After all the good information I found on Cruise Critic, I wanted to return the favor by giving my own review of our family's cruise.

My family is a typical middle income family with three children ages 13, 9 and 4. We had never considered a cruise before because I assumed it would be too expensive. My wife and I went on a cruise 11 years ago and loved it so it was always in the back of my mind. Last summer on a whim, I started checking cruise prices. We live in Oregon and I have frequent flyer miles that I have saved up so I checked out cruises to the Mexican Riviera. We want to go during our spring break in March and the prices were fairly high. I learned this was because it was the week before Easter. In July of last year, inside cabins on the Vision of the Seas dropped several hundred dollars to between $500 and $600 dollars per person. I felt I could afford that so I jumped on the price and purchased the tickets. A week later the price went back up to almost $800. My first lesson learned for the budget conscious, start checking prices early and weekly. Its easy on the Internet. I booked through Expedia and they treated me great. I made several changes latter on and the phone service was a breeze.

Because of black out dates, we had to fly down one day early and come back a day later. We flew into LAX and rented a car from Budget. Our rental car was under $50 a day which was cheaper than a taxi or shuttle service. We spent Saturday night in Long Beach at the Travel Lodge. The Travel Lodge is a old 1960 style economy hotel. We paid $45 per room for two rooms on Priceline. The rooms were clean and the Travel Lodge is right in downtown Long Beach. We walked to Pine Street where there are tons of restaurants. Everything from very expensive to very cheap. We ate at Sizzler and then walked to the water front past the Convention Center. Read more