Embarkation -- January 20, 2014
After a restful night at the Hotel Maya, we woke up to a beautiful morning in Long Beach. Right out of our balcony was the sight of Downtown Long Beach, the marina, and the Queen Mary. It was a good idea to spent the night at Maya to get us into the mood of vacationing and cruising.
Waiting for the sun rise.
Fire pit down at the hotel ground. That walkway can easily take us to the cruise terminal in about 20 minutes.
Queen Mary from our balcony. Inspiration was not there yet.
Gorgeous!
After a really nice breakfast buffet at the hotel, we took a relaxing walk around the area.
This was building 3 and we stayed on the 3rd floor.
Inspiration is now docked.
Downtown Long Beach in the background.
Large outdoor swimming pool at the Maya.
The park between Hotel Maya and Queen Mary.
It took us less than 10 minutes to walk from the hotel to here.
Carnival cruise terminal--the Dome where they used to house the Spruce Goose.
(Sorry, this is the Long Beach Arena, not the Aquarium. Thank you, Rosefloater, a cruisecritic member, for pointing out my mistake.)
Hotel Maya
We requested the hotel shuttle to transfer us to the pier at 10:00 and we were dropped off exactly where the luggage collection area was which was very convenient. The driver told us what to expect and how long it will take us to go through the process. We were the only three passengers on that shuttle.
We arrived early and the whole place was quite empty and quiet. Queen Mary to the left of the dome.
No lines at all at this outdoor check-in area. It took us less than 10 minutes to check-in. Little did we know that we were there for the longest wait. The staff who checked us in said it would be 1:15 before we will be boarding. I thought he was joking.
Our beautiful ship waiting for us.
Zone 1 waiting area. That's the parking structure where they charge $17 daily rate.
We were given this for boarding.
As we waited and waited, more and more passengers showed up and this was how it looked at around 12:00. The reason for the long wait was that they were still disembarking passengers from the previous cruise. This has to be the slowest disembarking port there is. We found out later on our debarkation day.
I would hate to be in that long check-in line now.
People were getting impatience. By the time they started boarding it was close to 12:30. They started with Priority Boarding of Diamond and Platinum guests and guests who needed assistance, then zone 1, and so on... and it was time to move into the dome for security check and embarkation pictures before boarding.
We skipped the pictures and walked onto the gangway.
Finally getting on the ship.
Ready for our short cruise on the Inspiration!
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