We chose thise cruise because it was my sister's first cruise, and she is unable to fly, so we needed a cruise that was round-trip from Los Angeles, and I wanted a cruise that was longer than seven days; this one was nine days. We also wanted one of our ports to be Catalina Island. Celebrity had the cruise that matches both of our wish lists, so we booked it. Then we studied everything we could find about the Celebrity Eclipse. We booked all if our shore excursions through Celebrity because I always book shore excursions through the cruise line. We also booked the Inside Access Behind The Scenes Ship Tour, which was the first time I had ever seen that option while planning a cruise. I highly recommend this option. Los Angeles will be our port of embarkation and disembarkation for most of our cruises because we have to drive to our port.

This cruise was excellent and I highly recommend it. We had a shore excursion in every port, and they were all worth every dollar. In Santa Barbara, we went to Solvang. In San Francisco we went on the Napa Valley Wine Train. We had looked up ahead of time the distance from Pier 27 to the NVWT and saw that it was an hour and a half drive, so we were expecting the long bus ride. Some of our fellow passengers had expected to get off the ship and get on the train at or close to the pier, but we were prepared. In Monterey we went to the aquarium and to the Carmel Mission. On Catalina Island we took a Private Journey, which was very expensive but more than worth it. In San Diego we went to the Safari Park and had a blast. And in Ensenada we went to L.A. Cotton winery and La Catalina de Doña Lupe winery. All of our shore excursions were worth the money.