GIRLS' TRIP TO THE MEXICAN RIVIERA: I've taken two prior cruises, both on NCL. This was the first time I've gone on a cruise without my husband. This was a girls' trip for me and my daughters, ages 19 and 16. We were on the sailing that included New Year's Eve. We had a fabulous time! The trip was enhanced by how prepared I felt, and I have the CC boards to thank for that. If you just want the "short and sweet" version, here it is: the ship was beautiful, the food was delicious, service was excellent, both in our cabin and in all the restaurants. The shows were great. We enjoyed each port. Freestyle cruising is great. I can't think of any reason to try a different cruiseline. For those who like all the detail, read on. (Beware, this is really long.)

PRE-CRUISE: We flew in to LA the day before the cruise, arriving at 1 p.m. We rented a car from Thrifty and drove to the WB Studios, where despite the lack of a reservation, we were able to get in on one of their VIP tours. They run them every half hour on weekdays, with the last one at 4 p.m. This is a two hour tour. It was great! We stayed in Santa Monica that night, at the Bayside Hotel. I love Santa Monica and thought that would be fun place to spend our time on Saturday morning before leaving for the LA Pier in San Pedro. Most hotels in Santa Monica were too expensive to consider. The Bayside, however, had a nightly rate of $149very reasonable for the location. The hotel is an older one, very much in need of remodeling and updating, but we knew that in advance. We chose it for its great location, right across the street from the beach, walking distance to the Third Street Promenade and the Santa Monica Pier. The Bayside's negatives included the fact that the walls are thin and so it can be noisy when you're trying to sleep. On the positive side, it seemed clean enough, parking was free, and the person staffing the desk was very friendly and helpful. There was no hair dryer in the room, but when I called the desk to inquire whether they had any down there, they did, and promptly ran one up to the room, along with an armful of extra towels requested by me. Again, there's nothing fancy about this hotel, but if what you need is a place to sleep for one night, and you're not picky, the location of the Bayside can't be beat. It's in the midst of some of Santa Monica's priciest luxury hotels. It only takes 15 minutes to drive from Santa Monica to LAX. We returned the Thrifty car in the late morning and took the Thrifty shuttle to LAX, as I'd reserved transfers to the ship through NCL.

EMBARKATION: The bus ride from the airport to the pier took 30 to 40 minutes. We arrived at 12:30 p.m. We got in the line designated for Latitudes members. It was a really long line, but moved very quickly. Within 15 minutes, we were all checked in and got to move to the area where they were taking embarkation photos and sending people through security. There were no lines there. We were handed glasses of champagne or orange juice as we entered the ship. We immediately went to the area on deck 8 where restaurant reservations could be made. There was no line here, either. They were taking reservations for that night and the next night for the specialty (cover charge) restaurants. They were also taking reservations for the main (included) dining rooms for the whole week. I assumed the reservations for the main dining rooms were limited to people traveling in large groups, but that wasn't so. Although we were a family of three, we were able to reserve the Versailles or Aqua dining rooms for any night we wanted. With our reservations all secured, we proceeded to the Versailles for lunch. At 2:00, as we were finishing lunch, they announced that all cabins were ready, and though we weren't expecting to see our bags for awhile, they were waiting outside of our room. Embarkation couldn't have been smoother! Read more