This was my husband and my first cruise ever. We were counting down the days and it arrived so quickly. We couldn't sleep at all and I mean no sleep what so ever the night before. We showered and left our Santa Barbara home at 4am and arrived to the Long Beach port at 5:30 not so bad, a 1.5 hour trip. We left early because the traffic is a parking lot on the 101 hwy and the 405hwy starting at 6am. I recommend leaving early if you are traveling in a car. We did utilize the Queen Mary early check in. So what you do is you park in the structure, walk over to the back end of the Queen Mary at 9am. They open the gate and the doors for you to go into the early check in room. There is no signs telling you where to go so you need to ask if you get lost. That was very easy and they gave us zone 1 to stand in at the Carnival ship. You don't bring your bags to the Queen Mary. After you checked in, you retrieve your bags and take them to a caddy who is standing near the outside of the parking structure. I gave him 3 bags and tipped him $3 and then you walk over to the entrance to the ship. Please make sure your sign you are standing next to says the zone # you have on your slip, otherwise after waiting all that time you need to go to the correct zone # and the lines get long!!!! Going through customs was painless and fast. They do not let you get to your room at all so when you are packing I would pack sunscreen/tan lotion, bathing suit, sunglasses, book, pain meds.. etc...in a carry on luggage type of bag. We went in, walked around the ship and ate at the Paris restaurant which serves buffet style food. It was good but not the best as you will get at your dinning room meals and always ask for more.. I didn't buy a soda card since the juice they offer were so yummy. I didn't hang out on the Lido deck as often as I wished I had. If you like to take a hot tub go to the back part of the ship just above the Lido deck and there are two tubs nobody really used up there. All the staff were really nice to me and I felt like family to them. I did meet a great family and they asked us to cruise with them next year! Our dinning room table friends were great people as well. They booked other couples that were in our age group. The one bad thing about the ship were the cabinmates across the hall from us smoked pot all weekend long and the hallways smelt of it for some distance. I complained but nothing was done and then found out in customs when we were checking out that we could have filed a report and they would have given them a wake up call the last day.. darn... the ship is old but still very nice. I would tell all my friends to go on this ship. I loved it and I'm ready to cruise again. Oh by the way, the blow hole is a waste of time and the people in the stores there are so pushy but if you tell them no they will go away. The prices are not that cheap there either. We did take the tour and paid for it off the ship so it was $15 our tour guide was so funny but the driver is a maniac at the wheel and we almost had 3 accidents and the drive is very long. After the blow hole they take you to town for one hour and it was an experience, we went to Mango Mango restaurant and had buckets of beers for $23 that is a bargain.

Good luck to you all.