November 20, 2009: A Sea Day
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Docking at the Cruise Ship Pier in San Diego

Very early this morning, we arrived off San Diego, California. As you can see from the map at left, we came in south of Cabrillo Point and then slowly steamed north through the channel and then turned eastward when we got into the harbor proper. The cruise ship docks are right by downtown San Diego, so we just steamed very slowly east a mile or two until we were right by downtown San Diego.

I got up very early this morning, not only to take pictures of our arrival, but also to make some phone calls and check my email, since we have been in range of both of them starting about five in the morning. Fred slept a little later but joined me on deck around six.

Fred took quite a few pictures as we came into the harbor and as the sun came up; I've selected a sequence of those pictures to include here. Just click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at them:

When the light got bright enough, Fred stitched together one of his panoramic views of the San Diego harbor, and you can use the scrollable window below to have a look at it:

Docking in San Diego I made a movie this morning as we were completing the docking process here in San Diego, and you see our surroundings both here at the dock and also by downtown.

Waiting to Disembark

After taking our earlier pictures, Fred and I went back to our stateroom to pack up the rest of our things and get ready to go ashore. By eight o'clock, we were back up on deck with our gear. We waited for a while in our usual spot, and eventually the other guys showed up and we had a light breakfast.

While we were occupied below decks, the "Radiance of the Seas" came in to the dock beside us. This was the same ship that we had seen day before yesterday anchored near us in Cabo San Lucas. It must have been in front of or behind us all day yestereday, although we didn't see it as I recall. As the light was getting better, there were better views of downtown San Diego.

As usual, Fred took some excellent pictures while we were waiting, and you can see some of them if you click on the thumbnails below:

Docked in San Diego I made another movie when we were having breakfast that also shows the "Radiance of the Seas" having docked next to us.

We Disembark and Our Cruise Comes to an End

About nine o'clock, they announced the first disembarkations. Since we were carrying all our stuff with us, we could disembark at any time, so we left the guys, took our stuff and went down to the Promenade Deck to get in line for disembarkation. Our plan was that Fred would wait with his luggage on the pier outside the ship, and I would take my stuff and get a taxi to the rental car office. Then, I would stay in touch with Fred by phone and he would let me know when Paul and Greg came off the Oosterdam. (Bud and Chet were taking a cruise line shuttle directly to the airport for their flight home, so we bid them farewell after breakfast.) Then I would leave the rental car place, drive back to the pier, pick them up and head over to the Sheraton Harbor Island for our weekend stay here in San Diego.

Since I was occupied with the rental car, it was Fred who took our pictures of the activity around the pier, and also some pictures from the rental car after I'd returned and picked everybody up. I have put thumbnail images for the best of these pictures below, so click on those images to have a look at the last group of pictures from our cruise. (You might peruse the first picture at least and see if you can spot one of my pet peeves.)

(Can't spot it? Click here.)

This was a wonderful cruise, and we enjoyed it immensely. I hope you enjoyed following along with us on it.

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	November 20, 2009: A Sea Day
	Return to the Index for Our Panama Canal Cruise