At first, this was to be simply my family of three. It turned out to be four generations traveling together. The whole idea behind the trip was a simple getaway, but Princess helped make it much better than that. First things first...

Travel to pier: We flew from Denver to Los Angeles on Southwest Airlines the morning of departure. Typically, this is a no-no, but as we were doing this vacation on a budget, we decided to take the chance. Contrary to popular belief, the weather in Colorado isn't really that bad in the Winter, so we weren't too concerned. All went well with the flight, and we met up with the rest of our party at their hotel (they flew out the day before). We arranged for a shuttle van to take us to the pier. The shuttle showed up right on time and we were at the pier by 11:30.

Embarkation: Slightly chaotic, but it was a controlled chaos, and we were onboard and in our cabin within 30 minutes of arrival at the pier. We had heard conflicting accounts as to whether the Sapphire offered dining-room lunch on embarkation day. In light of this, and the fact that we had made in on board before the majority of passengers, we decided to head to the Horizon Court for lunch. More on the quality of food later, but suffice it to say, we were pleasantly surprised. Read more