Diamond Princess Diaries

Well, this isn't much of a diary, as I wrote most of it while waiting to disembark from the Diamond Princess after a terrific coastal repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver. The executive summary: this ship redeemed Princess for us after two slightly disappointing experiences on the Island and Sun Princesses. With a few rare exceptions, the service onboard was outstanding. The ship was mostly clean as a whistle, the food and beverage service was very good and the activities that we managed to participate in were very good as well.

Embarkation A breeze. The Diamond was alone at the Port of Los Angeles, so we had Pier 93, the modern facility. We checked in at about 12:45, using the Platinum/Elite/Suites line. It was very quick to check in, and the line for security moved quickly. Having enough embarkation pictures to last a lifetime, we skipped that line (only 1 or two parties in it, anyway), and stepped onboard at 1:15. Read more