Mexico Cruise 2006 – Day 1
November 21, 2006
Day 1 of our 2006 Celebrity Mercury cruise to Mexico is in the books and it was a fun one!
We boarded the Mercury in San Diego about noon. We grabbed a quick lunch on board at the grill and plotted out our day. The first day, Suzanne always likes to take her video camera and walk the whole ship and film it. With folks still coming on board, its a good time to get the public areas captured. I did a good job of making sure my favorite seat at the sky bar was still there.
We actually left San Diego on time at 5:00 pm. Usually, we are late leaving. We met some folks from her cruise forums groups that she chats with every day. The kids quickly became acquainted with the kids club and made some new friends in a hurry.
With the kids with us, we signed up for early seating dinner. We prefer the late seating, but the kids may not be able to stay up that late, especially on the big production show nights since those are after dinner and they like to see them. We had a nice table for four in the dining room which I prefer with kids, plus I like eating with just family. Suzanne likes to eat with others and meet them, but she is an extravert and I am an intravert.
For the first night, I choose the fettucini carbonara as my main dish. They also had veal picatta, so I asked them to bring me one slice of that too since I love veal. It was wonderful as usual. Suzanne went with the veal picatta for her main entree. Both Savannah and Sean chose roasted spring chicken. They both also loved their shrimp cocktail appetizers.
After dinner, we watched the welcome aboard show in the theater. As usual, Suzanne became part of the show. At one point, the singer on stage was getting ready to sing an opera song and asked if anyone knew any Italian opera. Of course, Suzanne’s hand shot up and he called her up on stage and was a bit incredulous that she might be able to do that. Well, they sang some opera together, though Suzanne didnt really know that one. I think we are already up to a couple of dozen folks coming up to us and asking if she was a plant in the audience. She did pretty well. Quite often her singing gets us some free drinks, so I am hopeful.
We retired for the night at about 11:00 pm to be well rested for the next day. Its a formal night and the kids get a slumber party in the kids club until 1:00 am, so Suzanne wants to go out dancing tonight, which may be a challenge with my foot, but its getting better.
Today is a day at see, our favorite time. We plan a leisurely day enjoying being away from it all.
A Night in San Diego
November 20, 2006
Well, we arrived in San Diego yesterday afternoon after a bit of a drive. I had wanted to fly to San Diefo to get to the cruise ship, but Suzanne wanted to drive. In a compromise, we agreed to drive, but she would do the drving, which is a challenge in of itself, as I dont like being a passenger, but even less so when she drives.
It took us about 7 hours to get here with a half hour stop for lunch. It wasnt all that bad as the kids were behaved and the scenery was new as we had never driven to San Diego before. By 3:30 pm we were checked into our room and all settled. We stopped by the hotel bar for a quick cocktail and to chart our plans for the evening. We didnt really want to do too much as the drive was still long and my foot continues to bother me.
We decided to walk about a mile to the Gaslamp Quarter and find a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. There was three of them right near each other. One seemed very upscale which interested me. Another was a trattatoria and the third was an osteria. From my business travels to Rome and Suzanne’s one trip, she picked the osteria because that usually means small home cooking type restraunt. All of them looked very nice and inviting. The restaurant was Panevino.
After a modest bottle of wine ($46), appetizer, dinner and dessert, we managed to rack up a $250 bill. It was very nice and good though. Suzanne had Cioppino (spelling?) which caused her to repeat many times that she was in heaven. It was a plateful and if you like seafood, looked wonderful. I went with one of my Roman favorites, Saltimbocca, and it didnt disappoint though it came with spinach that went uneaten.
For dessert, we went with tiramisu and it was fantastic. I have yet to find a tiramisu in the states that was as good as what I used to get in Rome. Last night was VERY close. It was wonderful. Savannah called it a tie with my own version of tiramisu. Sean had to be different (that’s a Pechuls thing) and had gelatto – Italian ice cream. It came in a cone of almond brittle. Sean didnt leave any behind.
This afternoon, we board the Celebrity Mercury for our Mexican cruise. It should be an enjoyable couple of weeks.
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