Eating from Maryland to Hawaii and Back
At 80 years old and using a mobility scooter, I'm no longer able to take the marvelous exciting adventures that I see here in the Journey's section. But I do like to write about and take photos of my travels. My latest trip was a Group Cruise from San Pedro to Hawaii. So I decided that my goal would be to go on the cruise enjoy my food, and not gain (any more) weight.
Since my husband Bob does not want to fly or go on a cruise, and did not want to go to Hawaii, I took with me my friend Polly. She's a youngster at 70 - she's been cutting my hair for over 40 years and owns her own salon. My 81 year old husband managed to fall from the porch roof of our house three weeks before I was to leave. He was taking down the scaffolding of the porch roof and was going to wash off the side roof. The hose and yellow bucket were what he had up there but when he stepped off the wood, the metal roof is slippery
I drove him to the ER, and they X-rayed him and said he didn't break anything. But I think he cracked some ribs. Our daughter and her husband came up from Florida and took down the rest of the scaffolding from the porch roof.
October 23 - We flew from BWI (Baltimore) on Southwest. Southwest just has snacks.
LAX was under construction - we had to go outside to get to the carousel to get our checked bags - here we met Nemah
who pushed my wheelchair while Polly got our bags. When we got to the hotel, we were ready for sustenance. The hotel restaurant was not open for lunch - they just had Pete's Bodega
So we got the hotel shuttle to Rex's Cafe. I had a chicken salad wrap and some fruit. ($9.25) I ate the fruit and took half the salad wrap back to the room for later. The heat took some of my appetite
We got to our room, unpacked my scooter (which I shipped to the hotel in advance) and explored -Polly found the exercise room
By this time it was time for Happy Hour. Polly had a glass of wine $4.00 and we shared a cheese quesadilla $4.00 and I had a sundae (which was huge-and good). (I think they expected us to share, but Polly didn't want any)
October 24 - The hotel charges for breakfast, which I think is bogus since most mid-price hotels have a free breakfast buffet. The Continental breakfast is over $10. Polly got that and brought me back a banana and a glass of cranberry juice which is what I usually have at home. We were to board the ship tomorrow so we had a free day to explore San Pedro. The van driver took us on a mini tour of San Pedro (we saw the statue of Stephen M. White. As a U. S. Senator, White led the campaign in Congress to make San Pedro a major harbor. A deep-water harbor was constructed in San Pedro with federal funds as a result of White’s efforts. The statue has been described as ...__ the impression is that of a man who has slept on a bus.__
I wanted to see the Point Fermin Lighthouse, but it was in the trees and I could not see it from the street. Polly jumped out and went running into the park and took a photo with her cell phone
I knew the other lighthouse (Angels Gate) would be best viewed from a boat, so we took a harbor cruise. It was really hot - so hot that any seats that had been in the sun were too hot to sit on. We not only saw the lighthouse, but also the sea lions on the green buoy
And we had an unexpected view of the minimum security prison with the prisoner's exercising inside the razor wire
After the boat tour we sought an A/C place to have lunch. We ended up at the World Famous San Pedro Fish Market & Restaurant. It was inside and cooler but their A/C was not really working. But it was cool enough. I had a salad with about 8 large shrimp on top (with cocktail sauce). 
When the hotel van picked us up, he had a flat tire- he drove to a Sinclair station. Apparently this is one of the few remaining Sinclair stations in the world, but we didn't know that, so we didn't take a photo.
Comments
We met our travel agent George in the hotel lobby that afternoon - he has a group of over 30 people going on this cruise. He gave us our group T-shirts, door signs, and lanyards (for our room key). The group decided to go to dinner together at the **22nd Street Landing **. It takes a long time to get that many people organized and it was two van loads. The van driver told us that we should get the lobster bisque, and the one of the seafood dishes that was special to the restaurant (I don't remember what it was). The restaurant was hot - the A/C wasn't on or wasn't working well - the doors to the deck were open. It took a long time to get drinks and then a long time to get orders taken and get food. We didn't leave the restaurant until after nine. I did get a cup of lobster bisque ($5)
and the Chef's Special which was grilled salmon over saffron risotto with asparagus ($23)
October 25 - Embarkation
We didn't have breakfast today. After we got on the ship We tried to eat lunch in the Amalfi dining room but we were too late because it took us too long to get the elevator down to it, so we went up to the Lido. Here someone came to help me and I lost Polly (temporarily). I got a croque monseiur, a meatball, a piece of roast beef and a blintz with blueberry jam.
After the safety drill, we went up with George's group for the sail away (all of us wearing our blue group shirts). George is third from the right and Becca, his wife is on the right end
I took quite a lot of photos at sail away including some better ones of Angel's Gate lighthouse,
and a couple of the tour boat we took the tour on yesterday
and even a distant one of Port Fermin
We were late to dinner They assigned us to Amalfi dining room. This is a terrible dining room for anyone with a wheelchair or scooter. The dining room is in the stern and only two elevators go down to it. If you can walk down the stairs it isn't a problem but if you can't, it is.
I had pina colada soup (which came in a glass)
and Polly had the Red snapper mojito cerviche with avocado
I had the Hawaiian luau pork I couldn't eat all the pork but it was good.
I had chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. This was chocolate ice cream with chips in it. Polly had the Pineapple brulee which was on the Anytime menu
October 26
Now we have four days at sea with little to do but eat, play trivia, go to shows and learn to play the ukulele.
Most of the time I tried to eat in the dining room instead of the buffet. Breakfast in the dining room on the 26th was scrambled eggs with asparagus and creamed potatoes. There was an asparagus theme to some of the dishes - they garnished the food with three or four little spears of asparagus
At breakfast I talked to the maitre-d and asked to be assigned to the Portafino dining room rather than the Amalfi dining room because it is easier for me to get to and he said he would see to it. We went to a meeting of George's group and had a group photo taken
Lunch has an option for Brunch with some breakfast items including James Beard's French Toast which I had on the previous Princess cruise and is very good but I did not get that this time. There was also an Anytime burger menu. For lunch I had the tomato and mozzeralla appetizer. Usually this is called Caprese salad, but maybe they didn't think we would know what that was
I found that I could get one of the pasta entrees as an appetizer (which is smaller), so I got second appetizer sized rigatoni.
I had blueberry frozen yogurt for dessert.
We did get an assignment to the Portafino dining room for dinner. Our companions were Jerry and Terri from northern KY (south of Cincinnati), and Mary and Stan from Ohio. The other two seats were vacant. I had the shrimp cocktail for an appetizer (available every day) and then we had an "intermezzo" of a strawberry sorbet.
Polly had scallops and I had fried chicken.
I had the Sugar free coconut cake for dessert
October 27
Two poached eggs on an English muffin (Eggs Benedict) without the ham/Canadian bacon. They seem to bake on the Hollandaise sauce
Cold Spanish gazpacho for lunch which was very acidic
and then I had Meat Tortellini as an appetizer. There was Blueberry Roulade for dessert.
Polly had a wine tasting in the afternoon.
Polly getting ready to go to dinner.
When we got to dinner on the 27th the other two seats were filled by Jim and Anna. Jim was born in Cuba, raised in New Orleans and now lived in Florida. Anna was born in Honduras. It was formal night and the photographer came around to take our photos. I took a couple too.
Jerry
Jim
The photographer - I think they work on commission
My appetizer was the strangest Waldorf salad ever - a small pile of shredded apple, a couple of walnuts, a bunch of watercress and a big lump of grey Stilton cheese
The cheese overwhelmed the little bits of apple, so I put it on one of the rolls to eat it. The rolls are good but they are all hard rolls which are very crumbly. Jerry decided to make Surf and Turf out of the entrees, so I did the same. I ordered both the Shrimp Daniele (tiger shrimp)and the medallions of beef. I ate the shrimp, and one of the broccoli heads which came with it (it was very garlicy) and a little of the rice. (I am obviously not a member of the clean plate club - I decided not to eat anything I didn't really like just because i had it on my plate)
Then I had the two steak medallions, two potato fingers and a piece of the squash that came with the steak.
For dessert I had something that was billed as raspberry brulee, but it wasn't. It was chocolate cake with a raspberry on top and white chocolate triangles surrounding it.
Oct 28
I can get cranberry juice in the morning, even though it isn't on the menu. I had the Mexican omelet which wasn't very good and I didn't take a photo of it But the other featured breakfast was a Northeastern Breakfast Treat which included an energizing cereal of Rolled Oats, apple juice, vanilla yogurt, toasted almonds, raisins and sliced bananas. That just did not appeal to me. For lunch I had I had the leek and potato cream soup which was OK and what was called Brunswick chicken stew with kernel corn
which was more like succotash soup NOT good. The muffin was supposed to be a corn muffin but it was in the soup and was soggy. This was a FAIL. For dessert Chocolate bread and butter pudding which was good but I think regular bread and butter pudding is fine - it doesn't need chocolate added to it
@grandmaR , glad your hubby is ok. Your trip looks like you had a fun time. Not all the pictures loaded by the time I had read all your commentary. I recently (last year) retired as a travel agent. We use to joke about selling cruises and calling a 14 day cruise as a 14lb cruise! A person can easily gain 1 pound for every day on a cruise. My hubby and I have learned that we can have a good breakfast, then have an early dinner sitting and be totally fine with keeping the weight off. Not having the lunch allows us to snack on the cookies or have a drink in the afternoon without worry of weigh gain.
I gained 2 (two) pounds, mostly from the extra salt - my ankles swelled on the airplane and stayed swollen for most of the trip. The weight comes off pretty fast when I get home and don't have so much salt in the food.
I think i will quit dieting for this week.. i enjoyed your commentary and photos
My Gallery