Carnival Pride Review -- January 9, 2005 sailing.

Queen Mary -- We were a group of 8 from Columbus, Ohio. In age we range from late thirties to mid forties. We made various arrangements to get to LA, and were to meet at the Queen Mary, where we were spending the night. On our arrival in LA, we found that it had been raining in Southern California for about a week, and various parts of the highway had been closed due to slides and flooding. Three of us took a cab to the Queen Mary, one person took the Super Shuttle (not recommended by her, as it took her 1½ hours to get from the airport to the Queen Mary due to the route taken by the driver to drop off other passengers), and 4 people took the Prime Time Shuttle. The Prime Time Shuttle will leave with 4 people, so if you have at least a group of 4, you can get a direct trip to your destination. Not sure about the Super Shuttle policy here.

The Queen Mary was an awesome site sitting at the pier. We walked into the lobby and were greeted by a 10 person line at check-in. It took about ½ an hour to get checked in, but the staff made it better by bringing around some complimentary champagne. At the desk, I asked about having the porter assist us with our luggage to get over to the passenger terminal the next morning. The desk clerk assured me that it would be no problem. We received our room keys and went to place our luggage in our rooms. As I walked down the hall, I noticed a fairly strong damp musty smell. It tends to permeate all of the rooms on the lower 3 levels of the ship. Read more