We just got back from our cruise on the Golden Princess from LA to Hawaii round trip. It was a truly wonderful cruise. We flew to LA early in the morning where we had Princess pick us up at LAX. We find using ground transportation easy and usually do use it. Princess took us to a hotel to wait for the ship. They served us a very nice continental breakfast. The best part was Princess pre registered all of us right at the hotel. No waiting in lines. When we were taken to the port about noon, all we had to do was go through security and bi-passed everything else. That is a wonderful, new service. Princess now does a lot more on sea days that relate to your particular cruise. For instance we had lei making classes,Luau's on the ship, great lectures on Pearl Harbor and Hawaii, Lots of Hawaiian food, and even movies about Hawaii. This really got all of us in the mood for the islands. On shore excursions, we did back roads of Oahu which was lots of tastings of Hawaiian food. That was my least favorite excursion, but it was still good. We biked on the volcano on the big island. This was really fun and some great exercise as well. We did a awesome hike into a limestone cave on Kauai, which was unbelievable. Lastly we did a snorkeling excursion in Maui and swam with the sea turtles. We could not go to Molokini because of too strong of winds, but the excursion was still great. Our last excursion in Ensenada is not to be missed. I was very skeptical about this at first, but it turned out great. It was wine tasting near Ensenada. We went to two wineries and had several glasses of wine, plus a free bottle to take home. We also bought some brandy, $20 for two bottles. What a deal! All in all, this was a wonderful cruise with very few problems. Our cabin was neat and clean, the service was perfect and the food was amazing. Finally I want to say how much we enjoyed doing the chefs dinner. We had 3 appetizers in the galley, plus good champagne. Then we had a table for 12 in the dinning room. Each course, we were served wine to complement the meal. It also included a cook book, and several photo's. As far as I'm concerned, the chefs dinner is a must do and very much worth the $75 per person. Sign up for this as soon as you get on the ship as it fills up quickly. On this cruise of 14 days, they only did 3 chefs table dinners, so that is a total of 36 people. For anyone thinking of doing this cruise, go for it as this was one of my all time favorite cruises with Princess.