We boarded the Paradise on July 17th for a four day cruise to Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. Boarding wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. We arrived a the Long Beach cruise terminal around 11:30am, a porter greeted us at our shuttle and offered to take our luggage. He gave us the correct tags (guess they sent us the wrong colored tags for where our room was) and looked up our stateroom on a very long list of passengers. I tipped the porter and noticed he was very helpful, told us who to look for while in line (couple in front of us didn't and I noticed he told them nothing) so I'd recommend you tip the porter a few bucks to ensure very good service. We then stood in a line for about 30 minutes outside the terminal dome, the line moved a little slower than I thought it would but I don't think it was the cruise line's fault...There were people lined up in the wrong area, who didn't have their boarding passes out or Id's in hand.
Once we got on the ship (around 12:45) we went up to the Lido deck and had some lunch at the Paris Restaurant. Food isn't quite as bad as rumor has it. We then walked around Paradise for a few hours getting to know the ship and it's details.
Paradise is a very nice and clean ship. It is easy to navigate once you know which deck is which. We then found our stateroom on the Empress deck. It was much bigger than we thought it would be, nicer than some four star hotels I have stayed in, we were impressed.