San Diego harbor: Holland America's Maasdam is not a new ship, but she's newly refurbished and entirely functional. Our flight was uneventful and Southwest's ground personnel in San Diego very helpful, those in Sacramento less so.
We are comfortably aboard, our cabin is fine, the location low and midships is good, and we've survived the lifeboat drill, always a bore on HAL. However it happens only once per cruise.
Other lines do lifeboat drill better, provide more info with less tedious standing. I remember one we did on Royal Caribbean sitting comfortably in a night club setting, without free drinks unfortunately.
We are loading up on fresh produce as there are a bunch of long hauls between here and Sydney, SD to Honolulu is 5 days, Honolulu to American Samoa is another 5, I think. It appears we may sail somewhat later than originally planned - no biggie in the greater scheme of things. The captain will pile on 2 extra knots and we'll arrive in Honolulu as scheduled.
San Diego is having a spectacular, warm, blue-skied Chamber of Commerce-type day. Basically no wind and beautiful shirt-sleeve weather. It normally isn't this warm along the CA coast, inland a few miles is a different story, often even hot.
