October 15, 2026

Good morning, the last 3 days we spent at sea, cruising towards San Diego. On the first seaday the captain announced at noon, that there would be free drinks for the whole ship between 4 and 5, because we missed Mazatlan. No surprise, everybody was ordering doubles. My cough started to get very annoying, to the point that I confined myself yesterday in my cabin to rest and sip on tea and honey most of the day. For dinner I ordered from room service a large bowl of hot chicken soup and had an early night.

This morning I felt much better and went for an early breakfast. During breakfast we docked at the Pier in San Diego. Soon as the ship was cleared by customs I headed into Town. The weather forecast for today was very hot with a high of 33 Celcius. This time of the morning it was quite pleasant out. I ventured out towards Downtown.  I took a slightly different route than a week ago. I made time for a coffee break at a nice little bakery. Eventually I ended up on the waterfront. While walking along the waterfront, I kept my eyes open for a drugstore to restock my supply of cough candies and meds. I did find a drugstore and got my meds and also got chips and a large bag of Halloween candy to hand out to the crew. I ended up back on the waterfront walking pad and continued on. I was taking several rest stops and just took in all the activities in the harbour. The water was very calm, just a very beautiful morning. I ran into a person who was racing his miniature battery powered car on the walking pad. It ended up being chased by a dog who was ready to take a bite out of this little car. This scene carried on, till a security guard shut the game down. I ended up near the cruise terminal and made a stop at the Wyndham Hotel. From a previous visit at this hotel, I remembered that they made a decent breakfast. The Wyndham is in a very convenient location if you are catching a cruise in SD. After my second breakfast today, I started making my way to the terminal to get checked in. For the afternoon I settled near the pool in the sunshine and monitored all the new guests coming onto the ship. Apparently the cruise was totally sold out. By 5 PM we set sail, slowly leaving the port heading West into the Pacific.

Cheers

Cor

October 11, 2026

G’day. I actually should say Bueno Dia. It was mid morning when we docked in the port of Pichilingue, about 35 min by bus to get to LA Paz Pichilingue is the Port for the City of La Paz. It is also the ferry terminal for transportation to mainland Mexico. As I had been here in the spring of this year, I didn’t feel like sitting on the bus for over half an hour. Also, it felt like my scratchy throat started to turn into a full blown cold. That’s the sign of your body telling you to take it easy. I did get off the boat and wandered around the port checking out all the stalls set up by local vendors selling souvenirs etc. One very persistent vendor managed to sell me a new hat for my ever growing collection. After about an hour I returned back to the boat. For my lunch I had tacos and salsa, I figured that was fitting for my Mexican visit today. For the remainder of the afternoon I settled in a comfy chair on the back deck enjoying the sun. Instead of 2 Seadays, now we had  3 Seadays ahead of us because of the cancellation of The Port of Mazatlan. That’s all for today folks!

Cheers

Cor

October 10, 2026

In the last 2 days we sailed from Sam Diego towards Cabo San Lucas on the Southern tip of the Baja in Mexico. We had a relatively smooth sailing with nice warm temperatures in the high twenties Celsius. We dropped anchor around noon in the bay in front of the “hole in the wall”. As I was considered a frequent cruiser, I was able to get to shore with the first tender boat. Today I was meeting up with Port Alberni resident Mr B. After weaving myself through a Hurd of local vendors, trying to sell me all kinds of stuff, eventually I ended up on the street. I had arranged for B to pick me up close to the bus stop. After we met we hadded off to the subdivision where he is building a new house. I was amazed to see how much work had been done in 10 weeks. After having shown me the building details.  we decided to go for lunch in a funky Roadhouse cafe. After our lunch and and a few cold Ultra’s Craig dropped me back off close to the port. I checked out some of the shops before I headed for my tender boat. When I got to the gate, there were 2 line ups 1 for the Royal Caribbean ship which was nearly 1/2 km. long and hardly moving.The other lineup was about 15 people. Sometimes it pays to cruise on a smaller ship. After we got on board, we were notified by the Captain, that our stop in Mazatlan was Cancelled because of Hurricane Simon. Tomorrow we have a scheduled stop in La Paz.

Cheers

Cor

October 3th, 2026

After being around the house for the summer we figured it would be time to get back on a ship. What better then just to leave from our home port Vancouver. On October 3th I boarded the float plane for Vancouver downtown.  Generally I like to leave a day before the actually departure day of the cruise. Luckily our 2:30 float plane departure was the first to depart that day. The earlier flights were all canceled due to fog. After my walk to the hotel next to the cruise terminal , I got checked into the room verily quickly. By this time I was getting very hungry. After I sat down in the hotel lounge  I got myself a nice pint of  IPA from a local brewery. For my late lunch I ordered some fish and chips (lingcod). I have to say this was one of the best fish I had in a long time. Deep fried to perfection.  After having consumed my late lunch,  I layed down for quick nap. By the time I woke up it was already dark and I figured  I better call’r the night.

The next day was departure day. After I checked out of the hotel, I started making my way towards the check in area for the Crùise ship. I got rid of my luggage very quickly on my way to check in and Customs. I am always surprised by the quick turnaround time of the ship. The boat had arrived  from an 8 day Alaska cruise at 7 am this morning, and they leť us board the ship by 11 am. The ship is called the Zaandam. This is a smaller ship of Holland America Line. Max passengers count only 1500. As it was, we only had 830 gast on board for our 4 day trip to San Diego. For a 26 year old ship, it is in a remarkable good condition. Definitely better than some previous ships I sailed on before. As being an older ship, it has a lot of nice woodwork in the hallways and public areas. 

Our cruise between Vancouver and San Diego is what is called a repositioning cruise. Moving from the summer Alaska runs towards  the Hawaiian and Caribbean runs for the winter season. No stops on this 4 day sailing. 

I filled my days with doing my 2 hr gym sessions in the morning with picking up the odd lecture in the afternoon. It was definitely to cool to sit on the outside deck. Not much for sun, just foggy and drizzly. 

It was also nice to meet up with some of the workers I had met on previous sailings. 

Looking forward to tomorrow’s stop in San Diego. 

Cheers.

                                                                         SAN DIEGO 

This morning I was up early enough to witness our sailing into the harbor of San Diego.  We docked beside another HAL ship called MS Eurodam.

It was very nice to see the sunrise above the highrises of the City. It was supposed to be a very warm day. They even had heat warnings out for today. After breakfast I got myself prepared to go on a long hike along the waterfront, trying to beat the heat by leaving early. Soon as the ship was cleared by customs, I went on shore. 

On the  other side of our ship was the now retired aircraft carrier the Uss Midway.

The Midway is now turned in a museum.  We visited the Midway on our previous visit to San Diego.  If your travels ever take you here in the future, I highly recommend you to take the ships tour.

The marinas are filled with a collection very pricey boats. At some point I came by the convention center,  very large building right on the water front. The locals were generally not to happy today, bcause their baseball team got knocked out of the playoffs. I was also on the look out for a foodstore , not many around in this part of town. Ater asking for some directions from some of the locals , i did find one. I was on the lookout for some spicy mayo and mustard for my late night snacks. 

By now the temperature must’ve been close to 30 C.  After nearly 12000 steps I figured it was time to had back to the ship and relax.

We departed around 5:00 pm.

Cheers.

Feb 26, 2026

Today is our last port stop for this cruise. Last night we celebrated the  Orange party on the boat. This is a throwback to the Dutch Heritage of the HAL cruise line. This is often accompanied by Dutch food at dinner like Nasi and Bami Goreng, tom poesen, bosche bollen and apple pie for dessert and followed by snacks at night like bitter ballen and olie bollen. People usually dress in orange for the night.

Today we arrived in Ensenada early in the morning. I didn’t know much about this City before today. It’s located about 2hr drive south of the US border on the Pacific Ocean, with a population of approximately 360k.

For Today we booked a wine tour to the wine region called the Guadeloupe valley. The winery we were going to visit was about an  hour’s drive outside the City. On our drive we saw numerous wineries in the valley. Apparently there are nearly 200 wineries in the valley. The winery we were about to visit is called La Cetto winery. It is the largest wine producer in Mexico. They grow grapes over 1200 hectares they own, producing approximately 16 million liters per year. They export about 40% to 22 different countries. Upon entry we were given a brief tour of the production area, followed by the tasting of 4 different wines. The quality was actually very good. After we spent a little over an hour here, we boarded the bus to our second stop, La Casa de Dona Lupe. Shortly after arrival we were all given a flight with 4 small cups of wine. To my liking, they were all quite sweet. We were all given a small plate with bread and olive oils. After spending a little over an hour  here we were once again boarding the bus for our trip back to the City.

Cheers

Cor&Carol

Feb 22.2026

After yesterdays epic day trip to the Copper Canyon, we were given some extra downtime because we were not supposed to arrive in Mazatlan till 11:00 Am.

We didn’t have any tours booked for the Mazatlan stop as we had been here before in the past. Before we even docked, the captain came on the intercom and notified us of the attacks in Puerto Vallarta. At this point he already decided to cancel our stop for tomorrow in PV. He also told us, if we were planning to go out today in Mazatlan to be extra aware of our surroundings. After we heard all this we decided to not wander too far away from the port area. We basically did some shopping and consumed a few margaritas before going back on board.

Because of tomorrow’s cancellation we were having an extra sea day.

Cheers

Cor&Carol

Feb 21, 2026

Overnight we anchored in the port city of Topolabampo in the state of Sinaloa.

We had our clocks set for a 3:00 AM. wake up call. We all assembled at 4:00 AM in the theater waiting for our bus. The bus was at the port at 4:30 to take us to the city of Los Mochis. This was a 2hr bus ride. We were in a Convoy of 4 buses. For the first hour we had a police car escorting us. In the City of Los Mochis we met up with our train. The train was surprisingly in very good condition, apparently special for tourists, it’s called El Chepe. For the local people they use a different train, not as luxury. When we were all seated in the train, we were served coffee and a boxed breakfast. The train ride was a whole 6 hours through mountain  terrain following a river valley and on occasion passing by remote villages. the scenery was quite beautiful. We did have a bar car on the train, where we could purchase a drink or an additional snack. By 12:30 we arrived at the Copper Canyon. From here we were taken for a short  bus ride to hotel El Mirador. We had 2 hours to have lunch and take in the spectacular views of the canyon. The Copper Canyon is apparently deeper than the Grand Canyon. Even though it was sunny outside, you could feel the cool air. We had risen from sea level to 6000ft at the hotel. After the Mexican lunch we had a chance to walk along the canyon rim for a mile or so  and meet up with our bus again. The bus took us for a short ride back to our train for the 6 hr train ride back. On the ride back we were served a boxed dinner and we had the opportunity to purchase additional drinks in the bar wagon. I managed to have a few naps on the way back. A little after 8:00 we met up with our bus again. The bus took us back to the ship, where we arrived around 10:30. Wow this was a very long day. Outside the ship we were greeted by all the ships officers. HAL had prepared A special late night  dinner completed with mimosas for all 145 gasts from the Canyon trip. After dinner it was time to hit the sack. Carol managed remarkably well after her cold yesterday.

Overall, this was a great opportunity to see this remarkable canyon and train ride in a single day.

Cheers

Cor&Carol

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Feb 20, 2026

Good morning, overnight we crossed over to the Eastside of the Sea of Cortez to the City of Guyamas. The City is located in the state of Senora. The location is approximately 250 miles south of the USA border. The population is approximately 180k.

Carol had developed a nasty cold overnight and decided to stay put on the ship. By the time I went down the gangplank, there was such a large line up for the shuttle bus to the center of town, that made me decide to stay in the port area. Our departure time was an early one, scheduled for 1:30pm. Instead I ended up shooting a few pictures and went back on board. Since we are further north, you could notice the cooler daytime temperatures look. Let’s hope Carol is feeling better in the morning because it will be an early one.

Cheers

Cor&Carol

Feb 19,2026

Another day, Another Port.

Today’s port is Loreto, located approximately 225 miles north of yesterday’s location of La Paz. Loreto is an historic old city dating back to the 17th century. It is situated on the sea of Cortez.

I visited Loreto in 1997 on a kayak trip. The waters around this area are very popular with kayakers and boaters, being protected by the offshore islands from the winds.

I was very excited to visit again after nearly three decades. The first thing you notice when you get to shore is the historic Mission hotel. I was fortunate to have stayed there in my previous visit. Things look quite different today in the town. The old dirt roads are slowly replaced by newly constructed cobble stone streets with sidewalks. The main street towards downtown is pedestrian only. It is lined with little stores and cafes. The main Street leads towards the downtown square with its century old cathedral. We truly enjoyed sitting down at one of the numerous cafes and listening to some local musicians. After our coffee break we ventured out some more before we returned back to the pier.

Loreto is definitely a great place to visit if you don’t like the hustle and bustle of the tourist centers.

Cheers

Cor&Carol

Feb 18. 2026

This morning we arrived in Pichilinque, which is the port for La Paz. La Paz is a city of 250k and is the capital of Baha de California Sur. Ferry boats leave from here to service Mazatlan and Topolabampo on the mainland.

After breakfast we took the shuttle to downtown LA Paz ,which took the better part of the half hour. On the ride into town, we noticed that the boulevard was still lined with music stages and foodtrucks which went on for a mile or more. These attractions were the leftovers from the Carnival (Mardi Gras) which ended last night. The sad part was that it blocked the view to the beach and ocean. Our shuttle dropped us off in the downtown area. We made visits to the historic church and a large gallery museum. After these visits we circled the downtown area and worked our way back to the beach , where we had lunch and a cold cerveza. After lunch we explored some of the seaside stores and eventually found our ride back to the boat.

Cheers

Cor&Carol