Cali-Mexico Cruise January 2005

One of the best excursions on our cruise was the Wine Country Tour. They took us by bus about 45 minutes outside the city of Ensenada, Mexico, to two different vineyards. The first was Cetto, started by an Italian man who moved to Mexico and started making wine in the 1800s. It is the largest vineyard in Mexico and makes 60% of the country's wine. We took a tour of how they make the wine and then tried several of their varieties and also some brandy and tequila. Luckily, they gave us bread, cheese, and olives to soak up all the alcohol!

Then we went to the Santo Thomas vineyard, which was much older and had a somewhat different process for making their wines. They use some French techniques, like using only naturally split oak pieces for the oak barrel aging process. We tried some of their wines as well and enjoyed the beautiful countryside.

Then they dropped us off in the downtown area so we could do some shopping. I really didn't see much I wanted to buy since it was so touristy and expensive. I had been to Mexico several years ago to the less touristy areas and had bought many, many beautiful arts and crafts then.

The tour guide on our bus was also great and very funny. He kept us entertained the whole time with jokes and trivia about Mexico (like why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. when they hardly care about it in Mexico; it isn't even their Independence Day after all!) and other fun stuff.

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed this tour and would highly recommend it to anyone on this cruise.

One of our ports of call was Catalina—what a cute island!! We took a little ferry there, and it looks almost like a Greek island with all the little houses embedded in the mountain. The main town is called Avalon, and my husband and I decided to just walk around the main street and look at shops and restaurants. Then he saw a sign for a trolley that only cost $1.50, and we decided to take it to the Wrigley Mansion and Botanical Gardens. Wrigley is the man who bought the island in the early 1900s (the same Wrigley of the gum). Wrigley sold the island to a conservancy, so the island is being preserved, which is nice, because the first owners wanted to make it a resort.

The ride there was amazing, with beautiful green golf courses and really cute little houses, and can you believe that everyone drives golf carts instead of cars? It is so cute!! We also went to the famous casino there, right on the harbor. When we came back to the main street area, we decided to stop in a local restaurant for seafood, as my husband had heard that abalone was good in Catalina. Well, we found out that abalone is extinct there and most other places! Even when you can find it, it is farm-raised and not very good, according to our waitress, and very expensive, about $70 a plate! But when it is real, naturally found abalone, although rare, it is very sweet and delicious according to her. We also asked for local fish, and she said that it just wasn't the season, so we were out of luck. We just had linguine with clams and fish-and-chips. Then we bought some souvenirs and headed back to the ship. It is a very cute little town, and one that is easy to explore on one's own, no paid excursion needed.

In San Diego, we started by going to the Embarcadero (dock) and Seaside Village, which is a really pretty boardwalk with shops and restaurants by the seaside. We did some window-shopping, took some pics, and rode a Merry-Go-Round! There is also a veteran’s memorial and monument there.

Then we walked to a beautiful mall some distance inland, called Horton Plaza, which was really lovely, sunny, and colorful. We did a little shopping and then walked back to the dock, and there was a very interesting-looking, old ship docked there called "Star of India," which had a maritime museum onboard.

We were tired by then; we had walked several miles! So we decided to go back onboard to eat!!