Our “World Cruise” is broken up into eight segments, with the first, Miami to Los Angeles, being called the “pre-cruise” for some reason. Regardless, our overnight stay in Southern California ends the first part of the long trip. About 350 cruisers just went from Miami to LA, with a similar number replacing them for the duration.
While the port is called “Los Angeles” we actually dock in San Pedro, 30 plus miles and up to two hours away by car, depending upon traffic.
Carol and I decided that our best course would be to take a taxi to LA, stay in a hotel and spend the two days there, rather than taking a group bus tour or going back and forth twice. I thought that I would get a head start on re-qualifying for Platinum status at Accor, so I booked a room at the Sofitel, Beverly Hills, where we stayed some nine years ago.
Our friend, Michael Cimarusti, is chef-owner of one of Los Angeles’ best restaurants so we booked a table for dinner and figured we would spend our free time with light sightseeing.
The line at the Immigration interviews on the ship curled around the whole of Deck 2, but we are able bodied and had no particular agenda so were much less bothered than some of the other passengers. After about 40 minutes we had reclaimed our passports and been given leave to depart the ship.
Once outside the dock area, we found a taxi and 1:40 and $100 later, were at the door of the Sofitel. Of course, the room wasn’t ready at 11:00 so we took a cheaper taxi ride to Grauman’s Chinese Theater and spent a couple of hours traversing the Hollywood Walk of Fame, checking out the stars and remarking on how many honorees were unknown to us. We wondered if they had been quite famous and now less so or if they were given stars due to their press agents or for other reasons.
Both Carol and I were amazed at the number of classical musicians whose names we found along the way. From Enrico Caruso and Robert Merrill to Igor Stravinsky and Eugene Ormandy, their stars were interspersed with those of The Marx Brothers, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Marilyn Monroe.
When we returned to the hotel, the room was still not ready, so we enjoyed our free glass of wine that rewards our frequent guest status and then went to CVS for a bit of shopping. Finally, we were told that they had a nice suite on the Penthouse Floor and up we went. Unfortunately, instead of viewing the “Hollywood” sign, we saw only Bloomingdales, but the spacious suite was still lovely.
After some rest, we got cleaned up and dress for our meal at Providence. We arrived and were greeted and shown to a nice table where we were immediately given a glass of champagne and were told that Michael was going to cook our meal himself! When they asked if we would just place ourselves in his hands, we were overjoyed to say yes and to await the tasting menu that would follow.
Soon Michael came out and greeted us warmly, taking us back to the kitchen for introductions and a photo with his staff. Then we went back out, eagerly anticipating the meal. It commenced with spider crab in a daikon radish “dumpling” followed by several more amuse-bouches.
When they brought out different wine glasses, we knew that more courses were on the way. Each course was intricately conceived and carefully presented. It was like a theatrical presentation, with the servers removing the used plates and replacing the utensils and wine glasses just in time for the next course and its wine to be served.
Michael even came out to spoon the sauce on one course and a nitrogen frozen horseradish on the live scallop course! Black truffles, golden osetra caviar, lobster and foie gras were part of this amazing meal, which took over three hours to experience.
The servers and managers all took a turn in presenting the various courses and wines. I took some brief notes on my iPhone and tried to photograph each course, but I felt it was more important just to savor each dish to the fullest.
As it was only a few days into 2018, this was obviously our best meal of the year and is likely to end up being the most memorable. While the food on the Viking Sun is quite good, it could never compare to the dinner we had at Providence.
I had arranged a late checkout as we didn’t have to be back on the ship until 16:30 so we slept until about 8 and then got dressed for a walk to Farmers’ Market, a collection of food stalls, restaurants, shops and fresh food vendors that has been in existence since 1934.
We began with espresso and then wandered about before deciding on hand carved corned beef sandwiches at 10:15 am! At least we had a 1.5 mile walk each way to work off some of the calories!
This concluded our activities in LA and we took another taxi back to the port, boarded the ship and waited for the reception where the President of Viking, Torstein Hagen, gave a toast and informed us that a) there would be fireworks to celebrate the beginning of the cruise, and b) the ship would leave three hours late as two(!) passengers were delayed in arriving from Chicago. While we were listening to the piano music of our friend, Grego, who was unexpectedly summoned to fill in for his colleague who had a family emergency, the ship finally pulled out and we are off on a week of sailing until we reach French Polynesia, our first port.