We needed a break from work and booked a last minute cruise on the Carnival Pride which departed on March 30, 2008.

Embarkation: I had read lots of reviews before departing and saw a few instances where embarkation was a little painful. I have to say that we experienced one of the worst embarkations we have ever had. We arrived at the port of Long Beach around 10am and was shown to the early check-in desk where we walked right up to an agent and was checked in in only a couple of minutes. We were advised that the ship had arrived an hour late that morning and that they weren't expecting to begin the boarding process until at least 12:30pm. We sat around outside the terminal until almost 1:00pm before we were allowed to board. The unfortunate thing is that Carnival is going to take all the heat for the late embarkation but the truth of the matter is that the reason it was so late was due to homeland security. They were apparently being very difficult on this day and were training new people so every person coming off the ship was being searched. Once we did get on board we only had to wait about 20 minutes before our cabin was ready. Our luggage finally showed up at our cabin about 7pm. Ports of Call:

We had 2 days at sea before our first port of call in Puerto Vallarta. The weather the first day was sunny but quite cold. The second day at sea was much warmer and we were able to get in some tanning time. Read more