Thank you all for the good luck and support. I am happy to say I am onboard sailing as I type. I presented a copy of my certified BC (printed only hours prior to my cruise) along with my CA real ID (not enhanced DL, this is not available in CA). I had no questions whatsoever asked at the pre-screen (the person who verifies documents prior to the security baggage screen) and at the check-in counter with the cruise line it was a quick process- no problems whatsoever.
After scouring the web for 2 hours the night before I found several posts on reddit where people say carnival and royal carribean had allowed emailed or faxed copies of BC’s the day of boarding. One post said its fairly common in galveston for people to forgot their BC’s and then the cruiseline agent would ask them to have a family member email it to them. So after reading that post I was fairly confident I would be okay but I created this post here to confirm my situation. Hence, after seeing all the “no’s”, “the copy wouldn’t be okay”, I became quite worried. Morning of the cruise my only option was to try and see what happens. Fortunately, it worked out for me but I am curious now if there are any actual data points on people being refused boarding due to having a photo-copied BC?