Background We are a couple in our early 50's, traveling with our teen daughters, 17 and 15. This was our first cruise. We were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. We chose this Princess cruise, because we did not want to fly anywhere, and the port of San Francisco was closest to home.

Travel to Port The embarkation port was San Francisco, California. The traffic along the Embarcadero took almost an hour to travel the 2 miles from the Bay Bridge to the drop off point curbside in front of Pier 35. If you embark from San Francisco in the future, Leave lots of travel time. The Embarcadero is a traffic nightmare.

At curbside, two uniformed traffic officers directed traffic and allowed double parking in front of Pier 35 to unload. The sidewalk was amassed with people: tourists headed towards Pier 39 and passengers who had disembarked from the last cruise and where waiting for rides home. Princess personnel in their blue suit jackets and straw hats were present to help us. They called over the porters dressed in yellow vests who took our baggage from the car and loaded them to carts and brought them to the ship via a separate entrance way. A tip of $2 per bag was definitely in order and well worth it. Read more