Tales of the South Pacific - Embarkation Day

Cruise Day 1

Monday, September 29, 2025

Today we board the Holland America MS Zaandam for our 51-day Tales of the South Pacific Cruise.  We didn’t have to leave until 10:30 so we didn’t get up early, but we were up a little before eight anyway as we wanted to eat breakfast before we left.

After getting ready and doing our final packing, we headed off to the Grant Grill again for breakfast.  We wanted to eat light this morning, so we opted for a fruit plate and some pastries, but the fruit plate was huge, so we still ended up with a pretty big breakfast.

We got back to the room with a little time to relax before checking out, but it was soon time to go, so I called the front desk, checked out and asked for a cab, and by the time we got to the lobby, the cab was waiting.  It was a fairly short drive to the cruise terminal and luckily it was early enough that it wasn’t too crowded yet, so we got our check-in started early.

There was also a Princess ship in port that had 3600 passengers compared to our 1200, so I was a little concerned it might be very crowded, but we quickly were through customs and the Holland America check-in and took a seat and waited to be called to board.  Because we had once again booked a suite, we had priority boarding and after only a ten-minute wait, we were called to board, and we were quickly on board and in our room just after eleven.  This was our easiest embarkation ever.

Our luggage hadn’t been delivered yet, so after settling in, we decided to go down to the Neptune Lounge and see who our concierge was.  The Neptune Lounge is a place accessible only to suite guests and has food and drinks that changes at various times of the day, tables and chairs to sit, and best of all, a concierge to take care of almost anything you need.  The concierge is one of the main reasons we are hooked on staying in suites.

The concierge wasn’t in yet, so we decided to walk around the ship a bit and find out where our table for dinner was located in the dining room.  We like the fixed seating in the main dining room for dinner as we like to get to know our dining stewards and they get to know us and what we like.  We also chose the late seating at 7:30 as that suits us the best too.

We returned to our room and much to our surprise, the luggage we had shipped from Atascadero had just arrived, usually it is late afternoon before we get it and here it was barely noon.  We started to get things put away and just about the time we finished, the other luggage we brought with us arrived, and we were able to get everything put away and were settled in before two, this has never happened before.  Usually, it takes a long time to get all of our luggage, and I always worry that some of it is not going to make, but not today – it was worry free.

We went back to the Neptune Lounge and met our concierge Kyle, and she seemed very nice.  She answered a few questions we had and we got some snacks and returned to our room.  We relaxed until four when we had to go to a muster drill at our lifeboat station.  Those are always a big pain, but very necessary for the sake of safety.

Sail away was at five so we went up and enjoyed that and had our traditional “unleaded margaritas” as we sailed away from San Diego.  The weather was beautiful and warm, and it was very nice, and we were finally underway.

The sail away party is underway.

We are underway, that is the large Princess ship that was next to us.

The USS Midway Aircraft Carrier is docked near to the cruise terminal.  It is a museum now and you can tour the ship.

We returned to our room and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying sailing out of the San Diego Harbor from our balcony.

After the sail away we had a little time to relax before it was time to get ready for dinner.  Dinner was very good and afterwards we went to the casino where, surprisingly, I had a very good night and left with a profit.  As for Val, who usually does better than I do, she had no luck at all.  After the casino it was back to our room to relax before calling it a night.  Tomorrow is the first of six sea days until we reach our first port in Hawaii.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Tales of the South Pacific - San Diego Pre Cruise

The Surfliner and San Diego

Saturday, September 27, 2025

Our South Pacific Cruise began way too early for Val and I.  We are taking the Amtrak Surfliner train to San Diego and it leaves just after 6:00 AM from San Luis Obispo.  We had to get up at 4:00 AM and neither one of us could get to sleep last night, so we only got around four hours of sleep, so we started our day very tired.

Val’s friend Marsha picked us up at 5:00 and we were on our way.  Marsha will be taking care of our house while we are gone and besides being very grateful for that, she went above and beyond to pick us up so early in the morning.  Thanks so much Marsha!!

It's very quiet at the San Luis Obispo Amtrak station early in the morning.

Finally we see the headlight of our train approaching, it's time to head to San Diego.

The train left right on time, and we started our trip south.  This is a very scenic route with the highlight being the train following the coast through Vandenburg Air Force Base, an area not accessible unless you are on the train.  Unfortunately, it was barely light as we passed through the area, so we really didn’t see much.

We opted for the business class car, so we had coffee, tea, juices and water available as well as some breakfast snacks that we really needed so early in the morning.

It was a seven-hour trip to San Diego and the time passed surprisingly fast.  We arrived in San Diego right on time just after three.  We gathered our luggage and made our way through the station and went outside to find a cab, and to our surprise, there were none there.  These days everyone uses Uber, so I guess the cabs don’t bother to show up.  Although Uber is available in our area, it doesn’t really work well because we are in a rural area so it is often difficult to find an Uber, so we haven’t even bothered with an account.  I had to call a cab company for a taxi, and one showed up shortly and took us to our hotel.

We are staying at the US Grant Hotel that is on the edge of San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.  The hotel is one of the oldest hotels in San Diego and is part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection.  It got its unusual name because one of Colorado’s first senators purchased the Horton House Hotel in San Diego for his daughter in 1895 and she was married to Ulyssess S Grant Junior.  She and her husband decided to tear down the original hotel in 1905 and built a new hotel that opened in 1910, and they named it the US Grant Hotel to honor his father.

This is a great hotel, and the service is unbelievably good, but the rooms are not the most comfortable we’ve had, but it’s still very nice.  After settling in and resting for a bit we opted for an early dinner as we were very tired.  We ate at The Grant Grill, the hotel restaurant and had an excellent dinner.  Val had salmon and I had scallops and they were both delicious.  My dinner had a carrot puree that was probably the best puree I’ve ever had.  As we were finishing our dinner the head chef happened to walk by and I told him how much I liked the puree and he went into great detail on how it was made; he was obviously very proud of that.

That was it for us, after dinner we went back to our room and called it an early night.  Rising at 4:00 AM after only four hours of sleep had left us exhausted and all we wanted to do was get some sleep.

San Diego

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Even though we were in bed by nine last night, we still slept in until almost nine this morning and woke up feeling very rested and ready to go.  After getting ready, we went down to the Grant Grill and had their Sunday Brunch.  It was good, but not nearly as good as our dinner last night.  We didn’t finish until after eleven and then walked around the area looking for a clothing store as Val realized she needed a belt as she hadn’t brought one with her.

From the looks of the area, it looks like the Gaslamp Quarter may be a kind of party area as there are lots of restaurants, bars and clubs.  It also looks like the area is a little down and out as it was a little run down and the stores seemed to have a lot of security. This is just our first impression, and it may be totally inaccurate about the area.  There were quite a few people walking around and we certainly didn’t feel like we were unsafe.

The US Grant Hotel.

After that we returned to the hotel and got some things ready for embarking on our cruise tomorrow and then relaxed for a while.

After eating a large late breakfast, we hadn’t bothered with lunch, but around four we both were getting hungry and decided to go out and look for a place to eat dinner.  We walked in a different direction into the heart of the Gaslamp District, and I must say I have a different view of the area than I wrote earlier.  This morning, we were on the edge of the district, but now we were walking into it and while it was an old area, it had a lot more character and was much more interesting with many restaurants, bars, clubs and entertainment venues.

We found a place called Noodle and Bun that looked interesting and decided to eat there.  They made their own noodles, and we could actually watch the person making them, it was a very interesting process, and it looked like it took a great deal of skill.  They started out with a long tube of dough and gradually it turned into many strands of noodles.

I chose to have a cucumber salad and chow mein, and Val had spicy won ton.  We shared our plates with each other, and it was all delicious, particularly the noodles.  After we finished, we continued our walk through the area.

This is my chow mein and it was delicious.

We came across a Mid-Eastern place called the Reina Bakery and Café and decided to go in and have some dessert.  I don’t know what it was called, but we shared a piece of cake that was a specialty of Abu Dabi and it was really good.  We also bought a sample of three types of Baklava, and they were all delicious.  By now, we were very full, and it was time to head back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is embarkation day, so we had to get our things together and get ready to head for the ship tomorrow.  After getting everything together, we relaxed for a while and called it a night.  We are really anxious to get this cruise under way.

Tales of the South Pacific - A Return to Paradise

Back in 2013 Val and I took our first long cruise.  It was a 30-day round trip cruise from San Diego that visited the Hawaiian Islands and then down into French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.  It was a wonderful cruise, and we loved the South Pacific.  When we returned home, we noticed that Holland America had an even longer cruise called the Tales of the South Pacific that went even deeper into the South Pacific, and we decided we had to do that cruise.  Unfortunately, and much to our disappointment, Holland America stopped offering that cruise before we were able to take it, but that changed last year when it suddenly appeared again on their website, and we booked it for this year.

It is a 51-day round trip cruise out of San Diego that visits the Hawaiian Islands, the island of Tabuaeran (Fanning Island), Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, and many islands in French Polynesia.  We have been to some of them on our previous South Pacific cruise, but many of them will be new to us and we are very excited to visit them.

We've had a very busy spring and summer and are looking forward to starting the cruise and not have to worry about anything for 51 days.  It has seemed to take forever, but we are now just a day away from starting our journey.  We are taking the Amtrak Surfliner from San Luis Obispo to San Diego where we’ll spend a day before boarding the ship.

We haven’t planned as much for this cruise as we usually do as Val is having a problem with her hip and will have to have a hip replacement when we return.  She is able to get around fine, but too much activity and it becomes a bit uncomfortable for her.  She got a cortisone shot today that will hopefully make things easier for her, but we won’t know how well that will work for another week.  Val is a real trooper and isn’t going to let her hip get in the way of us taking this cruise, and whatever level of activity we are able to do, we know we’ll have a great time as this area is such a wonderful place to visit.

As usual, when you read this, we will already have returned, and it may take a while to get it fully published as we are returning just before Thanksgiving and then we move into Christmas preparations, so we’ll be busy, but I’ll do my best to publish this blog in a timely manner.

We have some final packing to do tomorrow and then the next day we have a very early morning when we board the train, and our journey begins.