Crystal Serenity – LA to Vancouver – Day 2 – Saturday, June 10, 2017 (Santa Barbara)

Having gone to bed really early, we got up really early and began the day with a 30+ minute walk on the promenade (deck 7).  It’s funny, but the apple watch said we went 3.5 miles, which is clearly wrong.  We think that it was using GPS and counting the ship was moving.  Pretty funny.   On the full-circle Promenade Deck one can easily walk the entire ship without obstructions, changing levels, or turning around. This is one of our favorite design features of the Crystal ships.

At 6:20am, we stopped at the Bistro where Kremena was there setting up.  We met her many years ago on the Symphony.  She is in her 10^th year on Crystal and just recently decided to switch ships and come to the Serenity as a way of adding a little variety to her life.  It was nice to chat with Kremena.  She graciously made Julie her latte and then we returned to our room to get ready for the day.

After our traditional breakfast of omelets and fruit, we boarded a tender for the Santa Barbara port. 

 It was very overcast with a marine layer hanging over the entire area.  The ten-minute tender ride was uneventful and we then boarded a shuttle bus that was taking everyone to the middle of downtown SB at the courthouse.  

 There were statues everywhere???

Jackaranda tree.

At that point, we were only 1.4 miles from the Old Mission at Santa Barbara, so we decided to hoof it there (many people said that it was up a giant hill and we shouldn’t try).  Well, we live in the mountains and sure, it was up hill, but “whatever”.  We got there a bit before the only docent-led tour of the day at 10:30. The tour was fine as we learned all about the history of Missions in California and the SB one in particular (which was number 10 of the missions that were formed).

 Chalk art was sponsored and the proceeds went to children education in the arts.

We then took a Lyft back to the dock area, boarded the tender and got back on board.  For lunch, we decided to try Tastes.  Tastes is one of the three specialty restaurants onboard.  We shared an appetizer of chicken and shrimp potstickers and then Julie had the Tuna salad and Bob had a steak quesadilla.  

 Notice he fine product placement.

Not taco Tuesday, but steak quesadilla Saturday is pretty sweet.

A returning tender - the weather was finally clearing up.

Later in the afternoon, we saw the HBO documentary “Becoming Warren Buffet”.  It was fascinating.  One thing that we learned was that he is absolutely brilliant.  He is one of those individuals that is so smart that it is to the detriment of his ability to function with humans.  Fascinating.  On our way back to our cabin, we stopped at the Bistro and picked up some cheese and crackers.  We decided to have our Crystal provided wine with cheese/crackers and watch the sail-away from Santa Barbara from the balcony of our cabin.  

Dinner tonight is in the wonderful specialty restaurant: a Nobu restaurant known as Silk road.  Nobu Matsuhisa is a Japanese master chef and has swept the culinary world by storm.  He has 22 restaurants around the globe and is known for his innovative fusion dishes. In addition to the regular dining tables there is also an amazing sushi bar with four sushi chefs serving not only the bar but also the regular dining customers.

Our dinner started with a shrimp tempura sushi roll. Julie had a lobster spring roll with maui onion salsa and Bob had rock shrimp with ponzu sauce.  

We both agreed that the rock shrimp was amazing.  We both had a warm mushroom salad.  The warmth was unexpected, but very tasty.  

We then moved to our entrees, Julie had the Nobu box with rock shrimp, black cod, and Wagyu beef. Bob ordered the Wagyu beef with three different sauces.  

Julie had the whiskey cappuccino and Bob had the chocolate soufflé cake with sesame ice cream.  

The only downside of the meal is that we were too full.  It was, to quote that song, “totally awesome.”

After dinner, we wandered to the production show, “Across the Pond.”  The dancers and singers performed maybe 50 different British classic rock songs from the Beatles to the Stones and the Dave Clark Five.  We loved the show and clearly so did the audience. 

After the show, we retired for the night.