On this cruise, I traveled with 4 other people, and we shared rooms 4131 and 4135 on the Main deck.We're all in our 20's-30's and very much into the nightlife of the ship.

Embarkation: We drove into Long Beach on Sunday morning, extremely early(around 8am), and found that getting there for parking that early wasn't the best idea, since no one from the last cruise has come off the ship yet, so we had to search for a bit for an open spot. When we got to the bottom of the parking garage, porters were just beginning to assist the last passengers with their luggage to their cars, so one offered to take our luggage if we waited for him to get back. He did, and off went our luggage. We then decided to try to find the early registration area, which happens to be located pretty close to the big white dome where you enter to get on the ship. There was a gate that was closed to the entrance for registration though and no one there to point out where to go, so at that point it got confusing. Don't let it confuse you, just wait there for someone to open it when they're ready. We ended up eating at the cafe inside of the Queen Mary while we waited for it to open up. Good food, btw. Early registration went very fast, and then we waited in a line outside the white dome for a couple hours, and started boarding at around 12:30. It wasn't that painful of a process, easy and quick enough. I didn't like how they funneled you into a boarding picture area though and made it impossible to walk on by without a pic.

Stateroom: The stateroom was definitely larger than Princess or Royal Caribbean rooms of the same level. But at the same time, it was also a bit more run down than either. We had an old baby bottle under the bed, a lamp with a hole in it, and some black stains all over the couch. We fixed the problems by tossing the bottle, turning the lamp around with the hole towards the wall, and we wet a towel and cleaned the couch ourselves. We didn't feel it necessary to complain to anyone about it though, since none of us are that picky. Also, the remote was finicky about when it wanted to work and when it didn't listen to the buttons you pressed. So ok, the room was a little bad. But the service was excellent! Our steward was lightning fast at cleaning up the room while we were out, and super-friendly. We really didn't ask much of him though, so there weren't any special requests from us. Our room had french doors in it that opened up to a wonderful view of a lifeboat, but we could kind of see the water below, and the sound of the water going by was good enough for us. Read more