This was our 7th cruise with Royal Caribbean and our first to the Mexican Riviera. We had planned to celebrate our anniversary in January but in the end chose to delay a cruise until the spring. The price and itinerary made this especially attractive. We had been to San Diego a couple of times before, including for our honeymoon 25 years ago. We have noticed a lot of changes since then. We think San Diego is a great vacation location and so decided to stay 2 days in San Diego following the cruise.

We stayed overnight in San Diego before our cruise, arriving late and staying at the Days Inn Harborview. It was also an excellent value - a clean comfortable room, free internet (although the signal was not especially strong), a reasonable breakfast and free shuttle service, to/from the airport and cruise terminal.

We arrived at the cruise terminal about 1145. Embarkation went very smoothly and I surprised my wife with anniversary decorations, flowers, wine, cheese and fruit in our cabin that I had arranged beforehand by calling the cruiseline. We were very happy with our balcony stateroom. It was quite spacious and only the second time we had had a balcony. Read more