Year 4, Day 149 “Living the Dream”. Thursday, 9/26/2024. Day 16 of 25-day Alaska to Las Vegas. Day 12 of 13-night Brilliance of the Seas cruise. Day 2. San Francisco, California. We had dinner at Giovanni”s last night. We only have been to Giovanni’s one other time years ago and were not thrilled. Jamie’s Italian was always better on the ships. The food last night was nothing special. The menu just doesn’t have the Italian food we like. Although, the service and table/food presentation was excellent. The breadbasket was served with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and grated cheese. They put the oil, vinegar, and cheese together on seperate small dipping plates for each of us. That was very good. As appetizers we had eggplant parmigiana and a cheese and cured meat board. The eggplant parmigiana was good. We ordered the cheese and meat board just because we didn’t know what else to order. Steve had the Filet Mignon and I had the Chicken Piccata as an entree. Steve said the filet Mignon was better than the filet mignon at Chops. Interesting, considering that Giovanni’s is an Italian Restaurant and Chop’s is a steak house. He said the mashed potatoes were good, but they only gave him like two tablespoons. The chicken was okay and I ate it all. The potato gnocchi, and spinach served with the chicken were gross. The potato gnocchi tasted weird and the spinach was like a mouthful of salt. Dessert was tiramisù for me and chocolate-hazlenut cake for Steve. The presentation of the desserts was fantastic, but the tastes were off. The tiramisù was pretty bitter tasting and I usually love tiramisù. Here”s a little piece of trivia for you – Tiramisù means “pick me up” or “cheer me up”. The chocolate-hazlenut cake Steve had was so rich with chocolate that he could not finish the small piece. So basically we would never do Giovanni’s again. It is not our cup of tea lol.
The maître d was super awesome. He was with us on the Explorer of the Seas during Hurricane Irene. We crossed from Bayonne, NJ to Bermuda. He said he was scared. Oh yes so were we also. Never would I want to do a cruise like that again. Here’s a few videos from that trip.
After dinner we headed to deck 12. It was cold and windy but there were beautiful views of San Francisco. The ship was very quiet with a lot of the crew and passengers in San Francisco to visit clubs.
This morning started out cloudy. We headed to pier 39 to see the Sea Lions and we walked around the stores. These sea lions started coming ashore here after the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco in October 1989. By January 1990, they started arriving in droves and they took over K-Dock. In May of this year there were an all-time record of over 2,100 on these docks. California sea lions are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It is unlawful for unauthorized persons to feed, handle or harass them.
At the end of Pier 39 there was a good view of Alcatraz Island
Walking back to the ship we saw several Waymo vehicles. Waymo One is the world’s first autonomous ride-hailing service, available 24/7 to the public. They have a fully-electric fleet of Jaguar I-PACEs that are cleaned on a daily basis. You use their app like uber and use the app to open the door of the car. There is no driver. Currently they are available in Pheonix and San Francisco using their app. Other cities that have them but as a waitlist for a ride are Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. We talked with a policeman that said he knows of no accidents in San Francisco with the Waymo cars. Oh by the way the police and port security are so nice and friendly here in San Francisco. What a pleasure to talk with them. I wish I knew about the Waymo car earlier, I would have downloaded the app and gone somewhere. How cool would that have been.
At 3:30 pm we are leaving port. It is a beautiful day now. The sun is shining. I never thought I would like San Francisco, but I love it here. I want to come back and do so many other things.
Cruise Compass:
Things to ponder today! Have to leave you thinking.
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To view the complete daily diary, click here – This starts at Year 1 Day 1: Living the Dream – Deestimes – Make every step of the journey count