I went with a group of 7 people from Northern California, some who are business associates and 2 couples who had won the trip thru a promotion. We flew down from Sacramento to Long Beach airport on Monday the 25th (Jet Blue service was a nice surprise: comfortable leather seating and great TV in every seat: my advice; bring your own good quality headphones = you might already be bringing your IPOD etc...and simply use those headphones instead of the cheap ones they offer for $1.
Note: we had to convince our airport shuttle driver we were going on the Carnival cruise and NOT the Queen Mary...(they are docked in the same area) his English/communication skills were not the greatest and the Queen Mary is NOT cruising anywhere! (Ha Ha!).
We went thru Embarkation around 2:30pm for a 5:30 departure. Our travel agent had met with us a few days earlier and explained how important it was to have our giant cruise "booklet" filled-out with our "Fun Pass" completed etc..but the people who took our luggage at the ship simply put Carnival tags on our bags (did NOT use the ones from the booklet) and once we got inside to the cattle yard (I mean the embarkation process line) they never looked at our booklets or "Fun Pass" at all: they need your Passport/ID ..then they scan your credit card (the same way a hotel would) as a deposit: then they give you your ship "Sail & Sign" ID card; it shows your dining room/seating time/table etc.. and you use this card for all ship identification and expenses (liquor, gambling, etc..)...every time you enter or leave the ship they use the card and check it against your photo to make sure its YOU. But we never used our cruise "booklet" - and we thought that was a little weird considering how big it is and how much trouble they go thru explaining it etc..