World Cruise Center

Hotels Near World Cruise Center

Long Beach, CA — The West Coast launch pad for Pacific and Mexican Riviera cruises.

Sailing from Long Beach

The combined Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach forms the largest cruise terminal complex on the West Coast. Mexican Riviera itineraries, Hawaii voyages, and Alaska repositioning cruises all depart from here. Long Beach's waterfront, the permanently docked Queen Mary, and straightforward freeway access to greater Los Angeles make it the natural West Coast pre-cruise base. Hotel pricing here runs significantly below comparable Santa Monica or downtown LA options.

Travel Editor: Long Beach waterfront hotels are a 5-minute rideshare from the World Cruise Center — and they're priced well below their LA equivalents.

Where to Stay Before Your Long Beach Cruise

Downtown Long Beach is the obvious base: the waterfront hotels around Shoreline Drive, the Pike Outlets, and Rainbow Harbor sit roughly five to ten minutes from the Long Beach Cruise Terminal, which shares its pier with the permanently docked Queen Mary. If your sailing instead departs the World Cruise Center across the harbor in San Pedro, plan on about a 15-to-20-minute drive from downtown Long Beach — close enough that the same hotels still work, but worth checking your cruise documents so you budget the right morning. Either way, Long Beach rates run noticeably below comparable rooms in Santa Monica or downtown Los Angeles.

Hotel cruise shuttles are uncommon here, so rideshare is the default: figure $10 to $15 from a downtown Long Beach hotel to the Long Beach terminal, and $25 to $35 if you're crossing to San Pedro. Coming from the airports, LGB is a quick 15-minute hop, while LAX to Long Beach is a 30-to-50-minute drive depending on the 405. Drivers can use the terminals' official parking structures, billed per day for the length of the cruise; some area hotels offer park-and-cruise packages that bundle a night with parking, which often pencils out better than a week in the garage.

Arrive the night before — Los Angeles freeway traffic is the variable nobody beats on a deadline, and a same-day LAX arrival plus the 405 is a gamble with a boarding cutoff. The evening is easy to fill: the Queen Mary, the Aquarium of the Pacific, and the Shoreline Village waterfront are all within a short walk or ride of the downtown hotels. On embarkation morning, the approach to the Long Beach terminal can queue up as the late-morning crowd converges, so leaving your hotel around 10:30 a.m. — earlier if you're heading to San Pedro — keeps the day calm.