I’ll start with the journey from Miami to Los Angeles on American. It was a nonstop 6-hour flight. This was my longest flight in a very long time. It went very well. My body held up better than I thought it would. I suppose it helped that I kept myself busy.
I landed at LAX and took a free shuttle to the rideshare pickup site. It was only about 5 minutes to ride there, but loading, unloading, and filling the shuttle took twice that.
My Lyft driver was exceptionally quiet, a man of very few words. I didn’t mind. Traffic was bad on the 405 and he had to maneuver through that. Better him than me. It cost about $65 to get to the Crowne Plaza, including tip.
The Crowne Plaza was a decent enough hotel, suitable for ordinary use. This was one of the home hotels for passengers on The 80s Cruise and they had some banners ready for us. I especially liked these two as it reminded me of where I had just been.
I spent an eventless night here. I couldn’t get on one of the hotel’s shuttles to the cruise port (I think it cost $5.50 per passenger), so I took another Lyft. The terminal was less than two miles away, but the journey was twisty and I was unfamiliar with the territory, so I didn’t want to risk walking. In a life filled with decisions both good and bad, this was one of the better ones. The ride only cost about $11, including tip.
Some nice cruisers gently guided me to where I needed to go. This would start a sequence of stops and starts.
The terminal itself was the same as the one Princess used when I boarded the Majestic Princess last year. I didn’t expect that. My opinion the terminal and the area around it remains the same as my last visit there – it badly needs a redo or a flat out teardown and rebuild.
I was on the ship and checked into the muster station by noon. Welcome to The 80s Cruise!
One small problem with boarding so early is that the cabin wasn’t ready until 1. And unlike some other cruise lines I’ve been on, they didn’t allow access to the cabin to drop off bags.
But there was a solution to this… I happened to be one of the few cruise ships remaining with an honest to goodness library. It was conveniently located on deck 7, where my cabin was. I spent a lot of time here during the cruise.
1 PM came and I dropped off my stuff, unpacked, and went through the usual blizzard of paperwork. Then I went to lunch at El Loco Fresh near the pool. I had a pork and a chicken fajita. It was pretty good, but I couldn’t find any nearby seating. So I had to go into the Solarium to eat and rest. It was a nice place that was less noisy than the surrounding area I also took a few random photos of the pier area.
We took off right at 4 and headed to Puerto Vallarta.
That evening we were entertained by Howard Jones. He was very good. My favorite song from him is “No One Is To Blame” and he played it in the middle of his set.
I stayed up for a couple of extra hours after the show to witness the Super Special Announcement that they were having.
The Super Special Announcement I alluded to above was an announcement about the lineup for next year’s cruise. Since I had a hold on this cruise already, you could say that I had a stake in this.
I went to Promenade to witness what the hubbub was all about. Eventually they quit beating around the bush and gave us the news. To make a very long story short, here’s what they announced:
They first announced people I didn’t care for and I worried about where things were going. Then came SHEENA EASTON and I thought they might be able to salvage things. Then I heard them mention STEPHEN PEARCY and thought this might be a good lineup after all.
And it did turn out good, IMHO. Besides the two I just mentioned, I’m looking forward to seeing 38 Special, Air Supply, Debbie Gibson, Ray Parker Jr., and Wang Chung.
Good job, ECP. You can keep my money.