Summary: A great value-for-money cruise, with a good balance of sea days and ports. Slight hiccups in embarkation and itinerary, but the staff really made this cruise memorable, as did the wonderful people (including CC members) we shared our vacation with.

Day 1, San Diego The fog horn woke us up in our hotel (Bay Club Hotel & Marina) before 6am, which signaled the beginning of a long day. A combination of mechanical difficulties and thick fog resulted in late docking, and the ship wasn't ready to begin boarding until after 2.30pm. In the meantime, 2000 holiday makers lined the port in the midday sun (could have been worse, I don't know what would have happened if it had been pouring rain!). There were plenty of moans to go around, which wasn't helped by the strange system which took place once we finally checked in (around 3.30pm). We were handed a numbered card, and told to wait until called. We had number 6, and heard numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11 called before we were. And saw plenty of people who had been behind us in the queue called before we were. Anyway, we finally made it on just after 5pm. I'm sure the poor staff had a harder time than we did, but I would have thought the least they could have done was ditch the embarkation photography unless you requested it!

Once we got to our room, we dropped everything and headed up to the Lido Deck for a snack, having missed lunch altogether. Read more