We took the 4 night Thanksgiving sailing to Catalina Island and Ensenada. We were traveling with myself, my husband, and our three children ages 15, 21, and 24. Our older kids go to school in California, so we thought it would be a great trip to occupy all ages.

We purchased the Faster to the Fun ahead of time. We had two rooms, U219 and U221, right across the hall from each other. We arrived to the port around 10 am (parked in the parking structure which was $17.00 per day). It was super easy to park and walk over to check in. We checked in and they told us to wait in the priority area to the right. One thing that was odd was they didn't seem to care when people got off the boat. There were still people coming off at 11:45am. They finally got everyone off, and we got on the boat around 12:15ish. We showed our priority pass, and we got on pretty quickly. We took our stuff to our room, which was really nice not to have carry things around. We wanted early dining and they had given us my time, so we went to the dining room, and they switched it very quickly for us. We also used the FTF when we went to Catalina Island. I called guest services the night before, and she said to come down to guest services when we were ready, and they would get us on the next boat. There were tender boats to take us to Catalina. We took our time, and went down around 11am. Until, 9am you can just go down and get on a boat. From 9-12, you need to get a tender ticket. When we were ready, they gave us ticket 1 which allowed us to go on the next tender. It was smooth and awesome not to have to wait. The last thing we benefitted from was debarkation. We were given tag number 1, so we could exit any time after the self assist. In my opinion, it was worth the $50.00 per room to have these benefits, but you need to decide for yourself!

Food on the boat was fine...my husband wasn't crazy about it, but I always found something and the kids loved it. They loved the dining room, and they just loved eating, period. The taste bar was a fun thing to do every night as well. They did have a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving night. My favorite was the rotisserie. The meats were yummy there. Omlettes were yummy in the morning, and I really enjoyed the dining room for breakfast. The sea day brunch was yummy. i had a mexican dish with eggs and it was so good. We also got free drink coupons for being in their frequent guest program, and we got pina coladas and lattes. Read more