Sunday, March 19, 2017

Thursday, February 9, 2017 - San Diego, CA – Partly Cloudy - 65F

The room was quiet last night. 

The breakfast area wasn’t crowded or noisy and there was a decent selection of items on the buffet.  There were no waffles on this breakfast, but there was an automated pancake maker that made two pancakes at a time on demand.  The pancakes were small but OK – the waffles are still better because you can control the crispness of the final product.  Nevertheless, the breakfast was good.

The hotel supplied a complementary Shuttle to the Pier. The pier was very close to the hotel and the ride took just a few minutes.

We usually check in with the Pier Coordinator (my boarding letter instructions said to do so) but there was no Coordinator (we were told) available today.  We checked in with the passengers, which took somewhat longer than usual.

We eventually boarded the ship and went to our room – 4000 (the last forward cabin on deck 4 port) to drop off our little wheelie and computer. 

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Cabin 4000 – Our Home Away From Home

The cabin on the Azamara Ships are comfortable with a large window, a very comfortable, King bed, and comfortable bathroom.  We have never been in this cabin but not having a neighbor to our right would seem to be an advantage.

The Cruise Director of this cruise is Russ Grieve and the Activity Director is Lee Hetherington.  I’ve sailed with Russ before but this will be my first time working with Lee.

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Itinerary for the Sea of Cortez Cruise

We had lunch in the Windows Café (tuna scoop and salad) (some of the items on the buffet now have new locations) and then hung out on the deck 5.  The deck has an added benefit in that it is across the bay from the San Diego Airport – I could watch planes come and go all day.

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Plane Landing at SAN

Standing on Deck 9 and looking forward, you can get a nice view of the skyline of San Diego behind the ship.

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Quest and San Diego

On the back deck of the Windows Café, a local was checking out the new batch of passengers.

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After my recent AV weirdness on the Grand Princess, I thought it wise to do an AV check.  I called the AV guy and we met in the Cabaret Lounge after the boat drill to give the system a whirl.  Everything worked fine.  I also ran into Russ and Lee, who were getting ready to tape their morning show.

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Russ, Lee, and Me

The Quest was escorted out of San Diego Harbor by a gunboat.  That is getting to be pretty much the procedure.

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We had a very nice dinner in the Discoveries Restaurant – Salmon, Cesar Salad, Baked Potato.  Our waiters, Javier and Joe, are terrific and we are going to try and get our same table (in the immediate left corner of the dining room) for the whole cruise.

The Welcome Aboard Show featured one of the Quest Singers, Ernest Marchain.  He put on a fabulous show  including the title number from a play he was in – ‘Starlight Express”.

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After the show, we spent a little time in the Mosaic Café and then to our room.

It was great to be back on the Quest.

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