West Coast Cruise (May 14-22)

We took a cruise up the West Coast from San Diego to Vancouver, BC, recently.  And, no, that's not our cruise ship.  We flew to San Diego a day early and spent the afternoon visiting the USS Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier docked just down the street from our hotel.

Now, THIS is our cruise ship.  Less history but much more comfort!  It's the Century.  Built in 1995, it's the oldest ship in the Celebrity cruise line.  It was refurbished a few years ago and still looks great.  Its capacity is 1,814 passengers, making it one of the smaller ships in the Celebrity line.

After a very nice day at sea (with better-than-expected weather), we sailed into under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Monday morning for a two-day stay.  San Francisco is known for its foggy weather, but we had very nice weather that morning (though that would change). 

After disembarking, we took one of those "hop-on/hop off" buses that take you around the city. One of our stops was at the Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.  Our one-hour walk through the arboretum was very enjoyable.  When our bus ride ended a short time later, the rain had started, and it stayed with us for much of the remainder of our two days in San Francisco.

On the second day, we took a ferry boat over to Alcatraz Island.  Alcatraz closed as a prison in 1963 and is now designated as national landmark and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Here you can see the three levels of prison cells.

This is a typical prison cell.

Alcatraz was considered a prison for the worst-of-the worst.  And if you were the worst of the worst-of-the-worst, you would likely find yourself in solitary confinement in one of these cells.  Not a place for somone who doesn't like small, dark places.

There were many attempts to escape from Alcatraz.  The most famous occurred on June 11, 1962.  This photo shows one of two cells in which holes were carved to escape.  Those holes led to an unguarded utility corridor.  It is still not known whether the two inmates survived their attempt to reach the mainland.

That night, we left San Francisco and had another very nice day at sea.  This photo is taken above the pool deck at the top of the ship.  The pool didn't get much use on the cruise as the temperature was generally in the 50's.

Our next stop was Astoria, Oregon.  We're told it was a very pleasant stop with great weather.  However, because Steph wasn't feeling very well that day, we spent much of the day in our cabin.

But she was better the next day as we headed toward Naniamo, BC.  That's us with our feet up, enjoying the beautiful scenery. 

Naniamo is a very lovely city of about 80,000 on Vancouver Island.  It's the home of the Naniamo bar, a dessert bar that is native to the area.  Naturally, we had to buy one.  You'd think that if you bought a Naniamo bar in Naniamo, it would be really good.  But it wasn't nearly as good as the ones we used to get at Swilly's in Pullman.

One of the aspects of cruising we enjoy is that you get to meet so many wonderful people.  And so it was with this cruise.  Our dinner companions were two couples who made our cruise even more enjoyable than it would otherwise have been.  Don and Mary from Kaufman, Texas, are standing behind us.  On the left are Jon and Debbi from Boulder, Colorado.

Our last stop on the cruise was Victoria, BC, where we took a bus to The Butchart Gardens.  Click here for additional information about the place.  We'll let the remaining photos speak for themselves.  Be sure to click on the photo on the left to see a larger version.  It's quite spectacular.