First, a litte about us. I'm almost 40, my husband is mid-40s. We have two children (11 and 14) who we can't imagine cruising without. This was our third cruise. Our first one was a three-nighter on Royal Carribean to Ensenada and our second one was seven or eight nights on Norwegian to Belize. For us, cruising is the perfect way to see places we would never see othewise.

We traveled with my best friend from college, her husband, and their son. They had never been on a cruise before.

We found embarkation to be a breeze. We stood in other cruise line embarkation lines for hours, but we were done and on the Spirit in 15 or 20 minutes! San Diego port was a dream in this respect. No fuss, no muss. Read more