" Except for Santa Barbara, there is no 'wine country' along the coast." I think it depends what someone considers as "along the coast". Our coasts are cool (delightfully so) and vineyards need to be a bit away from the immediate coast, typically just a range of hills away in valleys. It's less than an hour from Santa Barbara to the Santa Ynez Valley, the local wine area, and just a shade over an hour from San Francisco to Napa or Sonoma. Same is true for vineyards and wineries near Monterey, San Diego, etc., I think these areas are considered coastal because they're near the ocean and have weather influenced by it. Real "inland" means the Central Valley - good for growing table grapes but too hot otherwise and the site of only non-premium bulk wines like Two Buck Chuck, Franzia, Gallo's historical ops, etc.

Have fun! Been on lots of cruises, but none lately :o( I have a mini duffle bag, (best word I can come up with) has many miles on it. Can throw it over my shoulder or just put it around my wrist. For me, it is light weight, and has a zipper at the bottom for small water bottle, and made of nylon with drawstrings.

Don't go too late in the year. We took HA on a small ship on the last day cruises were offered. HUGE mistake. Because HA has to go around the outside of Vancouver Island, rather than starting within the Strait @ Vancouver as the other cruise lines do, bad weather can be a real problem. It was the end of September, and we ran into a storm. Very impressive seeing 20-ft waves hit the ship, LOL. They had to turn the boat around so we ended up losing 2.5 days, having to backtrack around Vancouver Island and start all over again heading north through the Straits. The ship never made its final 2 stops, they had to cut it short before reaching Sitka :(( Note it can be rainy in summer, so check the weather forecasts regularly. There was absolutely NO insistence on formal dress even in the main dining room. Although many folks did dress up on the final evening dinner, a sizable number did not bother at all, coming in tee shirts and tennies at every meal. We personally thought the food was okay but not great. Lots of quantity but the quality was more on level with a chain steakhouse. The upscale extra-cost restaurant wasn't much better - we actually preferred the food in the main dining room. The service is always impeccable, everywhere. We found the cruise people push a lot of jewelry on the ship and the stores nearest the port seem to be 2/3 jewelry stores. A friend of ours picked up the most delightful pendant ever, a beautifully carved pendant of a tiny polar bear on a swing! Remember that peak season for whale-watching is May - October. We obviously had a bad-luck fairy on our Alaskan cruise, as the whale watching excursion was pretty much a waste of money. We did see an orca calf - did you know they are a pinkish-orange color? - but that and a few far-off spouts were about it. Ironically, there are a number of companies on Vancouver Island that offer whale-watching tours. Our friends flew in to meet us after we got off the cruise ship, and a week later we all drove to Victoria BC. This was their first visit ever to the Pacific NW so we wanted to show them around. I had reserved the half-day tour from a local company, as I knew they would enjoy the scenery and sea air even if we didn't see many whales. Wouldn't you know it - we saw whales every few minutes! They swam so near the boat we could count individual barnacles. They splashed out of the water and spyhopped as if they were posing for photos! More orcas, and some dolphins leaped by as well. We've been on 3 whale watching tours, but this was by far the luckiest. You can just never really tell if they're going to be around the surface when your boat is nearby. But it's thrilling when you're in the right place at the right time. Good luck on your cruise!

We spent three days in San Diego prior to boarding the ship on 10/28. Lots of good food in Old Town. Last time, our meals were in Little Italy. Lots of good times in San Diego. Yesterday evening, I began a Word document relating stuff about cruising in general and this 51-day itinerary in particular. I will add lots of photos as I post it. I want to make sure that I am in a rhythm before I do this officially.