We have done two previous Carnival cruises, both on the Valor out of Miami, so we can only benchmark the Pride against those.
We live in the UK, so we flew into LAX the day before, and caught the Super-Shuttle to Long Beach. The SS had been pre-booked online several months before, and to my surprise, everything worked out fine with no hiccups, We stayed in the Hilton Convention Center hotel in Long Beach, which was very convenient.
EMBARKATION: We took a cab from the hotel ($10) and arrived at the Long Beach Pier at 10:30am. Once the cab dropped us off, porters were right there to take our bags. We walked with our carry items to the Queen Mary and did the early check in. There was a line, but it only took about 10 minutes. We were given boarding zone # 1 ??. We were all standing in the sun (as there aren't that many places to sit) until 1.30pm. Once we boarded, we went straight to our cabin to drop off our bags and then hit the lunch buffet. It was fun to see the boat set sail around 4.30pm.