The balloons have fallen and we safely sailed into San Francisco just before dawn on March 30, 2019. SF was lit up as well as the Bay Bridge. I did get an actual Navigation Map for this particular cruise, showing the chart from SF to Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas, then back to SF. I almost missed getting the photo of the map as they auction the chart off during the cruise on the last sea day and whomever got it had not picked it up yet

.We sailed on the Grand Princess which had just come out of a 2 week dry dock in Portland, Oregon. They had 1200 contractors working around the clock to get everything done. The contractors stay on the ship in the passenger cabins. The crew also stays on the ship as they must feed and sleep all the contractors. They had a DVD showing the dry dock process which was very interesting. The Grand is an older ship i.e. 1998 and has been refurbished several times as all ships are. I do love this ship. The woodwork in the ship is wonderful. Unfortunately, the newer ships have removed most of the woodworking and gone to almost a minimalistic (not sure this is an actual word, but hopefully, you get the idea) look. There were a few hiccups that had to be worked out since she was just out of dry dock but everything pretty much got back to normal. The food and service is really good on the Grand. The Princess ships have always been service oriented. They do what they have to, to please the passengers.

The second officer in charge gave a great presentation on exactly how they navigate these babies, equipment, software, port considerations, etc. etc. He also went into what one has to do to go through the ranks to finally arrive at Captain. He started on tankers, ferries, then cruise ships - interesting stories. Read more