Back in 2020, my wife Renee and I had planned on celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary by going on a cruise. The cruise was all booked and paid for, and we were heading down to southern California in order to celebrate our moment.
As you know, 2020 was quite the "eventful" year. Just as we were driving into California, the shutdown was inevitable. We ended up cancelling our cruise reservation, spending a day in Las Vegas, and turning around to return home in Wyoming. We were going to have to wait until later to go on the cruise at a later date.
Now that we are at a little better with regards to the pandemic and COVID-19, and the fact that both of us had received the full vaccine and the third booster shot, along with the cruise lines' increased cleaning and regulations, we felt it was time to give a cruise trip another shot.
This time we booked a four day cruise aboard Carnival Cruise Lines' ship the Radiance. We left Long Beach, California on Monday. The ship was just gorgeous! We were informed that when we checked in, that the ship would be at about 20% capacity for this cruise, so it meant we could be safe social distancing and not deal with crowds at the buffets.
Once we got settled in our cabin, the small number of guests became quite apparent. We found We could easily social distance ourselves and still have a great time.
The first day we got up and headed ashore at our first stop: Catalina Island. As you can from our photos, it was a gorgeous day on Catalina. The sky was blue and the temperature was perfect. We rented a golf car and saw the island on our own. I can see why people live on the island; it is like living in a small town on the beach.
After we returned the cart, Renee and I took a stroll into town. We enjoyed some tasty food and bought some souvenirs. Probably my favorite find in one of the shops was a book on the history of Catalina and seaplanes. I've had a lifelong fascination with airplanes, so finding out there was a notable history here was quite intriguing. I will write more about what I learned in a later blog post. Stay tuned!
For our dinners, we elected to get one dine in night, and do the rest of our meals at the buffet or at one of the specialty counters. With the low guest count, we even felt comfortable spending an evening in one of the lounges, enjoy the live music, and enjoy some beverages (of course it was soda for me).
The next day we ventured into Ensenada, Mexico. Renee and I had talked about what we wanted to do here before hand. It seems that to many, the big appeal when going to Ensenada is to hit up a bar and get drinking. Of course that wasn't appealing to us, so we decided that we would do some venturing out there.
We took a bus service that took us from the dock to a small bus stop in downtown Ensenada. From there we walked around, looking for a restaurant where we could get breakfast. We ended up in this quaint restaurant El Corralito Restaurant. From the outside and the inside decor, one could describe it as a dive. From the decor, it was obvious that the family was involved with the off road racing that is quite popular down there. Hanging up around the restaurant were body panels from high dollar "trophy truck" race cars. The walls were covered in $1 USD bills, with each bill signed or a message left. How was the food? It was delicious! I would definitely return again, just to try another one of their dishes!
After we ate, my wife and I walked around the shops, checking out what was for sale. One of the places we wanted to try was a churro shop we had heard about from a Youtube travel channel. Café La Churreria was just as delicious as the YouTube channel as made it out to be. You just can't beat churros from Ensenada!
From the Café La Churreria, we did some more walking around. As we were heading back to the ship, we came across some for hire horse and carriages you could take for a quick tour of a section of Ensenada. The gentleman didn't speak English, but Renee told him she would translate for me. It was quite a fun experience to be riding in this carriage as cars were whizzing past us, but it was also quite informationl! We learned about a few sites that we would love to see when we return to Ensenada in a future visit. The gentleman was kind of enough to rather than drop us off at where we had started the ride, he dropped us off at the gate that lead back to the dock where our ship was docked.
Everyday we would return to our cabin and find a new cutely folded to towel origami animal. Our cabin attendant was so great. She always greeted us with a smile and a friendly wave.
We spent the rest of the cruise on the ship. On Thursday, our full day sea, I struggled with my motion sickness. The sea was rocking that day, with a storm probably not too far off to upset the beautiful Pacific Ocean. Luckily I had brought some motion sickness pills that helped to take the edge off when coupled with a hour or two power nap.
The next morning we woke up back in California. Rather than bothering with the breakfast buffet, we elected to get dressed and packed, get off ship as soon as we could, and get something on land to eat. Due to the low guest numbers for our cruise, we quickly got off ship and loaded our luggage into our car.
As we drove around, looking for something to eat, Renee mentioned that could just stop by Whittier on our way home to visit one of our favorites We'd been craving it, so we stopped at Arturo's Puffy Taco in Whittier for lunch. As always, it was delicious!! Miss going there!
Next week I will share the next 24 hours of our trip and our abrupt return back to Wyoming. Stay tuned!
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