First a little about us. We drove to San Diego from our home in Phoenix, researching parking options before leaving. We attend our son's graduation from Marine Recruit training the Friday before hand, so arrival at the cruise terminal and locating the parking which was right across the street was not an issue for us. We had 2 cabins, both on the Aloha deck. My wife and I were in the balcony cabin (A318) on the port side, and the 3 teens with us were in an inside cabin about 75 feet further aft.

We arrived at the pier in San Diego at approx 1:30 and while the check-in line resembled something at Disneyland, we made it through the line and were on board the ship by 2:15 or so. Our bags followed very closely behind - I was surprised by this and Princess did a great job on delivering all our bags. We'd eaten just before boarding (silly us) so we enjoyed the view from the balcony and after Muster headed out for the sail away. It was a bright and sunny day in San Diego and there were dozen's of sail boats dotting the bay - so many in fact we almost ran one over 20 minutes into the cruise. The skipper of that $100k plus sailboat took a ton of abuse from passengers and we couldn't have missed him, by more than 50 feet - it's amazing that with a ship the size of the Dawn and the ships horn blasting continuous warning, the guy didn't move out of the way.

Our balcony cabin was reasonable sized - there was enough storage for all our things and we met our cabin steward Edsel right before the muster. He kept the room nice and tidy for us all week, was able to secure 2 wine glasses and a corkscrew for us but other than that we only saw him in the hallways. The bed was not particularly comfortable, but we slept well - we brought our own pillows from home and I think that helped. The balcony itself was small, but at least we could sit outside in relative privacy and watch the world go by. Read more