This was our third cruise on the Carnival Pride from Long Beach to the Mexican Riviera. We arrived a day early on Saturday, March 10th. We spent Saturday nite at the Airport Doubletree and then took the Carnival shuttle from LAX to Long Beach. This has worked well for us in the past.

Sunday, March 11th. We left the hotel at 12:30pm and using the hotel shuttle arrived at LAX at approximately 12:45pm. We contacted the Carnival cruise rep and she advised us a shuttle bus would arrive in approximately 30 minutes. However, it was a little over two hours before a bus arrived. We arrived at the Long Beach terminal around 3:30pm. While in route, we reasoned that we were better off waiting at the airport and on the bus rather than the long lines that we customarily encounter at Long Beach, and then upon arrival the lines should be short. We were incorrect, the long was still rather long, so we sat on a bench until the line disappeared into the terminal. Only then did we leave our seats. We were literally among the the last 10 people or so to board the ship. As we boarded the ship, passengers were already headed to the muster drill. On the bright side, our bags were awaiting us. As we returned from the muster drill, at approximately 5:20pm, we noticed on our sign & sail cards that although we had requested late seating we had been assigned to the early seating for dinner. In light of the fact that we had missed lunch, we decided to go on to dinner and see about being moved to the late seating. Our tablemates had the same problem, and they checked with the maitre'd about moving. It was then we learned that the reason we hadn't received late seating as requested was because of something called the Sammy Hagar 2nd Annual Cabo Wabo "are we having fun yet" Cruise. This was a group of 300+ rock fans who had been seated together during the 2nd seating. The maitre d said he would attempt to reseat us, but our tablemates were able to have us moved for the next night thru the Carnival Vacation Club.

I can only describe the shuttle experience and embarkation process as a train wreck. Read more