My wife and I who are in our mid fifties took a Mexican Riviera cruise on the Oosterdam departing from San Diego on January 11, 2008. This was our fifteenth cruise in total and the first on a Holland America Line ship. Our previous cruises have been on Carnival, Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. We flew into San Diego the day before the ship departed and stayed overnight at the Hampton Inn on Pacific Highway which is quite near the cruise ship dock. The Hampton provides free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel and will take guests from the hotel to the cruise ship terminal as well.

San Diego is a beautiful city and we greatly enjoyed walking around and trying some of the fine seafood restaurants. After the cruise we stored our luggage and spent a few hours in Sea Port Village and Horton Plaza. I also toured the Maritime Museum while my wife was shopping. The airport is only a ten minute ride from this area so we arrived in plenty of time for our flight and returned to Cincinnati with no problems.

The two preceding paragraphs summarize the high points of the trip, however. Read more