We are a family of 4 (my husband and myself in our mid/early forties and our two boys, ages 13 and 10). We are from the Seattle, WA area and this was our eighth cruise (all on Princess).

First off, we flew Seattle to Long Beach on Friday, Feb 12th. (We refuse to fly in the day of a cruise - and on this cruise, I believe there were approximately 90 people from the east coast that were 3 days late boarding the ship due to bad weather). We took a shuttle from the airport to a hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Maya in Long Beach. Great hotel and actually quite a bit of stuff to do in the Long Beach Harbor area. We then took a town car the next morning from the hotel to San Pedro Pier.

Embarkation: We arrived at the pier around 10:30am. Check in was a breeze and we enjoyed the Platinum/Elite lounge. We were also the first to board and were in our room by 11:15. Read more