Hotels near Port of Long Beach /LA, CA

[huffca]

Hotels near Port of Long Beach /LA, CA I was wondering if anyone has stayed at the Holiday Inn Long Beach before their Carnival Cruise? I found out they have a free shuttle to the port.

Or

Does anyone have a hotel suggestion? Would love something that has a view of the cruise ships.

Or

Has anyone stayed on the Queen Mary before their cruise?

[green_rd]

We stayed on the QM before our Splendor cruise. It was nice to do but in 2009 she was badly in need or renovation. (I understand a different company took over management of the property in 2010. Hopefully they have plowed some money back into her.) Furnishings in the public spaces were badly worn and just dirty. A downside may be you are away from downtown LB so you are pretty much isolated to the ship/hotel itself unless you have a car.

Highlights -
Staying on the Queen Mary - it was a rather cool step back into history.
Getting up early and watching Splendor arrive in the dark from the bow. We we still on Eastern Time so getting up wasn't a problem.
Walking across the parking lot for early check in and then returning to the comfort of our room for a couple of hours.

Low lights -
We had hot & cold air blowing and couldn't turn off the hot.
There was some HS party below us, with requisite kids running around. It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't need to sleep with the porthole open to try to get some cool air.