Background: Dad is 79, I am 58. Mom and Dad cruised extensively until she passed away 3 years ago. My wife refuses to set foot on a ship. This is the second time Dad and I have cruised together. We both like to eat, take naps, and drink beer. We picked this trip mostly for the number of sea days. We had been looking at transatlantic trips, but did not really find a ship and destination combination that appealed to both of us. We live in Virginia. One of the factors that got us to this trip was that airfare to Miami was more expensive than airfare to LA.

I was missing travelling in all 50 states except for 3, and Hawaii was one of the three.

We flew out the day before, leaving RIC on a 6AM Continental flight through Houston. This got us to LA at 11AM. Dad and I both really like Embassy Suites, so we stayed at the airport Embassy Suite South. I had stayed at the North Embassy Suite on a previous trip, and like this one much better. We were picked up by the airport shuttle and had a short but entertaining trip to the hotel. We got checked in right away even though we were several hours ahead of the normal check-in time. We had a really good lunch, and Dad and I both enjoyed the Manager's Cocktail party that night. The free breakfast was very crowded, but good. We then got another ride back to the airport to catch the Princess bus to the ship. Read more