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The photos are not in order again, because PhotoBucket. Rrrrr!
Here is today's
Personal Navigator as well as the Ensenada Shopping Map and the Port Adventures sheet which I picked up at their desk.
The seas were pretty calm overnight. We had breakfast out back at BBB at 7:15am as we were docking. We saw lots of seals or sea lions and lots of birds. It looks like a quiet Sunday morning in Ensenada. All ashore is supposed to be 8am and all aboard is 4:30pm. It's 10 past 8am and we still haven't heard an announcement that the ship is cleared.
We were some of the first people off the ship right after it cleared, as we had walked down to the gangway and were standing there in line waiting for the announcement. As we exited the terminal building, a man was offering shuttle rides to town and back every 5 to 10 minutes for $3pp roundtrip. We got on his shuttle. After about 15 to 20 minutes, it still wasn't full. He decided no one else was coming off the ship and we left. As we left the port, we found the streets were closed for a marathon. We sat and watched for about 20 minutes, then wove around Ensenada for about another 20 minutes trying to find open streets to get to their terminal building. On the way, we saw nothing open. The man gave a sales spiel about how we could take his bus on out to
La Bufadora (the blowhole) with shops, restaurants, and a ride back for $15pp. We both wanted to see the blowhole and there didn't seem to be anything open downtown anyway, so we did it. We got off the shuttle, bought tickets and boarded bus 41 and sat on it for another 20 minutes or so while they waited to fill that boat. (You may be noticing a pattern here and obviously our first mistake was boarding the first shuttle instead of walking into town! Or maybe not, we still don't know if we'd have found anything open or to do all Sunday morning that would have been better than how we did spend our time.)
On the bus, we got orange stickers that said Dunas Tour Company and our guide's name Alfredo, along with Habana Banana for the best cocktails. Alfredo also gave us each a coupon for a free margarita at Habana Banana. (We still have the coupons and did not drink anything other than the bottled water we carried.) The drive to La Bufadora took about an hour. It was only supposed to have been 20 or so miles south of Ensenada. Because of roads closed due to the marathon and roads under construction, it took a long time. We were glad we didn't try to rent a car here to do this as we would never have found it down the long and as far as we could see unmarked dirt road we had to navigate to get there. Our first stop was a 2nd story restroom at a restaurant. Alfredo had explained that there is no running water out here and they have to truck it in, so restrooms were a big deal. But, his company Dunas had a deal with the place he would escort us and we could use the restrooms free of charge. Needless to say, everyone took him up on the offer!
We walked through a gauntlet of shopping stalls to La Bufadora. It was a disappointment. If there was an actual blowhole here, it would only have been visible from the sea. This was more like a crevice. It appeared to be low tide, so maybe it would have been more impressive at high tide. In any event, everything was open here and there were a lot of locals strolling, lounging about and visiting La Bufadora. There did not appear to be very many ship people out here. We watched La Bufadora for a while, and walked all the way around, to study it from every possible angle.
We walked back through the gauntlet and got 2 t-shirts on the way for $10 each. They wouldn't take $8. Then we got 3 carne asada tacos. I can't explain why. Clay asked for 2 in 2 languages and sign language and every time the reply was in English, 3 tacos. OK, then. Sorry I don't recall the cost, but they were inexpensive and they accepted US Dollars. We went to the little open air cafe off the main drag behind the lot where the bus parked. We were hoping to get a little off the beaten path and avoid the people trying to sell us everything from churros to pharmaceuticals. That was a mission accomplished, no one bothered us as we ate and then sat and people-watched to wait for the bus to reopen. The tacos were freshly made the the hand made corn tortillas were very good. We reloaded the bus about 12:15pm and got back to the ship about 1:30pm.
We finally got to walk to a place at a port where we could get a partial view of Donald Duck hanging off the back of Wonder!
I can't really recommend what we did here. If I came here again, I still don't know what would be a good thing to do here. I had seen where
Fox movie studios had a facility nearby and we'd have enjoyed that but it looked like a tight time fit and DCL did not offer it, so I thought that we shouldn't try it. We enjoyed watching the Mexican sea lions at the pier from the front of the ship as much as anything.
We ate lunch from the pool deck quick service places as all restaurant lunch service ended at 2pm. Nothing to do now but pack! We have dinner in Triton's tonight with the Till We Meet Again menu. The show tonight in WDT is Remember the Magic. Bags in the hall by 10pm. Out of the cabin for good by 7:15am for breakfast in Triton's. And, it looks like they expect to call our Daisy Duck luggage tag by 8:30am for us to disembark.
Some comments on our wines: Vendage & Bota Box Pinot Grigio we found undrinkable. We routinely drive a $3 a bottle
Oak Creek Pinot Grigio at home, so our standards are NOT high. It would be a serious fail for us to find a wine undrinkable. But, we did and poured these out! The
Bandit Riesling and Pinot Grigio were both drinkable. We are not wine snobs, but we usually have a glass with dinner and generally only drink white, so we have pretty low standards and your mileage may vary! We had just never purchased wine in cartons like these and the selection was very limited and we didn't have any idea what to expect. That said, we did not expect to find any so bad that we would dump it down the sink!
I found nothing I liked on tonight's menu again. For me, it seemed like the last 2 nights had too many weird meats and fish dishes. It was like someone looked in the freezer halfway back across the Pacific and thought, oh geez, we've gotta clear out all this pheasant, duck, lamb and crab... We'd already eaten all the normal stuff! Clay had cranberry salad and lamb. I had potato & warm goat cheese followed by the plain chicken breast with steamed veggies and rice. It was like hospital food. For dessert, Clay had the apple and cranberry crumble with vanilla ice cream. I was having trouble deciding and finally went with Baked Alaska. It was OK, but they also brought a Chocolate Decadence since I asked about it first. I had a similar cake thing earlier and didn't like it then either, but Clay did like it and he ate it. He ate most of my Baked Alaska too. They put on a big International flags parade with flaming Baked Alaskas. It was special.
The WDT show was a combo production and variety show in the same style as the first night's show with the Christiaan talking alot. Dreams was the best show followed by Toy Story. The rest I could skip. I think maybe our expectations were too high for Disney entertainment, but yet that seems unlikely doesn't it? Anyway, I think we were both rather disappointed with the offerings.
We have to get up early tomorrow to be out of the cabin and in Triton's at 7:15am for our assigned seating at table 22 for breakfast. It is definitely working out as one of those hurry up and get on your way cruise endings. Bags were picked up between 9:30 and 10:30pm. So, one sleep, one breakfast and it's over; 2 "Wonder"ful weeks!
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