For the 2nd year in a row, we spent Thanksgiving on the 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise. Here is a brief review and some tips:

Embarkation: At Long Beach you first check your luggage with a porter on the ground floor of the parking garage (not at the check-in area which is across the street). If you arrive early (before noon), you are sent to the Queen Mary to check in. If you arrive after boarding has started, you check-in at the dome. We had Faster to the Fun (FTTF) so we arrived at 10:30. It took about 15 minutes to check-in vs about 30 for people in the regular line. We then waited until 11:45 before we were allowed to board the ship. By noon we were in our cabin dropping off our carry-on luggage. Overall a smooth process although a little disappointed with the 11:45 boarding time.

Cabin: We were in 1124 which is a Ocean View Cabin. We would not recommend this cabin. Each night you could hear the loud band from night club above the room. The club closed at 12:30 so after that it was quiet. The closets have a vent behind them which causes them to be about 1 inch less deep than the clothes hangers provided. Thus, either you closet door will not close due to the clothes hangers, or you have to hang all your clothes at an angle to close the door. The vent looked unusual so it is probably a quirk of this room only. The cabin door peep hole was so scratched-up, you could not see out it. The only good thing about the cabin was that it is near the front elevators and the cabin attendant was terrific. Read more