It had been about 2.5 years since our last cruise. Just following our last cruise I was diagnosed with a heart condition and ended up having open heart surgery to replace a valve.

Felling better, my wife and I decided to take another west coast cruise, this time from Vancouver down to Los Angeles then back up to Vancouver via Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco (overnight).

We'd never sailed out of Vancouver before so that was fun. We stayed for a couple of days at the Blue Horizon Hotel and enjoyed ourselves exploring the city once again. On departure day it was a 10-minute taxi ride to the cruise terminal. Read more