Long Beach was a former home of mine and also my birthplace, but I had never taken a cruise from there. We flew in a day early and stayed at the Long Beach Hilton which was nice. It's one of the downtown landmarks in the city and I had never stayed there before. Rooms were very modern and enjoyable. 4 of us shared a room and there was plenty of space. Dinner was at a favorite place of mine called "The Pizza Place and Garden Cafe" which is on the 1400 block of Broadway ($10-15 taxi ride at most from the Hilton or a good 20 minute walk)

Next day we headed to the Queen Mary and the old SPruce Goose dome (now the Carnival Cruise Terminal). Gave the bags to the porters, got in our first line. Got some papers and we were in line to check in. Check-ed in and were given a #6 and asked to stand in that line. Got inside the dome. Stood in a line for the metal detectors. Went through those and stood in another line. Got our photos taken and went upstairs to stand in a line. Then stood in the line crossing the gangway, stood in the line going into the ship and stood in the line to give Guest Services our cash deposit. It was a ridiculous number of individual lines to get checked in and on a ship, but it went relatively fast so I gave it a 4.

Public Rooms - Yeah, I know. You're just waiting for me to mention the pink. I knew to expect it, saw the comments that you stop noticing it after the first day or 2 and wasn't stressed about it. However, I didn't see that there was a neon yellow/green "grouting" in the black tiles all over the ship. That threw me and took a little longer to get used to. Coloring aside, the ship was laid out pretty well for the most part and the rooms were smartly organized for flow of movement and amount of people they could accommodate. A couple oddities though like the Sports Bar (Our House) that we didn't even find til Day 2, and a couple decks you can't go all the way through on. A solid 4 for this category. Read more