As we cruised back from Puerto Vallarta on Majestic Princess, we encountered wind we didn't have heading southward, which made the sunshine work harder to keep us in our lounge chairs by the pool or walking around the decks. We had come for sunshine, however, and we managed to still enjoy quite a bit at sea. Movies Under the Stars played movies that sometimes held our attention.
A couple of new movies shown in the Princess Theater were horribly depressing and unwatchable for me, including "Nomadland," which apparently won Oscars, giving me one more reason to not watch that snooze-fest (unless I hear Ricky Gervais will be the host).
We enjoyed assorted live entertainment in the afternoons and evenings, including the lounge piano stylings of David Juneau, who could seemingly play about any song he'd ever heard before, and a final terrific production show as well as other performers in the Princess Theater.
Magician/singer/comedian Nathan Phan put on two great shows, neither of which included the trick with which he tried to fool Penn & Teller on a TV show that you may have seen (Julie and I hadn't).
Remembering we still had $50 per person unused onboard credit because of free beverages, wifi and gratuities under Princess Plus, we decided to enjoy a gourmet meal of Filet Mignons with assorted delicious accompanying dishes, from appetizers to dessert. $29 per person may seem like a splurge when there's so much free food onboard, but a similar meal on land would cost much more. We loved it.
We disembarked easily on the morning we returned to Los Angeles World Cruise Terminal and soon caught a Lyft to our old home town, Redondo Beach. The coast was beautiful as usual. We walked over to our old condo complex to meet our friends Randy and Karen. After visiting with them in their ocean-view condo, we walked to the pier where they treated us to a delicious lunch at Kincaid's.
Sitting under an umbrella by the ocean on the Redondo Beach Pier was the perfect place enjoy a great meal and light-hearted conversations with friends.
After lunch, we headed back to their place before heading to our hotel for the night at Sonesta Select Hotel. The room was comfortable and attractive, but the coffee pot brewed up a terrible cup of joe. Unfortunately, the Starbucks in the lobby never opened while we were there.
A feature of this hotel Amy's old classmate from Uconn Matt McDonough would appreciate is that we could easily walk to In-n-Out Burger for dinner, which h we did. Matt had visited Julie and me as part of team of journalists from the school paper our daughter Amy worked on in order to cover some March Madness games in Anaheim. Before returning home, he bought a couple of bags of In-n-Out Burgers to bring back to Connecticut, including one that he gave to Amy.
We did not pack burgers for our flight home to Montana the next day, but we did pick up some fruit bars and salty snacks from Ralph's Groceries across the street from In-n-Out.
Our free airport shuttle turned up at 6 AM as scheduled, and by the time we made a few other stops, it was filled with travelers and their suitcases. The flight home was uneventful, which is a good thing. I did have just enough time to watch "42," the Jackie Robinson bio-flick which I have been meaning to watch. It's a classic epic sports movie that I would have eaten up at 11-years-old and still can appreciate today. It's well worth watching, even if you're not a baseball fan. It turned out to be a pleasant way to pass the last couple of hours of a great vacation.
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