Coast Hotel We drove down the day before to get a good sleep and avoid hair pulling in case of massive traffic delays in L.A. The hotel was nice, we had a ground floor room looking over the bay to downtown Long Beach. The weather was about 84 degrees and beautiful. The view was fantastic, we could walk 15 yards and be at the bay's edge. The Queen Mary was in full view and looking pretty good. We took the free Long Beach Red bus to the downtown tourist area. If you decide to take the bus the round trip back to the hotel will take 45 minutes at best.

Embarkation We got there too early (1045) but were able to check in at the Queen Mary. The VIP line was great because we were the only ones in it. We went back to the boarding gate and found a cool spot to sit and scope out the other passengers. Once inside the terminal we got the obligatory photo and before ascending the escalator we saw some kid (16yrs?) with security and customs officials. None of them were smiling for some reason. Just in case anyone in the future is thinking about bringing any smokables on board, they had three dogs and were checking everything. Finally got on board about 1230 and were drinking out first Fun Ship Special by 1300.

The Ship People before me have pretty well described the Pride so I won't go into the minute details. Overall the ship was very well taken care of, and very clean. Everywhere you look in the hallways and elevators there is artwork of naked people, the younger boys on board seemed to love point out various portions of human anatomy to their parents. Read more