Boarding/Departure
We had read a lot of horror stories about Boarding in San Francisco. Our experience was very good. Arrived around 11, easy baggage drop off, quickly through security then comfortable in the lounge before boarding around 12. There really wasn’t anything at all that they could have done differently to improve this process.
Departure was delayed around an hour due to stores loading, but that didn’t bother us. Went out under the Golden Gate Bridge and had a large pod of whales just off our starboard side so that was a really good start to the cruise.
We had Cabin E728 which was the last Mini-Suite towards the back of Level 8 Port. We deliberately chose a L8 Mini-Suite as the majority of MS (on L9) do not have any cover over them. Having the last MS also had the added advantage of a little extra balcony room, and some aft facing views.
Generally (wobble from above aside), we liked the cabin. It was what I have come to expect from other MS cabins and was in good condition. I think that the P&O MS cabins are a bit larger, but this was perfectly adequate.
A quick word of caution to the light sleepers, you can hear noise from the L7 Vista Lounge below at times. To put a scale on this, we found that you couldn’t really hear general activities such as Trivia or Movies, if you listened carefully you could just hear the Zumba in the morning, but the more major shows (I assume they turn up the volume for larger crowds) were coming through fairly loud and clear. None of this really bothered us, but it could bother others.