About us: My husband Jimmy and I live in Garland, Texas. We are in our early 40's. This was our eighth cruise and the first on a Holland America ship. We have previously sailed on several Carnival ships, two Royal Caribbean ships, one Norwegian and one Princess. We are not heavy drinkers or partiers but we like the cruise experience for the ocean, the food, the music, the casino and some of the shows and just to get away. We usually only go on cruises during the months when prices are the lowest and schools are in session (Oct, Nov, early Dec, Jan, Feb, March; though not during spring break).

San Diego: Since we had never visited San Diego we decided to precede our cruise with a two-night stay near the port. We flew on Southwest from Dallas to San Diego on Thursday afternoon. I had booked an awesome two-night stay at the Marriott Gaslamp. We got an incredible rate on Hotwire ($119 per night). This hotel is fairly new and it is right across the street from Petco Park and there was a Padres game there on Friday night during our stay. I picked this hotel because it was right in the middle of all the local shopping, restaurants and nightlife so we were able to walk to everything. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was $18 per person so Friday morning we asked the concierge if there was anywhere near to get breakfast for a reasonable price and he happily gave us a map and marked two local favorites (I don't remember the names) but one was a few blocks away and had great food. After breakfast, we walked to this lovely little shopping complex called "Seaport Village" and spent a few hours looking through the shops there. We had been told on the plane by a woman from San Diego to have lunch at Anthony's (at the port) and so we did and the fried fish was awesome. We also heard about a highly touted Mexican restaurant called "Fred's Mexican Food" and since it was also just a few blocks from the hotel we ate dinner there. It was very good and reasonably priced.

Embarkation: Saturday morning about 11:00 a.m. we took a taxi to the port ($11 for both of us). We had pre-filled out all the needed forms on the Holland America website three weeks prior so we were able to just show our passports, boarding passes and credit card and we then boarded the ship. We headed up to the Lido deck and had a great lunch before heading to our stateroom. Read more