Cruising from San Diego, what a wonderful experience.

Well we just returned from a 7-night cruise from San Diego to the Mexican Riviera. This city was made for cruises and pre and post hotel vacation stays !!!!  What Fun !!!!

To start of with we had a non-stop flight from San Antonio to San Diego, just a 2:40 flight. Once we landed it was a very short $10 cab ride to our downtown Westin Hotel. The Westin was a great hotel in a perfect location. It was 250 yards from the Amtrak station if you are arriving by train, a 15 minute walk into the famous “Gaslamp” district filled with hundreds of restaurants and clubs, a 10 minute walk to the cruise ship terminal and the famous Midway aircraft carrier museum, a 15 minute walk to Seaport Village, another area filled with shop and restaurants right on the waterfront. There is so much to see and do in downtown San Diego and it’s all in close proximity to the airport, and cruise ship. You could also sign up for a tour of the San Diego Zoo, go over to Coronado Island, catch a Padres baseball game, visit La Jolla, the Wine country, casinos and so much more.

After spending 2 days in San Diego we boarded the Oosterdam. It had been a while since I personally cruised on Holland America, but I was pleasantly surprised. Holland America has always had the reputation of being a cruise line geared more to seniors. Well we went over Spring Break which is typically known to have more kids than you would want to see on your vacation, so I didn’t know what age mix to expect. There were 2,200 people on board. We had 300 kids, many couples in the 30’s-40’s and another large mix in their 50’s-70’s. The kids seemed to be entertained by the Youth Counselor staff and weren’t much of a bother. The ambiance at night is more mature with the sounds of a trio singing and people enjoying a glass of wine while listening to classical music played by a quartet. In addition to the casino, there was a lively piano bar, disco, and a guitarist playing in the Crows Nest.

The ship is like a floating museum. There are a lot of Baroque decorations, figurines, statues, beautiful murals and hundreds of lithographs and paintings of the old time Holland America ships.

Holland America exceeded my expectations in many ways. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, these are my comments based on my experience of being on over 50 cruises.

The sail away from the San Diego Harbor is spectacular with the downtown San Diego backdrop, cruising past the Midway, the submarine base, harbor seals, dolphins, and famous Coronado Island.

The Holland America difference

1. Room service breakfast offers hot meals including omelets, eggs and meats. Most other mass-market lines offer just a continental cold breakfast, unless you upgrade to a higher category.
2. Nice and unique choices of adult activities during the day.
3. We signed up for the Thermal Suites package, which was very nice. This gave us private access to the thermal pool, the heated tiled lounge chairs, and the 3 different saunas with herbal oils.
4. Canalettos is a complimentary Italian restaurant serving dinner in the Lido restaurant area. It was very good, and they even serve fresh spun cotton candy for a dessert treat. Reservations are required. Once again most mass-market cruise lines will charge extra for any of their specialty restaurants.
5. The cabins are larger, and the balconies are deeper than most other mass-market cruise lines.
6. Lighted magnifying makeup mirror for the ladies.
7. Bathrooms have a tub/shower combo. All other cruise lines just have stand up showers unless get up into the suite categories.
8. Country club atmosphere with lots of artwork and Baroque decorations. Lots of intimate size lounges.
9. The entertainment at night consisted of a stage show each night in the Vista Lounge, a guitarist in the Crows Nest nightclub at top of the ship, a classical quartet, a jazz trio, piano bar, disco and another live band playing in the Queens Lounge. 
10. The Pinnacle Grill is their optional high-end restaurant and does have a small cover charge, which includes the food and the gratuity. It is $10 for lunch, $35 for dinner. The lunch meal is much lighter than dinner, but you need to try it at least once during the cruise. The food, presentation and service level was incredible. We had 4 people taking care of us in the dining room.
11. Culinary Arts Center – This is a demonstration kitchen built for the passengers. We attended a class where the Executive Chef from the Pinnacle Grill taught us how to make their signature crème brûlée and Le Cirque lobster salad. They even passed out recipe cards as well so we could follow along and take notes.
12. In the main dining room you will notice heavy silver flatware, Rosenthal china, and Riedel crystal glassware. Again, this was very impressive, to me.
13. Up in the Lido Restaurant (buffet style) they had the most expansive evening buffet I have seen offered in a very long time. They had a full dinner with many of the entrees that were being served in the dining room, complete with a salad bar, dessert station to include freshly baked cookies, ice cream and a sundae of the day. A small Italian area with several different pizzas and pastas with a selection of sauces. They even had duck pate terrine, assorted cheeses and dried fruit plates. One night the entrees included strip steak, rack of lamb, grilled swordfish and roasted quail. The night they served shrimp cocktail in the dining room, they even had it on the Lido Buffet as well. I have NEVER seen this before.
14. Elemis products in bathroom. Again this is a high end product. Separate shampoo, conditioner, and body gel dispensers, in the shower, not an all in one concoction like on many other ships.
15. Fresh water pools.
16. One pool was designated for adults only.
17. One evening they even offered Alaskan King crab legs on the dining room menu. The last time I saw these on the menu I was on the 6-star Regent Seven Seas all-inclusive cruise line.
18. Fresh squeezed orange juice at the Lido restaurant and in the main dining room, free of charge. Again, other cruise lines charge $4.95 for a glass of fresh squeezed juice.
19. On sea days they have a rolling Bloody Mary bar with build your own toppings.
20. Daily News delivered to your cabin each day.
21. Holland still offers a past passenger brunch complete with complimentary wine. They even give you a gift. So many other mass-market cruise lines have done away with this.
22. Choice of fresh fruit delivered to your cabin each day.
23. A much more expansive room service menu than I am used to seeing including gourmet cheese platters and even shrimp cocktails. Room service is also served with fresh flowers.
24. In room movies. While many cruise lines offer 4-8 different movies a week, Holland America offers a service where they offer over 1000 different movies to choose from. That's right, a 1000 movies.
25. DVD players in the cabin. You don’t see this on other cruise lines unless you are in suites.