Arrival: We drove to LA from Phoenix, arriving at the hotel around 6pm after a lousy drive during the one big rain storm of the season.
Hotel: We booked ourselves into the Best Western Plus San Pedro, and highly recommend it. See our October 2014 Golden Princess review for details on the hotel.
Embarkation: The World Cruise Center isn’t much to look at from the outside, but the check-in and waiting areas are the nicest we’ve seen. We waited in the Platinum area. This cruise was heavy on the Elites, so they had their own lounge. We were called and on board before 1pm.
Cabin: We had a mini-suite on deck 9. The cabin was clean and in good condition. The bed was very comfortable. The bathroom tile and grout are still serviceable but should be redone in the next couple of years. Our steward brought us champagne and introduced himself. He kept the room spotless during our voyage.Princess was in the process of installing large Samsung TVs, which will be nice once they get the on-demand system working. One big drawback of the back-to-back TVs in mini suites is that the 2nd TV is activated by the remote, so you have to be very careful when aiming or you'll have both TVs on (or change the channel, etc.).