My homeport is Sitka but Holland America considers three Pacific cities to be it’s homeports, Seattle (company HQ), Vancouver and San Diego Koningsdam, Niew Amsterdam and Zaandam are currently homeporting in San Diego, but with Zaandam being gone for 93 days it is long way from home for a long time.  All HAL ships list their hailing port as Rotterdam.

We count San Diego as our first port of call.  We are staying in a hotel right across the street from the cruise pier and we walked the area, as we would if we had gotten off the ship with no tour in mind, just wandering. 

We discovered the Beach Hut Deli where we split a Reuban and listened to the free music in the waterfront park. 

Then we wandered to the wharf area that is now the San Diego Maritime Museum.  We didn’t go onto any of the ships.  After yesterday’s flight I didn’t feel energetic enough to climb around, but I enjoyed taking pictures of rigging, chain, line, pully, and spar, with funnels in the background.

We also wandered to the Santa Fe station, now home to Amtrak and the light rail called the San Diego Trolly, and a little bit downtown.  Saturday night we stopped briefly at a local watering hole, The Claim Jumper, next door to our hotel where some of our cruise mates were having a meet and greet.  We are at the Springhill Bayside.  I can see by the bag tags sitting in the lobby that we have several cruise mates in the hotel with us.