Cruising the California Coast

Brand New Ship: Discovery Princess

One outcome of ships being redeployed to new areas is new itineraries. The west coast of the United States typically offered Alaska cruises, Hawaii cruises, one or two itineraries as ships repositioned between Alaska and the Caribbean, and short cruises to Ensenada.

Now that ships are not heading to Asia, some cruise lines are offering new itineraries to Mexico and the California Coast. We tried two of those itineraries on new Discovery Princess. The new ship is gorgeous.

The first sailing visited Los Cabos, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. I love the scenery sailing along the western coast. Depending on the itinerary, I can recommend which side of the ship will offer better viewing. If you get lucky, you may spot whales as you get close to Cabo San Lucas. Here’s the view of the harbor from Baja Brewing.

The ship will anchor offshore. You’ll take water shuttles or the ship’s life boats into the Marina. Cabo has beach clubs and restaurants close to the marina. Whale watching excursions are common. You can kayak and snorkel near the famous Arch. ATV tours and ziplining is also available.

The itinerary also included Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán. Puerto Vallarta also offers snorkeling, ATV rides, and zip lining. Food tours are also popular here and in Mazatlán. Stone Island is a fun adventure when visiting Mazatlán.

I think this itinerary is great for cruisers who’ve been to the Caribbean a lot. The scenery and activities are very different because these areas have a more desert landscape.

We spent the second week sailing up and down the coast of California visiting San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Ensenada, Mexico.

At first, it seemed weird to be headed to San Francisco. We’ve been there before. What should we plan? The first item on the agenda was getting up early to watch sailing under the Golden Gate bridge. We had incredible view of the bridge and Alcatraz.

We decided to treat the cruise like a road trip. We made lists of things to do in each city. We sampled oysters in San Francisco and walked the whole waterfront. In Santa Barbara, we took a trolley tour to get an overview and then tried some beers and wine. In San Diego, it turned out there was a home baseball game so we got tickets and watched the Padres plan.

The cruise doesn’t sail a long distance between ports so our all aboard times were later.

All roundtrip US cruises need to visit a foreign port so we stopped at Ensenada. I’ve heard many less than enthusiastic reviews of Ensenada over the years. We were wowed by the wine tasting tour we took to Guadalupe valley.

The scenery was stunning. The wine was very good and we had a terrific lunch. I would not be surprised if we plan a wine trip back there in the future.

I think the Classic California Coast is a great itinerary if you’ve dreamed of the California road trip. This gives you a taste of four California cities if you add in a pre-stay in Los Angeles over the course of a week without any traffic.

If these sound like right itineraries for you, let me know. You can email Angie@TripswithAngie.com. I’d love to book your cruise for you and share all my tips for each of the ports.

The Discovery Princess will sail the Classic California Coast again in October 2022, March 2023, and April 2023.

If you are interested in the Mexican Riviera itineraries, the Discovery Princess will sail those between October 2022 - April 2023. I recommend sailing December to March to catch those whales.