Cruising Past Cabo San Lucas, Dining At Sabatini’s

The penultimate day of the cruise was the first of two more at sea as we tracked northwards from Puerto Vallarta and headed towards the final destination, our disembarkation port at Los Angeles. All the pre-departure bits and pieces had been delivered to our room – the information about where to meet and when, the tags for the luggage, the tissues to absorb all those cruise-is-about-to-end tears – but we’d pushed them all to one side and just tried to enjoy our last few days without thinking about them too much.

The morning delivered to us clear blue skies, piercing blue sea, and just a hint of early sea mist dissipating on the land we could see from our balcony. This was the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, the lower part of the peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific coastline.

Dragging ourselves away from the balcony we had a quick peruse of the Princess Patter, as you do.

They’ve got a Traditional Chinese Medicine lecture called Herbs That Heal!

No.

And it’s in the Hearts and Minds Chapel. We’ve never been there.

No.

It could be interesting.

I didn’t come on this cruise to listen to you tutting loudly through a sales pitch to the gullible.

I suppose you just want to read and swim and quiz and eat like usual. No, you’re right, that does sound more appealing.

And so this sea day shaped up to be like most of the others and that’s not a bad thing at all. There’s something to be said for trying something new but there’s an argument for a relaxing routine too. We like to mix it up a bit when we take cruises but, to be fair, I’d already annoyed some passengers earlier in this cruise so there wasn’t a pressing need to leave my mark again on this trip. We had breakfast, we did atrociously in the morning trivia, then we hung around in the piazza for a while to watch the Egg Drop Challenge Finale. Enjoyable, but it lacked the engineering efforts and artistic expressions in the egg drop challenge on our Diamond Princess cruise prior to this one.

Cabo San Lucas

Something not listed in the Princess Patter but announced by the captain over the ship’s speakers then sent me scurrying back to the room for my camera before heading out to the promenade deck: we would be cruising past Cabo San Lucas close enough to see its famous arch formation. Famous is a relative term here because while the name Cabo San Lucas triggered a vague sense of having heard it before deep in the recesses of my brain I had nothing more than that to draw on and its arch, whatever that was, meant nothing to me. Almost nothing. It was a thing to see and I like seeing things. We didn’t know on which side of the ship the thing we’d be seeing would be hence us hitting the promenade deck to keep options open.

There were plenty of other people doing the same thing and the gentle breeze and shade cast from the promenade deck (the reason we’d decided not to head up top) made for a very pleasant time slowly slicing through the water and past the landscape off our starboard side.

We weren’t entirely sure what we were looking out for but assumed we’d know it when we saw it. Meanwhile, it wasn’t just the landmass that had our attention. The water was still filled with turtles which we were almost becoming blasé about by this time (almost; maybe a little less than almost; okay, they were still fricking amazing) but we also watched a hummingbird flitting about the ship for a while. That generated gasps and oohs from everyone around and generated an “I’m not even going to try to take a photo of that fast-moving bastard” from me much to my wife’s disappointment; there’s nothing she likes more than seeing me fail to get nature to sit still for a shot. We also heard people mentioning seeing rays in the water but didn’t spot any until one leapt out and splashed back. He or she – I’m not a ray-sexer – got a very deserved round of applause but the surprise action wasn’t repeated. Always leave them wanting more. What a professional!

And it wasn’t just nature drawing the eye. Naturally, as most cruisers do, we love spotting other cruise ships when we’re cruising the world so it was nice to see one anchored at Cabo San Lucas as we passed. We could tell it was an NCL ship because of the hull decoration visible from the distance but it took zooming in on the high-res photo and confirming with ship timetables after the event for it to become clear this was the Norwegian Star. We’ve not cruised with this line and I can’t honestly say they’ve ever figured in the running for selecting trips but we’ve heard good things about them and I wouldn’t be averse to giving them a go in the future.

Cabo San Lucas is Baja California Sur’s third largest city and a popular holiday resort, particularly with Americans. The Baja California Sur peninsula fractured away from mainland Mexico around two million years ago and archaeological digs at the tip where Cabo San Lucas sits have shown humans have lived there in some form or another for around the last ten thousand of those. Cabo San Lucas itself was founded in the late eighteenth century but remained very lightly inhabited until Mexico’s government decided to put in place the infrastructure to promote the area for tourism. This led to an explosion of hotels and timeshare apartments from the 1970s onwards, a lot of which could be seen on the cliff faces and beach fronts we passed.

It took for me to decide to get a photo with some of the other passengers in the shot before I suddenly realised that the thing we’d come to see, the Arch of Cabo San Lucas, was already behind us. In my defence it probably wasn’t easily visible until this point as it’s difficult to spot an arch from a side-on angle.

So, we can now say that we’ve seen what the locals refer to as El Arco and it’s always nice to see natural formations like this. It’s not quite as impressive as Durdle Door in my opinion but a good thing to experience nonetheless, and it’s apparently a popular spot with sea lions who have reputedly good taste where these things are concerned.

We stayed out a while longer until we’d passed the headland and most of the developments along it in search of that oh-so-desirable tourist dollar.

Afternoon Activities

We had a swim, grabbed something to eat from the pool grill, listened to a bit of music from the band for a while while we did so, then went for a read in the company of some drinks. My wife stuck to her cider and I continued with Operation Try All The Beers to see if there were any stars amongst them. Answer: not really. Princess are no P&O where beers are concerned.

We have a theory that we need just a little amount of alcohol to get our brains working. This is why we’re hopeless in morning trivia competitions usually. This is why we do considerably better in the afternoon trivia competitions. For the second time on this cruise we won the trivia and managed to bag a reusable bottle as one of the prizes and a pointless wine stopper as the other. Seriously, who leaves a bottle open with wine in it? Wine heathens, that’s who! The Elite Lounge opened just as the trivia concluded so we took our prizes up with us and celebrated with a couple of drinks.

We dropped our bottle and stopper back off in our room (and grabbed a few more shots of the ocean view from our balcony because my name is Mark and I have a problem and just can’t help myself) then decided to eat up a little more time before the evening with something we’d tried to do a few days earlier.

That thing we’d tried to do was try the wine flight. We’d seen the group of gay guys with whom we’d had an aborted stargazing but boozy and fun evening previously try these flights one day while we’d been in Vines so we’d asked Zander if we could do the same. The wine flight includes three wines and three chocolates for pairing but at the time we’d asked we’d been told that they had none of the white chocolates in although they hoped to restock in Puerto Vallarta. Well… that didn’t happen so we accepted an improvised offer when we asked again on this day and that’s why you can see two chunks of white Toblerone.

And how was the Princess wine flight? Okay. The chocolates were a nice touch and two thirds of them were great quality and very tasty although it’s arguable that they really made a difference to the experience. The problem was that the flight included a rosé wine. Our wine-drinking preference is for red wine and the more full-bodied the better. After that, our preference is for something that’s not wine because white wine is like drinking watery piss and rosé wine feels like an evil scientific experiment in the mouth.

I have taken the flavours, the aromas, the blitz on the sensations of a red wine…

Oh, I like that master!

…and I have taken the insipid, pale, almost offensively pointless presence of a white wine…

Master! You’re scaring me!

…and behold my creation! It lives!

Master! What is it!?

I shall call it rosé. People will think it is a bridge to better drinking experiences for white wine drinkers! People will be so wrong! It is worse! Far, far worse!

Sabatini’s Speciality Dining

This penultimate sea day was a formal night. We don’t object to formal nights but I don’t find wearing a suit of any kind terribly comfortable. I take a tuxedo and I do wear it at least once on a cruise but we’ve found ways to not have to dress up too much and not worry about feeling out of place as we’ve become more experienced cruisers. One of those ways is to book speciality dining for the formal night. Speciality dining venues tend to be a little more relaxed about what you’re wearing on formal nights because you’re paying a little extra for the privilege. We’d had an absolutely stunning meal already in Sabatini’s thanks to a free offer when we’d booked the cruise; stunning enough, in fact, that we’d booked another sitting which we worked out should be on this final formal evening.

But first, a formal night tradition needed to be followed. A Vodka Martini with three olives for me, something fancy for the lady. I never used to like Vodka Martinis. I didn’t like the taste of them. I really didn’t like the olives. I still don’t like the olives. I have, however, acquired a taste for a Vodka Martini and worked out the purpose of the olives: firstly, they’re to look sophisticated to people impressed by revolting fruit; secondly, they’re to impart a little saltiness into the drink and tweak its flavour as you sip further down the glass; thirdly, they’re to be thrown at people irritating you once you’ve consumed about half the drink and don’t fancy the idea of finishing off with brine.

To Sabatini’s. We made a few changes from the first meal we’d had here so that we could try a few new things but there were some courses that were simply too good to not have again. The wine, as well, was one we had for the third time, having had it recommended on our first visit then selecting it when we’d dined at the Crown Grill just ahead of crossing the equator too.

Our pinot noir was delivered to the table along with another incredible basket of bread and the Stuzzichino Della Casa: “warm rustic whole-wheat loaf, tuscan zonzelle with roasted tomato & bell pepper passata, prosciutto crudo, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar.”

For my wife, the first course was Arrosticini di Agnello: “grilled lamb skewers marinated with oregano and extra virgin olive oil, arugula salad.” I went for Alici: “fried zucchini & yellow squash, smoked scamorza, toasted house made crostini.”

In the eternal battle between soup and salad we side with the forces of soup. Grana Padano Fondue: “celery, foraged mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts.”

The pasta course for my wife was Buckwheat Pappardelle: “wide ribbon pasta, celeriac, nebbiolo-braised beef cheek.” I repeated my previous choice of Tortelloni: “mint-speckled pasta, roasted lamb, pecorino crosta nera, cacio e pepe sauce, broccoli rabe.”

My wife’s seafood course was Roman Seafood al Cartoccio: “grouper, shrimp, black mussels, scallops, potato, artichoke.” I went for the Iseo-Style Lake Trout Rolls: “lemon, capers, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary polenta.”

We’d been disappointed by the deconstructed tiramisu for dessert on our first meal at Sabatini’s so chose differently this time around with my wife picking the dessert samples and me picking just one huge, chocolatey one.

Finally, the only problem with a meal as large as this is that the wine doesn’t last long enough so you’re compelled to dip into the exclusive cocktails list for the dining venue. Compelled.

So full were we from another stunningly good meal from the new Sabatini’s menu that we forewent our traditional evening end in Skywalkers and opted to slip into food comas in our room instead.

Tomorrow would be the last day aboard Star Princess.

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