PRE-CRUISEWe are from Montana and wanted to make the most of every second of our warm-weather vacation, so we flew out EARLY and got to Los Angeles by 9am on Friday morning. After picking up our rental car and turning on our GPS, we went straight to Universal Studios. Perfect weather, we had a blast. After a quick stop at our hotel (allllllll the way up in Calabasas, but it was cheap, quiet and safe) to shower, we headed back into the city for the Dodgers game. Had a blast there as well, we had GREAT seats about 8 rows back from 3rd base, and had our only celebrity sighting (Larry King). Smart enough to watch the fireworks show from the parking lot so as to hightail it out of there before the traffic got insane.Saturday morning we got up early and drove down to San Diego, got to Sea World just as they were opening. That's definitely the way to do it, we got to see all the exhibits while they were mostly empty and then had time to see every single show. We LOVED everything about Sea World and stayed until almost 4pm. After that we didn't really have a plan, got lost in San Diego trying to find a beach but after some nice gas station directions we headed back up to LA via PCH and stopped in some cool beach towns along the way. We hit Crystal Cove Beach Park right at sunset and a really nice guy running through stopped and took our picture for us, also suggested some nice restaurants in nearby Newport. Stopped at The Rusty Pelican and had great food but HORRIBLE service. This was our only taste of snobbiness in LA, other than than we thought people were very nice. Sunday morning we finally slept in, then dropped off our rental car back at LAX and had a shuttle to the pier. We shuttled with another couple who had cruised quite a bit, they were very nice and gave us lots of advice. Amazingly, we saw them A TON both in port and on the ship, even though we were among over 3000 other people. Funny how that works. CRUISEEMBARKATIONWe were blown away by first glance of the ship. She is HUGE. The embarkation process was really fast and easy, very impressed by how many staff members were there just directing people where to go and answering questions. We had arrived at about 12:15 and were in the Windjammer by probably 12:40 at the latest. There was a lot of food at the buffet, definitely something for everyone. Tasted pretty good - what you'd expect of any buffet. We left to explore the ship but on the way to the elevators heard our rooms were ready so we went to check it out and they were. No luggage, but we were in.  Muster was boring and staff seemed confused and unorganized, but it was over quickly. We got a great spot on the railing on the front of the ship for "sail-away" and had great views. ROOMWe booked an inside room figuring we'd try to save money and that we probably wouldn't be in it very much anyway. I was kind of nervous about it but we ended up LOVING our room. THe bed was soooooooo comfy. We had TONS of storage, I was amazed. I was very happy that our room had a safe and a blow-dryer. It was kind of nice having an inside room because it was pitch dark and you could sleep easily whenever you wanted. Sure it would have been nice to have a balcony, but for the amount of money you save with an inside room I'd just as soon walk up to the outside decks for free. FOODWe chose the late seating for dinner, and were sort of nervous about having to eat with people we didn't know. However, we ended up absolutely loving our table-mates; we ate with four other couples all around our age (in our twenties), two of the couples were on their honeymoon and the rest of us had all been married about three years. Kudos to RC for matching us up so well. Our waiter, Wayne from Jamaica, was AWESOME as was the assistant waiter, Maurizio (sp?) from Portugal. Our head waiter was very nice but I don't remember his name, and our cocktail guy was freakin hilarious. We thought dinner was great, I was really impressed by the selection. My husband tried a lot of new things (escargot!) and liked most of them. By the second night we figured out we could order multiple items or servings and the guys definitely took advantage of that - most guys at our table had 3 or 4 lobsters on lobster night! One night the kitchen ran out of a shrimp dish one girl at our table had ordered, so they gave her something different and then the next night made the shrimp dish for everyone at our table. Wayne also gave us strawberries and cream most nights. Breakfast in the windjammer got pretty old by like day four, but we had heard from our table-mates than room service breakfast stunk and we never got up early enough to have breakfast in the dining room. Room service snacks were good but small portions. The Cafe Promenade had good food and snacks but not a very large selection. We ate lunch in the dining room twice, and I really wasn't impressed. The portions were incredibly small compared to dinner, and not very appetizing. The salad bar, however, was awesome. Ate lunch at Johnny Rocket's once, great food and service. The midnight buffet was fun but the food, not so much. All in all we felt well-fed and were most impressed by the dinners, wish there were more options for poolside and day-time dining. ENTERTAINMENTWe attended most of the shows in the Savoy Theater. The first one was like a music through the decades kind of thing that must have been more for older people because we got bored and went to bed. THe 80s show was really good. We only caught a few minutes of the ice show but what we saw was great. The magic show was AWFUL, so corny and cheesy that I could not stop laughing. A couple of the tricks were good but mostly it was just a weirdo guy in a mesh shirt doing awkward dance moves. The Love & Marriage so was absolutely HILARIOUS, one of the honeymoon couples from our table got on and ended up winning. The Quest show was also hilarious, Abe did a great job. We never got tickets to any of the comedy show but weren't too disappointed. Bingo was ridiculously expensive, which was  a bummer for us because we love bingo. We only played regular bingo once and win-a-cruise bingo once - we didn't come close either time. There was sooo much to do all day every day and we did get to do most of the things that we really wanted to, but also spent a good amount of time relaxing and reading by the solarium pool. We didn't want to exhaust ourselves to the point that we'd need a vacation from our vacation. PORTSCABO SAN LUCASBeautiful place. We skipped the early rush for tenders and ate breakfast first, then hit the tender around 10am and didn't have to wait at all. We spent a little time shopping in the bigger flea market right by the pier, then bargained ourselves a glass-bottom boat tour with snorkeling stop at Lover's Beach for $40. The boat tour was fun, we got to see Pelican Rock, Los Arcos, the sea lion colony, Lover's Beach and Divorce Beach. Also saw Andre Agassi's super-yacht with matching helicopter. We took a ton of really great pictures. Snorkeling on Lover's Beach was kind of hard, but that may have been because we've never tried it before. We gave up pretty quickly and than just swam, explored the caves, and sunbathed. Got back to Cabo around 2:15 and had the BEST fish and shrimp of all time at something Solomon's. Shopped a little more and got back on the boat around 4. MAZATLANNot our favorite place. The flea market off the pier had some nice stuff, but same as all places we stopped. We took an open-air taxi down to the Golden Zone, we thought it was kind of expensive but it did end up being really far away. Not really impressed with anything down in the Golden Zone, just a ton more shopping that seemed pretty expensive compared to the other places we had been. We walked on the beach for awhile, the water was warm but no one was really in it because the waves were kind of rough. We went back to the ship after not too long. PUERTO VALLARTAWe went there for our honeymoon 3 years ago and loved it, so we were excited to be back. We went shopping right by the ship and then took a cab down to the Malecon. Shopped some more and took some pictures, then stopped to eat some cheap and yummy shrimp-on-a-stick. We had booked massages at the Krystal Vallarta for the afternoon so cabbed it back up that direction around 1pm. The massages were AMAZING, in a little hut right on the beach. We got to be together in the same room, there was a nice fan in there to keep it cool and we could hear the waves crashing on the shore. 75 minutes for two people for $75 - you can't beat it. After that we walked along the beach back to the pier area, and grabbed some drinks and chips & salsa before getting back on the ship. Our last two days at sea were cold and very windy, so that was kind of a bummer but didn't ruin our vacation at all. We got a lot of napping and relaxing and reading in, which was fine with us. Overall, we had an awesome time from the second we stepped foot in LA to the second we stepped off the boat. We are already planning our next cruise and hope to hit the Caribbean in the fall. As first-time cruisers, it was everything we wanted it to be and more. We were really amazed that there was so much to do, we were pretty exhausted after our whirlwind days in LA so we just took it easy the first few days. Spent some time reading and sleeping in the solarium pool (which is saltwater, oddly enough). Took a lot of great pictures of the sea and the sunsets.