Day 16 - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

 Date: 1/21/2024     Day 16                       Port: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Description: The focus of San Diego seems to be ever changing, and each change adds to the city’s complexity and attractiveness. The city began as a remote Spanish mission and later came to be dominated by navy and marine bases. More recently, San Diego has established itself as a leader in scientific research and as a near perfect place to live, retire, conduct business or visit as a tourist. Its year-round perfect climate also helps lure people to its historic attractions.

Planned Excursion: SAN DIEGO ZOO SAFARI PARK

6.0 Hours            Moderate Activity            # SAN-003: $89.00

Spend nearly four hours browsing the zoo at your own pace.  Linger at the exhibitions that house your favorite animals.  Discover creatures that you may have never seen or even knew existed.

Daily Notes:  The day started off as a dizzily rain.  It was expected to continue off and on throughout the day.  We don our rain gear before setting off on our excursion.  Before we could board our bus we needed to talk with Customs and Immigration.  With our passports out we walked up to the customs officer.  Without looking at our passports he wanted our photos.  So he took one of each of us and confirmed who we were.  That's all there was to it, thank you and have a nice day without any further questions.  

We were met my Christina who not only worked for the tour company, but also worked as a volunteer at the San Diego Safari Park.   On our 50 minute bus ride to the park she told about the park and the best routes to take walking throughout the park.  Since it was a rainy day she thought that attendance would be lite.  Normally on a Sunday the number of people visiting the park could be up to 10,000.  We later learned that the official attendance was 1,187.   We had the park to ourselves early on.  

We arrived at the park at about 11 AM.  We had until 4 PM before meeting the bus for the return trip.  It lightly rained off and on for the first 2 hours.   Then the sun came our briefly on and off and started to dry things out.   By then more people arrived in the park, many with their kids.  The only downside was that most all eating places were closed.  When we stopped for lunch at 2 PM.  All we had was a cheese burger, fries and a soda,  $52. 

It was a lovely day even with the rainy periods.  Many of the animals were not out during those rainy times and did not come out until the afternoon.  No video today, just some photos of what we could see.  Some of the netting and fencing made it hard to get good photos, especially the Bald Eagles.  Those pictures were not usable.  

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