tried to snap away but it was more than enough to just gaze out at the sea and enjoy the spectacle with the warm breeze on our faces and the thud-thud-thud of walkers completing crap knows how many miles of laps behind our backs.

All that sea air must have made us a little hungrier than normal as we then decided to get some Afternoon Tea. This took place in the Portofino restaurant and we shared a table with another two couples although the sort of small talk you tend to engage in at dinner never really took place. That suited us fine. We took some of the offered light bites and had a couple of cups of tea to keep our fluid levels up. As you can tell from the photo of the scones we are cream then jam people. The correct way. Don’t even think about arguing the matter.

We did have some actual plans for the evening by this point but the rest of the afternoon was spent mostly quietly reading and sipping drinks. Popping into Vines for a glass of wine we were persuaded by Zander to once again try the tapas following a sad story about how his chef would be crestfallen if he thought nobody liked the food. This was turning into a very grazey kind of day for us.

After showering and changing for the evening we spent a little more time admiring the sea and the sunset from our balcony and the Promenade Deck. This cruise probably saw us spend more time looking out to sea than any other thanks to the abundance of wildlife we kept spotting and while we didn’t see anything as dusk approached it was still such a pleasant experience to gaze into the distance and just simply enjoy the moment.

Our early evening plan involved attending the Captain’s Circle speech. This is an event that takes place once per cruise where senior members of staff – the loyalty manager, the entertainments director, and the captain most prominently – will give a speech to people who’ve demonstrated a certain level of loyalty to Princess Cruises. Attendees have the opportunity to win a bottle of champagne and there are free nibbles and drinks handed out too. The speeches usually cover news about the fleet, information about new destinations, some statistics about what nationalities are on the ship, and which passengers have cruised the longest. On this cruise were a couple of Americans who had sailed 1,583 days on Princess ships. That’s almost four and a half years cruising. That’s the sort of announcement that gets a round of applause and lots of heads turning to one another and muttering “Utter bastards!” to one another.

We’ve been to a lot of these Captain’s Circle talks. They’re usually okay, nothing too memorable. This one was different. Firstly, there were the drinks. You can count on getting one. You might get two. We did significantly better. The reason for this was because several of the bar staff who normally waited in Skywalkers were brought down to help hand out food and drinks and we’d gotten to know them pretty well by this point as we were regulars there. As we stepped into the Vista Lounge we got a “I’ll come find you and bring you drinks” from Hyacinth – and she did – plus a wave from Lester as he spotted us from across the room who then made sure to bring us over some drinks as well. Twice. At one point I had two drinks and my wife had four drinks sat in front of her as Hyacinth had another wine spare and left it with us. We got some looks from other people nearby. It pays to be friendly to the staff.

The second reason this speech was so memorable was because of the captain. Captain Tuvo is a bit of a character. You can read more about some of his antics during our Crossing The Line Ceremony experience. His speech pretty much started:

Welcome back everybody. This is the part where Princess want me to tell you about the ship and about the company and the destinations and blah, blah, blah. Boring. You know that speech already. I don’t want to do that speech and I’m the captain so I’m going to do magic instead. I need a volunteer from the audience…

He then proceeded to entertain us with magic and humour for the next half hour. It was unexpected and incredibly good fun. Easily the best of these speeches we’ve attended. I did record a whole chunk of this magic but, as with almost all the videos on this cruise, it was lost in the Great Backup Sync Balls-Up that I still sometimes sob about when nobody is looking.

We also had some late evening plans. After dinner we grabbed a drink from Crooners to eat up a little time until just after ten when we headed up to the aft terrace adjacent to the Horizon Court buffet. This was the meeting place for the Stargazing Get-Together. We’ve been to several of these stargazing at sea events on Princess ships and until this point had been unsuccessful in ever seeing anything; either the sky had been cloudy or the ship had not been able to switch its lights off in order to help us see anything. We had high hopes this time as there were a few stars visible despite the glare from the ship’s lights.

We stepped out onto the terrace and saw that there were around twenty other people standing around and waiting. We stood around and waited too. And waited. And waited. And… waited. And… eventually came to the conclusion that whichever member of staff was supposed to be running the event wasn’t going to turn up after all. Another failed stargazing event with Princess Cruises. One day.

The evening wasn’t a complete failure, though. One group of people waiting for the stargazing event were people we’d seen around the ship on a few occasions; four pairs of gay guys who’d met onboard at one of the first LGBT meet-ups and started doing activities together. We got talking, we got laughing, we persuaded everyone to hit Skywalkers with us. It was great to see the looks on the faces of Hyacinth and Lester again as we turned up not alone for once but in a posse of ten. There was a lot of noisy laughter. There was a lot of poor dancing. There were many drinks ordered and consumed. There was a great exchange between one of the Australian guys and my wife.

Wife: How long have you two been together?

Guy: Years. Although he wouldn’t introduce me to his parents for ages. He was worried how they’d react.

Wife: Were they fine, though?

Guy: No. I don’t get on with them. They don’t approve of me.

Wife: Perhaps they just thought he could do better.

Guy: [screaming laughter] Agh! Ya fuckin’ bitch!

We outlasted everyone and only left Skywalkers when they turned the music off and the lights on.

The Second Sea Day

Another day, another Princess Patter.

The second sea day’s general activities followed a very similar pattern to those of the one preceding it. There was trivia which was lost, there was swimming, there was lots of time for reading. We spent a long time gazing out to sea from either our balcony or the Promenade Deck again. More dolphins, more turtles, and we saw two sea snakes at one point too which was quite a shock, albeit a pleasant one. We’re all about the experiences.

We had a far more normal day food-wise with our lunch consisting of a panini with cake for me and a panini with cookies for my wife, all complimentary at the International Café. And a glass of wine from the adjacent Vines, of course. Very civilised.

There was time to enjoy the stillness of the ocean and the pastel colours of the sky in the company of a few cocktails as the afternoon turned into evening.

We didn’t any have big plans for the evening but dinner proved to be interesting. We never mind sharing with other people and this night was no exception. Our waiter led us to a table for four where an older couple were already seated. We recognised them from a previous night’s dinner when they’d been opposite us on a table for eight and so hadn’t really had a chance to speak properly. They recognised us too.

You again! You’re the English couple, right? Do you remember us?

That’s us. And yes.

Excellent. You drink champagne, right?

We’ve been known to.

Great! We won a bottle of champagne at the Captain’s Circle speech and we can’t drink a whole bottle ourselves so we asked to have it chilled so we could share it with whoever sat with us tonight. You’ll join us, I hope?

It would be rude not to.

Free champagne! That’s the best kind there is! Even better, when we started talking to the couple – they were from Oregon – we found to our joy that they were left-wing politically. Right-wingers are so much more common among Americans on cruise ships so it was great to be able to eat, drink champagne, and bemoan the idiots who voted for Trump and the idiots who voted for Brexit in full agreement with our international table partners for a change. A very enjoyable meal indeed.

That brings two relaxing sea days to a close. In the next posts in this cruise portfolio I’ll cover our day in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the last port of call before disembarkation in Los Angeles.

Our drive through Granada came complete with an explanation from our guide regarding the historical significance of the city as well as descriptions of its architectural styles and you can see and hear some of that for yourself in the following short bit of video (temporarily removed) shot from the bus.

We would have a chance to look a little closer at some of the buildings but first order of business was lunch.

Lunch In The Garden Cafe

Lunch was taken in The Garden Café, a local business doing lots of good work in the community especially with regards to education for young girls, offering lots of decent benefits to its employees, and acting in a sustainable way for the environment. On top of all that it was an absolutely lovely location to have a sit down and enjoy some food and drink. The courtyard style of the restaurant was one that was shared by a lot of the houses in Granada.

There were a few choices for our group booking at the restaurant and both my wife and I went for the fish option. I loved this; the sauce and coating on the fish were just lovely. My wife, however, found it unappealing to her tastebuds; it was the fact that the fish was cold. Again, I loved it, this was absolutely fine to me, a real melt-in-the-mouth meal. Our lunches came with cheese, though, and I find cheese just nasty with one of those difficult-to-imagine historic inventions –

Geoff, you see where that cow’s milk fell into that pot and was left in the sun and became riddled with infection and hardened? Dare you to eat it!

– while my wife could probably live on the stuff. As a result she didn’t do too badly out of the food as we ended up swapping items on our plates.

Our lunch came with a soft drink but we could throw a few dollars in and get a local beer if we wanted. And we wanted. In fact, the restaurant also does craft ales which we’d not realised at the time, but we can’t complain; the beer was cold, refreshing, and from Nicaragua; all things that were important for us in our ongoing quest to mask borderline alcoholism as experiencing what the world’s brewers have toiled to produce.

After eating, having a quick look at the shop attached to the restaurant, then using the toilets before the long drive back to San Juan del Sur, we were directed to head one block to the west to take a look at the Central Park of Granada where we would be meeting our bus.

Granada, History And Architecture

Granada is famous for its colonial architecture but, as our guide had explained on the bus ride, while the style of the buildings may be heavily colonial they were built more recently, late nineteenth and early twentieth century for the main part. The reason for this lies in the history of Granada and it’s quite a fascinating one.

There were two aspects of history that combined to make Granada the way it is: firstly, there was the geographical location; secondly, there was the American nasty piece of work, William Walker.

Léon had been Nicaragua’s capital since colonial times as it had been one of the first cities founded but its location on the Pacific coast was less useful than that of the city of Granada which sat on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and thus had a good trade route through to the Atlantic through the San Juan River. The two cities became rivals for trade and influence with liberal administrations in Nicaragua preferring Léon and using it as the capital only for conservative administrations to favour Granada and use it instead. Eventually, a compromise was reached between the two cities and Managua became the nation’s capital but not before there was a civil war in 1854.

William Walker was, basically, a racist piece of crap. A well-educated racist piece of crap unlike most modern day racist pieces of crap but still. On numerous occasions he had led mercenaries and sought to establish independent states over which he could rule in California and Mexico, and he had a lot of support in the southern states of the US due to his pro-slavery stance. He had already been tried in America for violating the Neutrality Act of 1794 (which made it illegal for an American to wage war in a country at which the United States was at peace) during his Mexican land-snatch but had been acquitted due to his popularity among other racists and Manifest Destiny believers.

In 1855 Walker arrived in Nicaragua at the request of the government of Léon to assist in their civil war with Granada. To get around the Neutrality Act he was invited to bring “colonists” who were then granted the right to bear arms in defence of the city. In October of that year his mercenaries defeated the defence at Granada and effectively put Walker in charge of Nicaragua through his position as commander of the army. Investors in the region were concerned that Walker’s ambitions to turn the entire region into a slave state under his control might impact on their business and this fear seemed founded when assets of the American magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt‘s company – which did a lot of trade through the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua – were seized. This turned out to be because subordinates of Vanderbilt had encouraged Walker to do this so that they could profit but this wasn’t known at the time and Vanderbilt sent agents to Costa Rica to start exploring retaliatory measures with its government. Walker launched a preemptive attack on Costa Rica when he realised that country was mobilising forces but was defeated and pushed back. This loss encouraged other neighbouring countries to step up and put a stop to Walker’s apparent ambitions and so Honduran and Salvadoran fighters engaged from the north while Costa Rica approached from the south, closing off supply routes through the rivers as well as discouraging material support from America for Walker through Vanderbilt’s business influences. Walker was defeated at the end of 1856 with Granada surrounded by forces from Costa Rica, Honduras, Salvador, and Guatemala. During his retreat from the city and prior to surrender he ordered his troops to burn and flatten Granada which they did over the course of two weeks.

Granada’s location was still important despite it being levelled so the city and its buildings was gradually rebuilt and in most places in the original style, whether that was neoclassical, baroque, or more commonly, colonial.

In light of his importance in Granada’s history and because there’s also a very small connection to my home city and I never pass up a chance to mention that on this site, Walker’s end is also worth a quick mention here. Following his defeat in Nicaragua, Walker surrendered to the American Navy and returned home to America where his initial popularity waned after he started blaming the navy for his defeat. British colonists in Roátan in the Caribbean requested Walker’s help in 1860 in establishing an independent, English-speaking government as they feared that Honduras would assert control over their land and Walker jumped at the chance to start again. The British government, however, had enough economic and strategic interests in the region that they didn’t want Walker threatening to destabilise it all so they sent Commander Nowell Salmon to capture him. This was done but rather than hand Walker over to America he was instead delivered to Honduras and given to their authorities; there he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by firing squad. And the connection to my home city? Commander Nowell Salmon was eventually made Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth and died in the city in 1912.

History lesson over, let’s get back to the business of concluding our cruise excursion in Nicaragua.

On our right side as we approached the Central Park we passed the Calzada Art Centre in Plazoleta de los Leones, buildings around a square with a couple of monuments dedicated to events in the city’s history.

A large square to the east of the park was Plaza de la Independiencia and the Plaza de la Catedral joined it forming one, large, open space. As the latter square’s name suggests (unless you are absolutely hopeless at guessing foreign words), the most prominent structure here was the neoclassical church, Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral, although beautiful buildings were all around. A church has stood in this spot since 1525.

The park area was a reasonably popular spot for locals and tourists to cool off under the shade of the trees and there were numerous market stalls out offering plenty if you wanted to look. Of course, just standing still for a few seconds with a camera in your hand was enough to bring the street vendors to you and it would be fair to say that they may not have been the most persistent of sales people we’ve ever encountered when we’ve travelled abroad but they were certainly in the reckoning for a runners-up medal. Which they would probably have then offered back to us at a steadily decreasing bargain price while following us to our vehicle. Still, it’s their livelihood, it’s their culture, it’s just something you have to accept when you visit any tourist-heavy area in a poorer part of the world, and if we’d had Nicaraguan money on us we would gladly have spent it here but it was the only currency we couldn’t pick up ahead of the cruise so we didn’t.

Leaving Nicaragua From San Juan Del Sur

All that remained for this day in Nicaragua now was to jump aboard our mini-bus and make our way back to San Juan del Sur where we hoped our cruise ship would still be waiting. Hoped. If you’ve read the first part of this full day’s excursion (yeah, I’m well aware you haven’t) then you’ll already know that our day trip had started late and the notices indicating last time aboard the ship were a lot earlier than we would have been expected back even if we’d left on time. In fact, as we left Granada it was almost the Last Aboard time already and we had at least 90 minutes of driving ahead of us. It would be fair to say that even with our guide’s assurances that the ship would wait there was just a glimmer of worry in the faces of us and our fellow passengers. Not a lot we could do about it, though, so we enjoyed the bumpy ride as much as we could and I grabbed some more shaky video footage (temporarily removed) from the window as we made our way back to the port along the road that tracked Lake Nicaragua and its volcanoes.

At San Juan del Sur we were relieved to see other buses debarking cruise ship passengers at the port and a couple of buses pulling in behind us too so we weren’t the last people back. Most importantly, we could still see Star Princess out at sea. A Princess Cruises representative was standing at the pier and encouraging everyone to ignore the shops and hurry along to the tender boat which we duly did. As we waited to begin our short trip across the water back to the ship we overheard a radio message to the tender boat pilot stating that there was a medical emergency evacuation due to take a passenger off the ship and ashore imminently so we knew there would be a further delay before departure anyway.

I hadn’t been able to get up top on the tender boat but I was lucky enough to be seated by the open section at the midpoint which would normally allow egress from the boat once docked. This meant I could snap some photos of the rocky headland to the south of San Juan del Sur as we made our way to the ship.

Back aboard after a long but fantastic day in Nicaragua I headed out to the balcony while my wife showered and changed. More tender boats came and went which made a mockery of the Last Aboard time until I wondered whether that time had been set to ensure that those who’d made their own arrangements or just been ashore in San Juan del Sur were not going to cause unnecessary delays when the organised tour buses got back a little later. No way to know for sure.

I had time to shower and change too and we still hadn’t left the Nicaraguan port although there was an announcement that the ship would be turning to make it easier for the last tender boat to get back and be raised into position. This gave us a different view of San Juan del Sur although the fading light as dusk fell didn’t help the camera too much.

There was no disputing that the sunset as we waited to leave was another classically gorgeous and instantly relaxing one.

It was while we were admiring the setting sun on the Pacific horizon that we became aware that a number of bridge officers had their binoculars trained back towards the land. It took us a while to realise that they weren’t looking at the port but rather up into the hills surrounding the city where we could – now that we knew what to look for and now that it was dark enough to spot – see orange flames. Our first thought, because of all the volcanoes in the region, was that we were seeing a distant eruption or magma flow and this seemed to be the case as we zoomed in on the photos I was taking and saw what seemed to be a ring of fire with occasional streams of it. However, as much as we’d love this to be true there simply aren’t any volcanoes in that area so it seems far more likely now that this was a wildfire in the hills. One day we’ll see a proper eruption. Hopefully, from a sensible distance.

With Star Princess finally setting off, I grabbed one more post-sunset photo in the waters off Nicaragua before the evening aboard the ship could commence.

Food And Drink Aboard Star Princess

We’d had a relatively late and relatively large lunch for us thanks to the cruise excursion to Mombacho and Granada so we opted for a late dinner once again (we probably would have anyway) and snatched up a couple of pre-dinner drinks in Vines and Crooners.

Dinner was as good as ever.

And the evening finished with a bit of people-watching (I’m sure there must have been some) and dancing (I’m sure there must have been some) and drinking (that we definitely did) in Skywalkers before the exertions of the day convinced us it was time for bed.

We had another couple of sea days ahead of us before the final new country for us on this South and Central American cruise, Mexico, all of which will be covered in the next few travel diary entries.

San Juan del Sur

We may have been ready in plenty of time and the ship may have been ready in plenty of time but the Nicaraguan authorities had different ideas and after a long wait in the theatre we were finally called to our tender boat over half an hour after our excursion was due to have started. Indeed, by the time we had completed the ride to land and our bus had set off for its tour we were close to an hour behind schedule. This was particularly worrying as, allowing for that delay, our expected time back at port based on the excursion’s duration would be well after the time indicated on the Last Time Aboard signs in position as we disembarked the ship and as we arrived on land. This was mentioned amongst our group with some people wondering if the tour would be cut short but, ultimately, we just had to trust that the operators knew what they were doing and, as this was an excursion arranged by Princess Cruises, we knew they wouldn’t leave us behind.

It’s a shame that we were acutely aware of the time because it would have been nice to just take a few minutes to look around the port area at San Juan del Sur. There was a large, covered space selling typical souvenirs, and dancers, musicians, and children dressed in local costumes were all there to welcome our ship. I can’t say whether there was much else beyond what we saw between the jetty and the bus but the impression was of an attractive bit of coastline, a very friendly place, very happy people, and it’s possible that there are enough things to do in the town if you don’t choose an excursion from the ship.

Drive To Mombacho

It wasn’t the most comfortable of bus rides and it wasn’t a short one. We headed roughly northeast from the coast on the road towards La Virgen on the shore of Lake Nicaragua then turned northwest and followed the main road tracking along the lake and affording us with occasional glimpses of Ometepe, the island in its centre formed from two volcanoes. They were easier to see on the right side of the bus and we were sitting on the left so my views and this short video clip (temporarily removed) are of the Nicaraguan landscape we passed instead. It’s almost cruel of me to have even mentioned it.

The road leading up the volcano was situated at a place called Comarca El Guanacaste and it was here, about one and a half hours after leaving San Juan del Sur, that we got out of our air-conditioned bus and onto a 4-wheel drive truck. Not air-conditioned; not comfy seats; exposed to the elements. The vehicle is mounted up a set of stairs at the back and people filled from the back forwards so that they could a) get off first, b) see more of the ascent, and c) cause as much trouble as possible for those climbing aboard last who needed to squeeze through the narrow aisle to get to the still-unclaimed rickety chairs affixed to the flatbed of the truck near the front. If you’re unlucky enough to get the front row, aisle seats then your view will consist mainly of a tarpaulin cover. Luckily, we were in the second row and I was able to lean out and snap some shots going up the mountain.

The ascent was a slow one and, as you can tell from the short video clip below (temporarily removed), not without a soupçon of noise. The views were pretty impressive, though.

Santa Ana

About two-thirds of the way up Camino al Volcán Mombacho is Santa Ana, a handy rest stop with a café, shop, and toilets. Our vehicle halted here for fifteen minutes to allow people to use the facilities and because there is a one-way system in effect managed over radio to prevent vehicles running into each other. The women’s toilet immediately caused a queue to form because poor toilet design is a worldwide phenomenon but as I was the last of the men to use the room allocated to us I then helped stand guard in shifts with another male passenger to let the women use the cubicles in our restroom. It’s worth noting that at this point we’d been off the ship for around two and half hours and the vehicle would not stop here on the way coming down although there was another toilet at the information centre at the top of the volcano.

Santa Ana was a very pretty little area and probably a very welcome resting point for those people choosing to walk to the top of the volcano ahead of the hike around it. There was an abundance of colourful flowers and I won’t antagonise florists by even considering hazarding a guess at what they were.

Mombacho Volcano Hike

A slightly shorter drive from Santa Ana took us to the information centre and café at the end of the road atop the volcano. We didn’t use the café but we were told that they only accepted local currency at the time of our visit. The very first thing we were shown was a trail guide indicating the paths that could be taken: the Crater Trail and the Puma Trail. The former trail is around 1.5 kilometres long and considered moderately difficult and the latter one is strenuous and approximately 4 kilometres in length; that, along with the time taken to get get to and from the port plus the inherent unfitness of cruise passengers in general (guilty as charged) meant we’d be hiking the Crater Trail for this excursion with an expectation that this would take around one and half hours.

If you’re thinking of taking a hike around Mombacho on your own then you are only allowed to self-guide the easier Crater Trail; you need to pay for a guide if you want to try the other, tougher path. Regardless, upon leaving the information centre you have to take the Crater Trail initially to skirt around the edge of the nearest crater and you can either go clockwise or anticlockwise. There were too many of us to be guided in one pack so one half went on an anticlockwise circuit of the crater with the guide who’d accompanied us on the bus while the other half headed clockwise with a guide who worked for a local company who specialised in looking after the volcano and its tourist operations. We were in the latter group.

Mombacho Volcano is 1344 metres high. With that being the highest point, of course, the initial part of the hike was mostly downhill which was absolutely fine all the while you could forget that this would come at the cost of some future uphill parts to battle.

We would periodically stop so that our guide could explain some of the flora we were encountering: grass that looked like bamboo but which was very flexible – he bent one over to touch the ground to demonstrate – to cope with the occasionally strong winds at altitude; giant leaves that collected water; explanations about the types of orchid that grew on Mombacho; warnings not to touch a rather innocuous-looking bark away from the marked path which we were told caused an acid-like burning sensation if it came in contact with your skin.

The top of Mombacho is a cloud forest, a type of forest that accounts for around one percent of the world’s woodland. As the name implies, cloud forests thrive on their altitude which intersects with the formation of cloud layers. Moisture from clouds and fog condenses on leaves, collects, and drips onto the forest floor leading to wooded areas with higher-than-average amounts of moss and high acidity in the soil which in turn creates often very unique ecosystems. That soil lower down the slopes can provide some interesting growing conditions and Mombacho has coffee plantations situated there. Be aware that the clouds, of course, could be present if you visit which could make any hike a colder and considerably damper one, lacking some of the fantastic views you might otherwise get, although, as you can see from the photos, we had fabulous weather for our hike which was in March, 2019.

At certain points around the hiking trail there were signs in Spanish describing some aspect of the trail; its flora or fauna, for instance. One of these signs was at the entrance to a narrow canyon that had initially been formed by rainwater erosion but which had been widened by inhabitants in the area in order to assist in getting fresh water, something no longer necessary once modern plumbing made an appearance in this part of the world. The canyon was an interesting little side-journey off the main hiking route and gave a partial view towards the interior of the crater that we were circling.

Our hike continued after we’d all returned from the canyon and, while there were short periods where we were climbing, the path we were taking continued to descend overall. We had a few more stops where flora was pointed out and we also got to smell some unroasted coffee beans as we trekked ever clockwise towards what would be the lowest point of the hiking trail.

It was at the low point of the Crater Trail that we caught up with the other half of our hiking excursion group. This was close to the volcano’s fumaroles and it was about two thirds of the way around the crater’s rim from where we started, moving in the direction we’d taken. There were two points of interest at this meeting point of the groups so we took it in turns with our half of the tour looking at the fumaroles first while the other group headed to the viewing platform looking out to the Granada Islets, then vice versa.

Fumaroles are holes near volcanic craters where gases vent. It was certainly possible to smell the sulfur from the fumarole but it was only just about possible to see one and taking a photo proved impossible as it required leaning out and looking down a crag in the mountainside. More interesting was a fumarole that wasn’t venting but into which we could put an arm – if you’ve ever seen Peter Duncan’s test of manhood in the movie Flash Gordon then, yes, almost exactly like that – and feel the sudden, almost heavy heat from deep underground encasing it. It was a strange and fabulous experience.

The viewpoint was the farthest distance from our starting point and allowed us to see directly ahead of us towards the freshwater Lake Nicaragua, the city of Granada (where we would be heading after our volcano hike), and the archipelago of 365 islets formed during an eruption of Mombacho in the distant past. Some of the islets are inhabited and our tour guide in the bus had mentioned that he had older family members who lived there and who remembered in their youth when the freshwater sharks that the lake is famous for were so large in volume all you could see were fins moving between the lumps of land. This contrasted to modern times when local Nicaraguans, many of whom cannot swim and so keep away from the sea, still nevertheless come to the lake to paddle or learn to swim, fear of shark attacks being low due to the rarity of even seeing one of the creatures.

Turning leftwards and towards the northeast it was even possible to see the smoking crater from another one of Nicaragua’s volcanoes, Masaya.

All that remained to do was to complete the circuit of the Crater Trail and get back to the information centre at the top of Mombacho. Now, maths comes into play here. We’d effectively covered twice the distance of the other group to reach this point but we’d both dropped the same altitude. This meant, of course, that on our part of the hike we had descended at half the rate of them but, conversely, it meant that the remaining part of the trail to hike – you know, the upwards bit of it – would be twice as steep for us as it would be for them. In the first of the photos below you should be able to make out the pylon atop the volcano on the right side; that’s the information centre that we needed to get back to.

This was the only excruciating part of the hike around Mombacho. We are not a fit couple and probably shouldn’t be picking the excursions with warning signs on them when we’re booking cruises but we’re also contrary gits so whenever we even think the words “probably shouldn’t” regarding an activity then there’s a part of our brains that will already be drawing up plans to do just that thing. For a fit person this part of the hike is quite likely a nice workout. For a regular hiker this may well be just a warm-up exercise. To be fair, if it was just the pair of us taking it at our own pace then we’d probably have had no trouble either but our pace turned out to be a lot slower than everyone else’s and, not wanting to slow everyone down, we matched what the rest of our hiking group was doing. And almost died. An exaggeration for me but perhaps not so much for my wife who has trouble regulating her body temperature in normal circumstances and whose face was the colour of a ripe tomato with third-degree burns as viewed under a red spotlight. She was physically unable to speak and experience has taught me not to attempt communication in these situations for my own safety and to simply do what I can to cool her down during the brief halts we had.

Because we’d made painfully, painfully good time returning to the summit of the volcano we had time to wait before the other half of our group caught up with us on their more gentle ascent. This, at least, gave us both the chance to reach a more normal temperature and skin colour before we headed back down in the back of the four-wheel drive once more.

Despite the high exertion towards the end of the hiking trail this was a fantastic trip to do during our stop in Nicaragua and we don’t regret it one bit. Highly recommended if you like to hike or just want to say you’ve walked around a volcanic crater or you’ve got a soft spot for forests. Should you be thinking of taking a hike around Mombacho Volcano, my advice, you won’t be surprised to learn, is to do so in an anti-clockwise direction from the information centre.

Descending Mombacho

With our excursion group whole again and everyone who’d needed to use the toilets having done so (we’d pretty much just sweated out all the water we’d carried with us) it was time to head back down the mountain. We passed back through Santa Ana without stopping and passed several pairs of hikers walking up, about to start their own trek around the trails.

It was interesting to see the vegetation change as our altitude dropped, something I’d not noticed on the way up. The verdant colours of the cloud forest level soon gave way to a more heat-scorched environment, although one reasonably well-occupied.

We finally made it out onto the main road where we were let out of our truck and gave silent prayers of thanks to the God of Air-Conditioned Vehicles once more. The next stop on our day’s excursion out from San Juan del Sur would be to the city of Granada for a look around at its historic centre and a spot of lunch, and that will be covered in the next post in this cruise diary travel portfolio.

The bus dropped us at the pier jutting out from the peninsula on which Puntarenas was located and where Star Princess was docked. Rather than immediately join the queue of people waiting to get through security and back into the wonderful air-conditioned interior of our floating home we tolerated a little more of Costa Rica’s heat and humidity in order to take some photos along the pier.

Predictably, I took a few photos from the balcony once we got back to our room too even though they were remarkably similar to ones I’d taken earlier in the day when we’d first arrived in Puntarenas. Looks often pass between me and my wife in situations like this and if you could read minds you’d probably hear:

These photos won’t be exactly the same as earlier. The light will be different. The clouds will have moved. My earlier pictures might have sensor dirt in a vital spot. A whale might leap out of the ocean.

Sure, Jan.

Food And Drink Aboard Star Princess

We’d had one coffee and one beer in Costa Rica in addition to the water we’d brought with us to combat the conditions so we were keen to grab a drink or two once on the ship. We were also keen to freshen up so after showers had been taken and we’d spent five minutes watching bats flying past our balcony we hit a few locations where the staff were graciously willing to take a look at our cruise cards (or just nod and smile in the case of Vines) in exchange for alcohol.

Just before I put up the photos of the evening’s dinner from the main dining room on Star Princess I’m obliged by law to mention yet again that the food served on this cruise was the best we’ve had on any cruise. Princess do well in that respect generally but everything just felt like a step up this time around.

Deck Party

Several hours after leaving the port of Puntarenas and the country of Costa Rica behind we headed up to the top deck. It was another sultry night on the Pacific Ocean and Princess were putting on another deck party. We’ve never been drunk enough to join in yet but they’re quite fun to watch for a while even if some of the orchestrated dancing between the staff and passengers more resembles a zumba workout than what we’d consider fun.

In the next post in this cruise diary travel portfolio we’ll hit another new country for us, Nicaragua.