After having an exhilarating night of seeing The Rock, we woke up to a beautiful morning. Just take a look at this picture I took before we walked to the port area. We could not have asked for a more beautiful January day to start an incredible cruise.

With everything so far, we were in excellent spirits on our way to the port. Now the Long Beach Port is not the best in terms of boarding a ship, especially on this cruise. They were working on the inside area, so everyone had to wait outside until boarding could begin. Not the most ideal boarding procedure, but from my understanding, they intend to make it much better. After dropping leaving our luggage for delivery to our room, we waited outside with everyone else that had already arrived. The wait was overall not too bad and before too long we were boarding.

A small delay but still plenty of fun

Once we were on board, it was time to start having fun. Usually, on a cruise, we like to hop in the pool on the first day and relax until the sail away begins. The only difficulty about doing that with this cruise, especially with the cruise occurring in January, is that the water is pretty cold since they pump fresh ocean water into the pools every day, and the Pacific Ocean around Southern California is far from warm. Instead, we got some lunch and decided to relax around the bars as they continued loading the ship. They needed a lot of supplies to complete a 14-day journey (Carnival does not restock on supplies in ports of call). This caused a delay for a few hours before sail away began. This delay was no big deal for us other than having to pay tax on drinks for longer than usual!

That evening we enjoyed dinner in the formal dining room. Our table was a six-person table, so that meant we had three others to enjoy dinner with every night. They were a lovely family from Canada and pleasant to be with for dinner every night. What was interesting is we were on the same ship a little more than a year before this cruise for a 15 day trip to Hawaii, and the table for dinner on this cruise was beside the table on our last trip. The Maître D’ was the same man as last time we were on board, and he even remembered us! So that all made for an excellent first day onboard the ship! Check out the next day, a sea day, on the next page!