For a 3 night cruise, I really had fun.  I've only been on 7 night cruises so I wasn't really sure what to expect with a weekend cruise.  Due to the swine flu, we went to Catalina Island and only did a technical stop in Ensenada to meet the Jones Act requirement.  I really liked Catalina Island.  Considering my last two cruises were to Mexican ports, it was nice to enter a port without people pulling on your arms and trying to get you to buy tours or souvenirs.   All the shops were very reasonably priced.  I got a Catalina Island t-shirt for $9.99USD as an example. 

EMBARKATION: I love San Diego port.  We checked out of the hotel before 9 and headed downtown.  We hung out at Seaport Village for about an hour or so.  Bought some salsa and walked around.  Decided to drive to parking lot to find a parking spot.  We were really early because I wasn't sure we could find parking.  Five Star parking #5 was directly across the street & practically empty.  They are more expensive than some of the other airport parking locations ($15/day I think) but not having to wait for shuttles etc is a big thing for me.  I like being in control of when/where to be.  So we walk across the street and go to the terminal around 11.  Going thru x-ray was a little more intense than my last cruise at San Diego.  I had a small 12x14x14 soft sided cooler with a plastic liner that had bottles of water, a half gallon jug of water in it.  They inspected each bottle by shaking the contents (to see if it fizzed I guess.)  Line to check in wasn't long at all.  Maybe 20 people total ahead of us and some were in groups.  Got checked in with boarding #1 and only had to wait about 15 minutes before they started boarding.  We were at the lido deck by 11:45.  Cruise docs stated not to arrive at port before 1pm.  Yeah right.  Glad we didn't listen to that.  We had burger for lunch & drink of the day on the lido deck by the main pool.  Rooms weren't ready until 1:30 but one of the staff members saw us waiting outside the doors that closed off the rooms and he said "go on in & drop off your luggage.  They don't care as long as you don't stay."  Our room was ready.  Cool.  So we dropped off our stuff/stashed luggage in the closets and away we went back to enjoy the action without toting bags around.

Room Steward service was good.  Had no issues.  Tipped him a little extra to keep our water cooler filled with ice which he did daily.  The first time I've had a towel animal on my first night so I was impressed.  Usually don't get it on the first night in my experience. Read more